was lately borne to a grave in that renowned transept which contains the dust of Chaucer, of Spenser, and of Dryden; Black, whose discoveries form an era in the history of chemical science; Adam Smith, the greatest of all the masters of political science; James Watt, who, perhaps, did more than any single man has done, since the New Atlantis of Bacon was written, to accomplish that glorious prophecy. We now speak the language of humility when we say that the University of Glasgow need not fear a comparison with the University of Bologna.

A fifth secular period is about to commence. There is no lack of alarmists who will tell you that it is about to commence under evil auspices. But from me you must expect no such gloomy prognostications. I have heard them too long and too constantly to be scared by them. Ever since I began to make observations on the state of my country, I have been seeing nothing but growth, and hearing of nothing but decay. The more I contemplate our noble institutions, the more convinced I am that they are sound at heart, that they have nothing of age but its dignity, and that their strength is still the strength of youth. The hurricane, which has recently overthrown so much that was great and that seemed durable, has only proved their solidity. They still stand, august and immovable, while dynasties and churches are lying in heaps of ruin all around us. I see no reason to doubt that, by the blessing of God on a wise and temperate policy, on a policy of which the principle is to preserve what is good by reforming in time what is evil, our civil institutions may be preserved unimpaired to a late posterity, and that, under the shade of our civil institutions, our academical institutions may long continue to flourish.

I trust, therefore, that, when a hundred years more have run out, this ancient College will still continue to deserve well of our country and of mankind. I trust that the installation of 1949 will be attended by a still greater assembly of students than I have the happiness now to see before me. That assemblage, indeed, may not meet in the place where we have met. These venerable halls may have disappeared. My successor may speak to your successors in a more stately edifice, in an edifice which, even among the magnificent buildings of the future Glasgow, will still be admired as a fine specimen of the architecture which flourished in the days of the good Queen Victoria. But, though the site and the walls may be new, the spirit of the institution will, I

hope, be still the same. My successor will, I hope, be able to boast that the fifth century of the University has even been more glorious than the fourth. He will be able to vindicate that boast by citing a long list of eminent men, great masters of experimental science, of ancient learning, of our native eloquence, ornaments of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar. He will, I hope, mention with high honor some of my young friends who now hear me; and he will, I also hope, be able to add that their talents and learning were not wasted on selfish or ignoble objects, but were employed to promote the physical and moral good of their species, to extend the empire of man over the material world, to defend the cause of civil and religious liberty against tyrants and bigots, and to defend the cause of virtue and order against the enemies of all divine and human laws. I have now given utterance to a part, and to a part only, of the recollections and anticipations of which, on this solemn occasion, my mind is full. I again thank you for the honor which you have bestowed on me; and I assure you that, while I live, I shall never cease to take a deep interest in the welfare and fame of the body with which, by your kindness, I have this day become connected.

A SPEECH

DELIVERED AT

EDINBURGH ON THE 2ND OF NOVEMBER, 1852.

At the General Election of 1852 the votes for the City of Edinburgh

On the second of November the Electors assembled in the Music Hall to meet the representative whom they had, without any solicitation on his part, placed at the head of the poll. On this occasion the following Speech was delivered.

GENTLEMEN, I thank you from my heart for this kind reception. In truth, it has almost overcome me. Your good opinion and your good will were always very valuable to me, far more valuable than any vulgar object of ambition, far more valuable than any office, however lucrative or dignified. In truth, no office, however lucrative or dignified, would have tempted me to do what I have done at your summons, to leave again the happiest and most tranquil of all retreats for the bustle of political life. But the honor which you have conferred upon me, an honor of which the greatest men might well be proud, an honor which it is in the power only of a free people to bestow, has laid on me such an obligation that I should have thought it ingratitude, I should have thought it pusillanimity, not to make at least an effort to

serve you.

