Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

No. V.

LITERARY CHRONICLE.

2

FEBRUARY.

The only leaf wanting to complete that most ancient of records, Doomsday Book, was lately accidentally discovered in the archives of the family of Trevelyan, at Nettlecombe. It has been compared with the original copy at Exeter, and found not only to correspond, in ink, in character, in size of vellum, and indenture, but was further identified by supplying the sole deficiency of matter.

The celebrated Joseph Lancaster is at Caraccas, engaged in teaching his system of education; but from one of his publications, it would appear that he meets with poor success. He complains of want of room, want of friends, and want of scholars, having only 50 instead of 500, which he expected.-American Paper.

APRIL.

ELECTION OF MR BROUGHAM AS LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

4-At half past two 'o'clock, the College doors were opened to the im

patient students, who had previously assembled in great numbers. In a few minutes the body of the hall and the galleries were nearly filled. A little after three o'clock, Sir James Mackintosh entered, and was received by immense and long continued cheering. He was attended by Mr Mackintosh, Lord Viscount Glenorchy, Dr Richard Millar, and the whole of the professors of the University, and other gentlemen. Prayers were said in Latin by Principal Macfarlan, and the proceedings of the former meeting read. After which,

Principal Macfarlan rose and said, Gentlemen, you are aware from what you have just heard, that in the choice of a succeeding Lord Rector, the nations were equally divided; two being for Sir Walter Scott, and the other two for Mr Brougham. (Loud cheers.) This division and equality of votes are provided for in the following words. (Here the very reverend and learned gentleman read the College laws, which decreed, that when the division was equal, the casting vote devolved on the preceding Lord Rector.)-The casting vote, you will therefore perceive, gentlemen, has devolved on Sir James Mackintosh, who has come here to give it. (Loud cheers.)

Sir James Mackintosh rose amid immense cheering.-Gentlemen, you have heard from the last speaker the object of my visit to you at this period. The privilege of addressing you, I again repeat, I owe entirely to the indulgence of your professors. In the first place, I take this opportunity of returning my thanks to you for the honour you have conferred upon me, and the manner in which I have been received. (Cheers.) And I feel the more happy in doing so by being made the channel of presenting you with a valuable and splendid ornament to your University. (Cheers.) A son of James Watt, whose memory has been so frequently, and so nobly recorded in the proceedings of many recent public meetings, has offered, by me, a statue of his immor tal father, executed by the talented Chantrey. Mr Watt presents this statue, with proud feelings, to that University in which his illustrious parent first imbibed the principles of that scientific knowledge, and laid the foundation of those important and splendid discoveries which will form an era in the history of science. I feel proud in belonging to a University which has produced so great a man, and, especially, proud that I am now the instrument of offering to that University his statue. (Cheers.) This statue is not of one who enslaved nations, or destroyed his fellow-creatures-it is not of one whose fame was steeped in blood, or whose pedestal was reared in desolation,-but of one who gloried in contributing to the useful knowledge of his fellow-creatures-in building a temple to science, in which all mankind might worship. (Cheers.) I cannot, gentlemen, forget another mark of fame which distinguished this University. It is now nearly 70 years since a Professor of Moral Philosophy, in this University, delivered those lec

tures which have covered his name with glory, and his country with greatness. It is now 50 years since he made those principles known, which have forced their way through the civilized globe, and which are day by day adopted by the government of this country-principles that will raise the nation to the highest pitch of commercial and political glory. (Cheers.) Are there two names in the annals of science brighter than these? Can any two individuals, belonging to the seminaries of learning in Europe, bear competition with a Watt and a Smith? No!—(Loud cheering.)—Gentlemen, you will call to mind those names, and, in pur suing your several paths of learning, you will not forget the fame that encircles and irradiates those illustrious characters. (Loud cheers.) Gentlemen, I am not now called, nor can I enter upon the invidious and most unpleasant task of choosing between two such distinguished characters as have been brought before me. I cannot do it-two such eminent persons, so different in every thing, and yet so great in their respective walks, I cannot and I will not pretend to characterise. Literature, public life-the charms of poetry, and the powers of philosophy-ima gination in its varied creations, and political science in its varied uses, are mixed up in the decision. There is no comparison, or ground of comparison between them-nor could any comparison that might be drawn be either beautiful in theory or benefi cial in practice. I, however, feel no difficulty in making the decision, save that difficulty which a French proverb denominates "the embarrassment of riches." (Loud cheering.) Yet I shall take the liberty, gentlemen, with your permission, of stating some of the grounds on which I shall give the casting vote-some of those

