THE HUNTERIAN ORATION. 
169 
the purpose of rooting out the vulgarisms in conduct that unhap- 
pily prevail in our profession. A better spirit should be infused 
into our vocation ; one which will tend to avert those evils of con- 
duct between man and man, founded on questions of mere profit and 
loss. To this end he would suggest the cultivation of a more re- 
fined taste — the power of appreciating beauty in any form. Good 
taste and good feeling are found in daily companionship ; while, 
without it, a blank is left in the circle of man’s enjoyments, and his 
intellectual framework is incomplete. The study of the beautiful 
forms one of the most elegant resources of our minds : it embraces 
a wide range of human knowledge, from its primitive form to the 
highest manifestations of refined and cultivated taste in the poet or 
the painter. Such objects are within the range of every man’s 
observation. A country life especially furnishes materials for the 
development of thought; while objects of beauty are calculated to 
take men out of the sphere of personal occupation, and to direct their 
thoughts to objects which tend to calm and elevate the mind. Who 
can behold (said the speaker) the gorgeous drapery of a golden sun- 
set, or the variegated colours decomposed by the common prism, 
without pleasure 1 Who can be indifferent to the delicate tracery 
of masses of ferns, of heaths, or to the grandeur of the sturdy oak, 
the graceful sweep of the willow, or the light pencilling of the ash — 
the undulations of distant hills, or the more sublime form of ponder- 
ous clouds against the blue sky, or, as they may be, fringed with 
light reflected from the sun — or the broad expanse of the boundless 
ocean 7 — The relish for such enjoyment has a tendency to adorn the 
acquisitions of the student, and he may be said to breathe a new 
existence in the novel associations of every day and hour. The 
aptitude for such studies is possessed in various degrees of perfec- 
tion by different individuals; but the germ is in all, and, by early 
cultivation, it may be made to perceive and enjoy the highest art- 
istic powers, from the simple beauty of an arabesque to the sub- 
limity of genius exhibited in the Theseus, and other adornments of 
the great temple of Athens. The study of the sublimity of art must 
always exercise a refining influence over the character ; and that 
man was to be pitied who could see unmoved the marbles of Nine- 
veh without attaching to them a sacred character, forming, as they 
do, the great link of evidence of the biblical history of a former 
world. A man’s taste for what is elegant, and his right moral con- 
duct, are one and the same sense, operating on the same subject — 
a love of beauty and propriety, extended to all intellectual exhi- 
bitions. What (said Mr. Skey, in conclusion) are the requisites 
of your profession! Tested by the claims of other professions, 
could it be said that our duties demand a lower standard of moral 
excellence 7 are we content with mediocrity 7 or, rather, does any 
VOL. XXIII. A a 