And here, Gentlemen, we meet again in kindness after a long separation. It is more than five years since I last stood in this very place; a large part of human life. There are

few of us on whom those five years have not set their mark, few circles from which those five years have not taken away what can never be replaced. Even in this multitude of friendly faces I look in vain for some which would on this day have been lighted up with joy and kindness. I miss one venerable man, who, before I was born, in evil times, in times of oppression and of corruption, had adhered, with almost solitary fidelity, to the cause of freedom, and whom I knew in advanced age, but still in the full vigour of mind and body, enjoying the respect and gratitude of his fellow citizens. I should, indeed, be most ungrateful if I could, on this day, forget Sir James Craig, his public spirit, his judicious counsel, his fatherly kindness to myself. And Jeffrey-with what an effusion of generous affection he would, on this day, have welcomed me back to Edinburgh! He too is gone; but the remembrance of him is one of the many ties which bind me to the city once dear to his heart, and still inseparably associated with his fame.

But, Gentlemen, it is not only here that, on entering again, at your call, a path of life which I believed that I had quitted for ever, I shall be painfully reminded of the changes which the last five years have produced. In Parliament I shall look in vain for virtues which I loved, and for abilities which I admired. Often in debate, and never more than when we discuss those questions of colonial policy which are every day acquiring a new interest, I shall remember with regret how much eloquence and wit, how much acuteness and knowledge, how many engaging qualities, how many fair hopes, are buried in the grave of poor Charles Buller. There were other men, men with whom I had no political connection and little personal connection, men to whom I was, during a great part of my public life, honestly opposed, but of whom I cannot now think without grieving that their wisdom, their experience, and the weight of their great names can never more, in the hour of need, bring help to the nation or to the throne. Such were those two eminent men whom I left at the height, one of civil, the other of military fame; one the oracle of the House of Commons, the other the oracle of the House of Lords. There were parts of their long public life which they would themselves, I am persuaded, on a calm retrospect, have allowed to be justly censurable. But it is impossible to deny that each in his own department saved the State; that one brought to a triumphant close the most formidable conflict in which this country was ever engaged with a foreign enemy;

and that the other, at an immense sacrifice of personal feeling and personal ambition, freed us from an odious monopoly, which could not have existed many years longer without producing fearful intestine discords. I regret them both but I peculiarly regret him who is associated in my mind with the place to which you have sent me. I shall hardly know the House of Commons without Sir Robert Peel. On the first evening on which I took my seat in that House, more than two and twenty years ago, he held the highest position among the Ministers of the Crown who sate there. During all the subsequent years of my parliamentary service I scarcely remember one important discussion in which he did not bear a part with conspicuous ability. His figure is now before me: all the tones of his voice are in my ears; and the pain with which I think that I shall never hear them again would be embittered by the recollection of some sharp encounters which took place between us, were it not that at last there was an entire and cordial reconciliation, and that, only a very few days before his death, I had the pleasure of receiving from him marks of kindness and esteem of which I shall always cherish the recollection.

But, Gentlemen, it is not only by those changes which the natural law of mortality produces, it is not only by the successive disappearances of eminent men that the face of the world has been changed during the five years which have elapsed since we met here last. Never since the origin of our race have there been five years more fertile of great events, five years which have left behind them a more awful lesson, We have lived many lives in that time. The revolutions of ages have been compressed into a few months. France, Germany, Hungary, Italy,-what a history has theirs been! When we met here last, there was in all of those countries an outward show of tranquillity; and there were few, even of the wisest among us, who imagined what wild passions, what wild theories, were fermenting under that peaceful exterior. An obstinate resistance to a reasonable reform, a resistance prolonged but for one day beyond the time, gave the signal for the explosion; and in an instant, from the borders of Russia to the Atlantic Ocean, everything was confusion and terror. The streets of the greatest capitals of Europe were piled up with barricades, and were streaming with civil blood. The house of Orleans fled from France: the Pope fled from Rome: the Emperor of Austria was not safe at Vienna. There were popular institutions in Florence; popular institutions at