II. 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 



ELECTED b y 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 intel- 

 lectual manhood, have been largely spent in no half- 

 hearted advocacy of doctrines which have not yet found 

 favour in the eyes of Academic respectability ; 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 



