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them—their labours, and those of Hamilton himself in Mathematical 
Physics, have been carried on by the aid of those instruments of 
discovery we already possessed ;—but the method of Quaternions is 
itself a new instrument, calculated to open to us new fields of re- 
search ; and its importance in the future of Mathematical and Phy- 
sical Science cannot, perhaps, be easily overrated. 
Let me say also, before I pass from this topic, that we shall 
doubtless have great and valuable accessions to our knowledge of 
Botany and of Natural History in several of its departments, when 
: Dr. Harvey returns from his present tour in the southern hemis- 
} phere of our globe. I have read to you, from time to time, some of 
the very interesting letters with which he has been so kind as to 
favour me; and I hold another in my hand, received a few days ago, 
which, however, I do not intend to read now, as I am unwilling to 
trespass too much upon the time of this Meeting. In it he tells me 
that he can hardly as yet say what amount of novelty his collections 
contain ; he brings home, however, at least, two new genera, both 
curious and well marked, and several new species, of which he par- 
ticularly mentions four new species of the Martensia, one of which, 
: if I understand him aright, was obtained from the coral reefs of 
the Polynesian Islands. 
II. In the department of Belles Lettres, or Polite Literature, 
as our charter entitles it, the last fifty years have also seen a con- 
siderable progress ; the new science of Comparative Philology has 
been created in Germany, and English scholars have produced 
grammars and dictionaries of the learned languages, besides editions 
of the Classics, which have greatly promoted the spread of deep and 
accurate scholarship. In this country I am afraid we must candidly 
confess that classical learning has never had sufficient encourage- 
ment. How far the arrangements now in contemplation by the 
University to remedy this evil will be successful, time alone can 
+ tell ; it would, however, be a great mistake to expect from them a 
complete or sufficient remedy. That they will do something may 
reasonably be hoped, butit is impossible that they can do all; and I 
cannot but express a very strong opinion that there is a current 
both within and without the University, which, if I mistake not, 
is running in the opposite direction, I allude to the tendency of 
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