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PROF. H. EDO CARD NAVILLE, D.C.L., I.L.D.,, ON 



Professor D. S. Margoliouth : I am sure you will all agree with 

 me that my possessing the title of " professor " places me in a very 

 advantageous position ; from what the President has told us, it is 

 clear that I have an easy task before me : I can make any statement 

 I choose without fear of contradiction or adverse argument. But I 

 will not take full advantage of my position. 



First of all, let me say how cordially I wish to second the vote of 

 thanks to the author of the paper to which we have listened. 

 Dr. Naville is one of the most eminent of Egyptologists ; in the very 

 front rank. At an International Congress of Orientalists, many 

 years ago, he was specially selected to make translations of a certain 

 Egyptian book. I have had the pleasure of meeting him on several 

 such congresses since, — at Geneva, in Paris, in Athens. At the last 

 place, in the year 1912, he was chosen as a Member of the Interna- 

 tional Committee which was to decide on the place where the next 

 Congress should be held, and which selected Oxford for the meeting 

 of the coming September, before our first bulletin was issued. Since 

 that decision was reached we have fallen on bad weather : the Chair- 

 man of the Committee, Dr. Driver, passed away, an irreparable loss, 

 for he was certainly the first Hebraist of Great Britain, probably of 

 his time. Our second bulletin announced the postponement of the 

 Meeting till 1916, but I fear the hope that the Congress may be 

 held next year is now almost as indistinct as that it should be held 

 in this year. Even if it should be held, we are conscious that, owing to 

 the War, the co-operation of European study has been broken up and 

 will scarcely be resumed for some time after peace has been declared. 

 Yet the black cloud has a silver lining, and it may be that in future 

 we shall work with more courage and independence of thought, and 

 may examine into the conclusions of the German critics with less 

 fear of displeasing them. We are proud to see Lord Halsbury 

 taking the Chair this afternoon, and I would thank him for the clear 

 pronouncement which his unequalled legal experience has enabled 

 him to give. 



The essay to which we have listened is a most suggestive one, 

 and there are two or three points in particular to which I would 

 like to call attention. 



First of all, Dr. Naville has endeavoured to enter into the mind of 

 the author, and to place himself in the position of the man who wished 

 to compose a book which has already existed for more than 2,000 



