14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



it is enough that they be spoken or sung, or even only- 

 conceived." Unwritten or unuttered co-temporaneous 

 literary conceptions may be worthy of consideration, and 

 may indeed seem very important to those who have them 

 and who dream that they are clever, and are compla- 

 cently waiting for circumstances to disclose the rich 

 mines of their intellects, but it is improbable that either 

 ambition or enthusiasm will start any member of the In- 

 stitute on a search after the unrecorded conceptions of 

 Shakspeare, Bacon or Homer for investigation and dis- 

 cussion. 



Better, and surely enough for us, is the literature that 

 is defined, " the collective body of literary productions 

 embracing -the entire results of knowledge and fancy 

 preserved in writings." 



The contemplation of this aggregation, by one in any 

 way responsibly related to it, is well nigh overwhelming. 

 All that is called poetry, from the song that thrills the 

 ages to that which chills as agues : all the annals of his- 

 toric research : all the reports of the sayings and doings 

 of the endless sessions of numberless deliberative bodies ; 

 all the sermons, orations, dissertations, countless as the 

 leaves of primeval forests : all the tomes little and big 

 of philosophers, scientists and authors of every name : 

 all the unclassified wisdom of the wise, all the unclassi- 

 fiable folly of the fools, all the drivel of idiotic conceit 

 and assurance, which have found their way into enduring- 

 forms, have been increasing century after century, until 

 the wonder is, that St. John 1 s supposition that, ' ' even 

 the world itself could not contain the books that should 

 be written," has not become a literal fact. 



When one recalls the groaning of Solomon over the mea- 

 sure of study obligatory on the men of his day, through 

 the persistence of their book-makers, it is affecting to 

 think what his agitation would be, if he could make the 

 round of one of our greatest modern libraries, like the 



