24 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT. 



II. 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 



ELECTED by the suffrages of your four Nations, Rector 

 of the ancient University of which you are scholars, I 

 take the earliest opportunity which has presented 

 itself since my restoration to health, of delivering the 

 Address which, by long custom, is expected of the 

 holder of my office. 



My first duty in opening that Address, is to offer 

 you my most hearty thanks for the signal honour you 

 have conferred upon me an honour of which, as a 

 man unconnected with you by personal or by national 

 ties, devoid of political distinction, and a plebeian 

 who stands by his order, I could not have dreamed. 

 And it was the more surprising to me, as the five-and- 

 twenty years which have passed over my head since I 

 reached intellectual manhood, have been largely spent 

 in no half-hearted advocacy of doctrines which have 

 not yet found favour in the eyes of Academic respect- 

 ability ; so that, when the proposal to nominate me for 

 your Rector came, I was almost as much astonished as 

 was Hal o' the Wynd, "who fought for his own 

 hand," by the Black Douglas's proffer of knighthood. 

 And I fear that my acceptance must be taken as evi- 



