THE ALBANY INSTITUTE 



By George W. Clinton", LL.D. 



[Read before the Institute, November 21, 1882.] 

 A month or more ago our learned Secretary paid me a high but un- 

 deserved compliment by asking me to prepare a paper for our Institute, 

 and I consented to attempt it. A week or so since he informed me 

 that the meeting of this evening would probably be without a paper, 

 unless I would engage to write one, and I at once told him that I 

 would. Then I commenced a fitful inquiry for matter, and became 

 aware that I could offer you nothing but an undigested mass of scraps. 

 Our pertinaceous Secretary, some two or three days afterward, in- 

 quired by what name or title he should announce it. That set me 

 seriously a thinking. At first I was inclined to adopt for its title 

 Migma, — the heading "Our Continent," places over its medley of 

 short paragraphs; but I soon found that the word, though a recent 

 acquisition of our language, and meaning, in the general, a mixture, 

 means, also, "special mixed food for brutes" (Worcester's dictionary), 

 or " mixed provender for beasts" (Webster), and that it is used in the 

 Vulgate as a proper name for superior food of horses and of asses. (See 

 also our version of Isaiah, 30, 24.) Of course I rejected it con- 

 temptuously. I wish to present to this honored and honorable society 

 some food that would be nutritious for men of strong intellects and 

 noble hearts. And "Salmagundi" had been adopted by Irving and 

 his associates for that little work which gave the world one of the 

 first, faint foretastes of the wit and humor of our people. Other 

 names of similar import seemed harsh and unsuitable. Hotch-pot is 

 barbarous. And so I was led by love and not by a sense of any pecul- 

 iar fitness to give it the name its bears. 



And now, Mr. President and gentlemen ! I confidently throw myself 

 upon your indulgence, relying upon your belief in the assurance that 

 I have been actuated throughout, in my rash undertaking, in the 

 writing of this paper, and in the naming of it, solely by strong attach- 

 ment to the Institute, and to the Albany academy,' in" whose building 

 it has held its meetings for fifty years and more, and by pride in and 

 love for our noble city, one of whose chief jewels the Institute is and 



