510 ROYAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, CIRENCESTER. 
kindness which prompts you to do us the honour which you have done us 
to-night. The chairman has alluded to what little fame I may have as an 
agricultural chemist, and certainly it is gratifying, as it is to every sensible 
man, to know that his reputation extends beyond the borders of his own 
county. Even that is not to be despised, but it is more gratifying when 
it extends throughout the length and breadth of a country like England. 
I may say so without assuming too much, because I occupy the honorable 
position of consulting chemist to our great national society. And I 
think you have reason to be proud of it yourselves, because you took me 
in as a stranger, as a young man without anybody to back him, without 
seeking favours or patronage, which some of our great people here, as 
well as everywhere else, are so forward to bestow. I did not seek it, but 
always declined it, for to a man with a sense of propriety nothing can be 
more disagreeable than the reception of that description of patronage 
which arises not so much from kind considerate feeling as with a view of 
showing off, and making one’s self out to be a great man in his own neigh- 
bourhood. But notwithstanding all this, I have, with hard work, risen to 
the top of the tree in my own particular profession. Though this is 
quite true, and though it is a source of great joy and pleasure to me to 
say as much, yet I can assure you that what gives me more pleasure is 
to have a good character in my own native town—for I have made it my 
native town (cheers). It is a hard thing, after a man has been tossed 
about and is settled down, to be thrown by the force of circumstances—I 
do not say what circumstances—upon the world at large. But although 
we shall all have to seek a new field of labour, I truly believe that we 
shall not be forced to break stones in any of the quarries to which my 
friend Professor Buckman has alluded (laughter). Wherever we go I 
believe we shall have the hearty good wishes of the people of this neigh¬ 
bourhood, and particularly of my friends the farmers of England (cheers). 
It is with joy and pleasure I find I am so well received in this locality. It 
is said we never know our friends until we part from them. Many I 
have never spoken to have come to pay us respect. I believe it is not 
done as a mere piece of formality, but to show us their real feeling. 
After all a man may be great and his fame be spread far and wide; but 
if his character does not bear looking at except from a distance, if he is 
obliged to look down in a bashful manner when he meets his friends and 
neighbours in the street, he is not a good man. M e like to see a straight- 
forward man like a good Englishman, and like a good German too. We 
like in England an outspoken man, a man who really expresses his 
opinions with moderation, who has judgment and a deep sense of right 
and justice, who has sufficient boldness to express what he believes to be 
right, and yet is not so conceited as to think everybody w'ho disagrees 
with him is a fool or a knave (cheers and laughter). In England there 
are great political and religious privileges, and you may well conceive 
that a man, though fond of his own fatherland, may still be fonder of his 
second land—the land of his adoption (cheers). I have said this to show 
you that it is not for any light motive that I leave this town and neigh¬ 
bourhood. You may think that I leave without any good ground or 
reason; but I leave it to you to consider whether it is likely that a man 
at my time of life, who hasTived here happily for fourteen years, who has 
met with nothing but kindness on all sides, who has married here (for a 
man is but half a man if he has not a better half) (laughter), who has 
five children born here, would be likely to leave on the slightest occasion 
the place where he is prosperous, whether you take it on general or par¬ 
ticular grounds. It is said to be well known that one of the most ticklish 
places in which you can attack an Englishman is his pocket. Is it likely 
