14 president's address. 



chased and presented to the Society two inestimable collections 

 of scientific books and records, one unhappily doomed to perish 

 in flame, the other, he trusted, likely to remain safely and con- 

 veniently arranged in the house for the continual use and ad- 

 vantage of the Society. One further benefit he had conferred 

 upon all members, present and future, and he might add, upon 

 the whole of Australia, in the incorporation of the Society by 

 Act of Parliament. It was to Mr. Macleay that the country 

 owed the establishment of a new and permanent Institution, 

 founded, not for the sake of any pecuniary, social or political 

 advantage to its members, but for assistance to students in their 

 labours to promote knowledge, for the progress of this commu- 

 nity, and for the welfare of humanity. There was a malignant 

 old proverb which advised them not to look a gift horse in the 

 mouth. Their host's horses, however, required no examination. 

 They had been given with a warranty, a warranty absolute and 

 perfect, which they all recognised with a kind of wonder, in the 

 far-reaching and thorough-going character of his munificence. 

 No higher guarantee for the soundness of his gift horses could be 

 offered and his own delicacy and reticence prevented them from 

 knowing, except on their own conjecture and estimate, how 

 astonishing and prodigious his liberality had been. He purposely 

 omitted on the present occasion any particular reference to the 

 similar services which Mr. Macleay had rendered to other institu- 

 tions, and hastened, as President of the Linnean Society of New 

 South Wales, to offer him a faint and inadequate expression of 

 the feelings which animated their whole body. The Society 

 entertained an ardent gratitude towards him — a gratitude which 

 was not dulled, as gratitude might sometimes be dulled, by any 

 affectation of beneficence, or any haughty or inconsiderate phrase 

 in- touch of manner in his acts of donation, but was, on the con- 

 trary, ever quickened by the freedom from vulgar ostentation 

 and by the generous simplicity which specially characterised his 

 behaviour towards the Society. He would, he hoped, accept 

 these few words, as an honest attempt to give some expression, 

 however imperfect, to the sentiment dominant in every heart in 



