64 Sir Squire Bancroft [March 17, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 17, 1905. 



His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, K.G. D.C.L. F.R.S., 

 President, in tlie Chair. 



Sir Squire Bancroft. 



Dramatic Thoughts : Retrospective — Anticipative. 



In the Third Act of Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote these words : — 



" It so fell out, that certain players 

 We o'er-raught on the way : of these we told him ; 

 And there did seem in him a kind of joy 

 To hear of it. 



stooping to your clemency 



We beg your hearing patiently." 



I cannot agree with a flnent orator who sneered at the past and 

 jeered at the " good old times," adding his belief that the best time 

 is to-day — except to-morrow. I would rather hope, whatever may 

 chance to be our calling, the remembrance that we are not only heirs 

 of the work which has glorified the past, but guardians of all that has 

 dignified the present, may lead to even better, nobler efforts in the 

 future — the boundless future. This is the feeling which has prompted 

 what I have now to say. Let my preface be an assurance that I have 

 no ambition to instruct ; that is the privilege of those learned men 

 of whom somebody said somewhere, they not only know everything 

 about something, but something about everything. I shall be grate- 

 ful if I succeed in arousing interest. 



Instead of overwhelming you with apologies for daring to follow 

 all the distinction which has preceded me, for I am in the wake of 

 men who, chiefly in the wondrous world of science, have made their 

 names illustrious by their genius — stamped as indeed many of them 

 are on diplomas of immortality — I will try to express some random 

 thoughts on matters far different from those talked of in this building 

 as a rule, and will ask you to look upon this as a lioliday night, to let 

 us all forget for a little while tlie matter-of-fact : to let me waft you 

 to a more once-upon-a-time world that you may live for one brief 

 hour in stageland — the land of dreams, in those bewitching realms 

 where Puck and Ariel reign. Were I a singer I would warble the 

 words Sir Henry Bishop set to sweet music : — 



" Bid me discourse ; I will enchant thine car, 

 Or like a fairy trip upon the green ; 

 Or like a nymph, with bright and flowing hair, 

 Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen." 



