TIIF, YOU ATT TESTIMONIAL. 
606 
I am told that the suggestion of this noble present originated with two of 
our brethren in the Sister Island. This was like the warm and kind feelings 
of Irishmen. I shall have an opportunity before I die to tell them how 
much I thank them. 
You kindly left to me the selection of the nature of the Testimonial which 
you should present, and, enabling me to guess a little at the sum which you 
would have to expend, I selected a dinner service of silver — substantial, but as 
plain as it could be made — expressive of your kind and honest feeling, and ex- 
pressive, too, of my own, and enabling me at times, perhaps, — for a few, but a 
very few years to come, — to hope to see some of you around my humble board, 
partaking of the plain fare which alone I could afford to set before you — the 
whole harmonizing with our feelings towards each other ; and plainness and 
simplicit3 r and honest friendly sentiments presiding among us, and regulating 
and increasing our pleasures. There we shall think most and talk most of the 
profession to which we belong. We shall trace the progress of veterinary 
improvement — we shall look with some little pleasure on this service as con- 
nected with one period of our struggle, and 
Though Time may steal our hours away, 
And steal our pleasures too, 
The memory of the past will stay, 
And half our joys renew. 
For myself, these testimonials of your kindness will be the companions of 
my happiest hours. They will bring back recollections dear to me at all 
times. In my own family — in my friendly associations — the remembrance of 
you will be present, and every joy will be doubled, particularly when the actors 
in many a past scene of arduous and anxious labour will honor my humble 
domicile with their presence, and many a dim sweet dream of the olden days 
will steal over our minds and augment and hallow our enjoyments. Gentle- 
men ! I thank you. God bless you all. 
The Chairman again rose. I rise (said he) to address you in remembrance 
of our departed Professor, feeling that, if the veterinary profession has not 
to lament the loss of its very master spirit, it most acutely suffers the bereave- 
ment of a genius who has presided over its destinies for half a century. Pass- 
ing over his professional achievements, we have to deplore the loss of a man 
whose dignified and gentlemanly career and example earned and procured for 
every respectable and educated veterinarian the stamp of a gentleman, as 
conferred by the late Sovereign, George the Fourth, by his Majesty’s Com- 
mission upon Army Veterinary Surgeons. 
This is not the time and place to analyze and descant upon his numerous 
professional merits ; but, although one of his admirers, I do not hesitate to 
avow that I think the Professor was less happy, as being farther from the 
truth, upon the subject of the foot of the horse — it being his very hobby — 
than upon physiology generally, where he was excellent. 
But, gentlemen, did he not shine with splendour when he broached to his 
class, thirty years agone, his magnificent views of Ventilation, and its prin- 
ciple ? 
It required the genius of a Coleman to detect the germs of an insidious 
pest, where all was seemingly bright and fair. 
The idea that every living healthy man is perpetually evolving from his owm 
person an animal poison — aye, fair woman, too, of angelic form and sweet- 
ness, for whose smile monarchs race and wrestle to be first with the bended 
knee — now, gentlemen, if this is right in theory, its range in practice must be 
most extensive. It applies to every living creature, and appears an illustration 
of that dispensation of the omnipotent Creator, wherein we behold him ever 