distinguishing excellences of the gen tleman to whom it will be given. In the first place, his studies have not had a vicious or a vitiated tendency; they have not been founded upon the false hypothesis, that talent is independent of industry and cultivation; yet if any man might be an exception to this rule, none could be a greater or more splendid one than Mr Brougham. (Excessive cheering.) He despises not labour; no man can do more with less labour than he can; yet he is unremittingly and indefatigably laborious. (Loud cheers.) No maxim, gentlemen, can be more fallacious than that genius is independent of cultivation. Coxcombs and pigmies in intellectual life may pretend to support such a doctrine, and may believe, or profess to believe, natural talent to be sufficient; but the gentleman for whom I shall vote will tell you no such thing. Mr Brougham's talent for business and usefulness in public life arose from industrious and constant application; his vivid eloquence and his varied powers were founded on no superficial or showy attainments.

Great

study, leading to a sound knowledge of the exact sciences, laid the basis of his splendid and triumphant career through life. He indulged in that hard and vigorous study which may be denominated a species of mental gymnastics, nor did he ever shrink under them. (Loud cheering.) Those who have encountered the hostility of this great statesman are compelled to acknowledge the skill and strength of science in his blows, and confess the master spirit that has been proved by intense study and unwearied application. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, another prejudice of a most baneful nature, and than which there is not a greater mistake, is, that those minds that aim at general principles and great conceptions, are entitled to neglect ac

curacy. There cannot be a greater absurdity than this, for those who affect to despise accuracy and minuteness of detail, generally sacrifice those great principles which they pretend to support, and exhibit alone the great folly of their conduct. With Mr Brougham it is eminently otherwise

he is most particular in his details, and shows by his minute acquaintancewith every subject under his view, that his accuracy cannot be disputed. (Cheers.) Another great and astonishing excellence of Mr Brougham is the concentration of his powers in the grasping of a great question at once, and in all its parts, before others could scarcely commence it, and yet, in that surprising grasp and concentration of intellect, you will find that Mr Brougham is still more surprising in his minute knowledge of every particular connected with his subject. I have been astonished, upon various occasions, to find, in illustration of great, abstruse, and most important questions, facts and details, minute and accurate, given by Mr Brougham, which would have been darkness to others, but were light and beauty from him-and yet fatiguing and particular as they were, they did not damp his vivacity, or deaden those powers of wit and eloquence which he so eminently possesses. (Loud cheers.) Another feature which I may add to the character of my distinguished friend, is his fondness for classical learning: the various pursuits and the varied powers which he so greatly possesses, have not at all diminished the pleasure he has felt in drinking from the fountain of ancient lore. Other universities have affected to despise the science and the philosophy of ours; but Mr Brougham looks upon learning, and science, and philosophy as mutually necessary to each other. (Cheers.) He studied classical antiquity, and especially the

learning of the ancients, who wielded at will an eloquence which shook the arsenals of the world, raised Greece to the pinnacle of glory, and enabled her to battle with the great Macedonian. (Cheers.) Milton, the immortal Milton, has eulogised that eloquence in words which can never be forgotten. I call your attention to his beautiful lines-not because he characterises eloquence as beautiful, not because he considers it as amusing, not because he speaks of its elegance, not because he eulogises its magnificence, not because he is charmed with its delightfulness, but because it is triumphant in battle, in victory, in greatness, in glory; because by it the ancients wielded at will the destinies of nations, shook the globe, and carried terror and dismay to those tyrants who were the enemies of Athens and of liberty. (Extreme cheering.) Mr Brougham has studied in this school. Eloquence to him was not a matter of parade, it was not a holiday suit, it was not a merely elegant accomplishment, it was not a pleasant and delightful exercise. No, it was a mighty instrument to expose and extirpate corruption and arbitrary power, to uphold the glorious principles of truth and justice, to overawe successful oppression, and wither the tyrant in his tyranny. (Long and rapturous applause.) Gentlemen, I shall not now say anything of the other distinguished character who has been brought before you. Nothing I could say would add to his justly acquired reputation; my humble approbation he has already received; but while I vote for Mr Brougham, I call upon you to remember and to imitate the traits of his character; and if the recollection of the illustrious statesman, and the distinguished philosopher, of Brougham and Watt, can warm you to exertion, that you may not forget their several excellencies, and espe

cially that you may, like your future Lord Rector, have the noble wish of serving your country and of ennobling yourselves, by study and perseverance like his. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, It is now my duty to say, that I give my casting vote to Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P. (Loud cheering.)

