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down immediately after I had delivered it. I should 

 have been glad if a correct version of the answer had 

 been given in the " Constitutional Gazette," or some 

 other truly liberal paper. 



Your old and attached friend, 

 Wednesday Night. A. V. HT. 



Enclosure. 



I think, my most respected fellow townsmen, that 

 I cannot express to you my heartfelt thanks in a more 

 forcible manner than by assuring you that you have 

 just now afforded me a pleasure as great as the honour 

 conferred upon me is unexpected. I will not mar the 

 pleasure that I feel, by asking how I can have deserved 

 of you and your beautiful town such a rare distinc- 

 tion ? Guided by the highest principle, you have, in a 

 manner worthy of yourselves, not only evinced your 

 care for the material welfare of your fellow citizens, 

 but have proved your sympathy and respect for those 

 exertions connected with the progress of knowledge, 

 education, and the general culture of man. I accept 

 with pride the honour of your gift as a reward for part 

 of those exertions to which the whole of my long and 

 active life has been devoted. Owing to the favour 

 of two noble-hearted monarchs I have, for two-and- 

 twenty years, had the happiness of being, almost 

 uninterruptedly, your fellow townsman, and of finding, 

 amid scenery in which the beauties of nature are so 

 lavishly displayed, those incitements, without the im- 

 pulse of which no animated description of Nature, pro- 

 fessing to rise to the contemplation of the powers that 

 regulate the Universe, is possible. It is with feelings 

 of gratitude that I have adorned almost all my later 



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