A student (Mr Berry, we believe,) then declared, that the vote had fallen on Mr Brougham.

After which, the very Reverend the Principal pronounced a benediction, and the students broke up.

6. This day the inauguration of Henry Brougham, Esq., M.P., as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, took place; on which oc casion he delivered the following speech.

Gentlemen, It now becomes me to return my very sincere and respectful thanks for the kindness which has placed me in a chair, filled in formertimes by so many great men, whose names might well make any comparison formidable to a far more worthy successor.

While I desire you to accept this unexaggerated expression of gratitude, I am anxious to address you rather in the form which I now adopt, than in the more usual one of an unpremeditated discourse. I shall thus at least prove that the remarks, which I deem it my duty to make, are the fruit of mature reflection, and that I am unwilling to discharge animportant office in a perfunctory manner.

I feel very sensibly, that if I shall now urge you by general exhortations, to be instant in the pursuit of learning, which, in all its branches, flourishes under the kindly shelter of these roofs, I may weary you with the unprofitable repetition of a thrice-told tale; and if I presume to offer my advice touching the conduct of your studies, I may seem to trespass upon the province of those venerable per

sons, under whose care you have the singular happiness to be placed. But I would nevertheless expose myself to either charge, for the sake of joining my voice with theirs, in anxiously entreating you to believe how incomparably the present season is verily and indeed the most precious of your whole lives. It is not the less true, because it has been oftentimes said, that the period of youth is by far the best fitted for the improvement of the mind, and the retirement of a college almost exclusively adapted to such study. At your enviable age, every thing has the lively interest of novelty and freshness; attention is perpetually sharpened by curiosity; and the memory is tenacious of the deep impressions it thus receives, to a degree unknown in after life; while the distracting cares of the world, or its beguiling pleasures, cross not the threshold of these calm retreats; its distant noise and bustle are faintly heard, making the shelter you enjoy more grateful; and the struggles of anxious mortals embarked upon that troublous sea, are viewed from an eminence, the security of which is rendered more sweet by the prospect of the scene below. Yet a little while, and you too will be plunged into those waters of bitterness; and will cast an eye of regret, as now I do, upon the peaceful regions you have quitted for ever. Such is your lot as members of society; but it will be your own fault if you look back on this place with repentance or with shame; and be well assured that, whatever timeay, every hour-you squander here on unprofitable idling, will then rise up against you, and be paid for by years of bitter but unavailing regrets. Study then, I beseech you, so to store your minds with the exquisite learning of former ages, that you may always possess within yourselves sources of rational and refined enjoy

ment, which will enable you to set at nought the grosser pleasures of sense, whereof other men are slaves; and so imbue yourselves with the sound philosophy of latter days, forming yourselves to the virtuous habits which are its legitimate offspring, that you may walk unhurt through the trials which await you, and may look down upon the ignorance and error that surround you, not with lofty and supercilious contempt, as the sages of old times, but with the vehement desire of enlightening those who wander in darkness, and who are by so much the more endeared to us by how much they want our assistance.

Assuming the improvement of his own mind and of the lot of his fellowcreatures to be the great end of every man's existence, who is removed above the care of providing for his sustenance, and to be the indispensable duty of every man, as far as his own immediate wants leave him any portion of time unemployed, our attention is naturally directed to the means by which so great and urgent a work may best be performed; and as, in the limited time allotted to this discourse, I cannot hope to occupy more than a small portion of so wide a field, I shall confine myself to two subjects, or rather to a few observations upon two subjects, both of them appropri ate to this place, but either of them affording ample materials for an entire course of Lectures-the Study of the Rhetorical Art, by which useful truths are promulgated with effect, and the Purposes to which a Proficiency in this art should be made subservientn.

It is an extremely common error among young persons, impatient of academical discipline, to turn from the painful study of ancient, and particularly of Attic composition, and solace themselves with works rendered easy by the familiarity of their own tongue. They plausibly contend

« AnkstesnisTęsti »