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pleadings, even by the Native Vakeels, are delivered in English; and so it will be elsewhere, if we pursue the natural course of things.

The other evening I said in this Hall,

'A little learning is a dangerous thing.'

You all remember how the Poet concludes this distich :

'Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.'

It has struck me that I may usefully make this the subject of a few remarks, with reference to the proceedings of this evening. Now, though this is one of those sharp witty sayings that pass current in poetry, it contains a fallacy in reasoning, which it may be well to expose: for if the argument were carried out to its legitimate length, it would strike at the very root of such Societies as your's, formed for amusement and improvement in your spare hours of leisure. The poet tells us, in point of fact, that if we cannot give up the whole or a very considerable portion of our time to studies, we should refrain from all endeavour at self-improvement. Unless you can drink deep, says he, taste not. But all knowledge is in itself a good; the man who learns to puncture the arm safely with a lancet, may save the lives of his fellow creatures, by infusing quassein in cholera smitten districts. Though it is not necessary for every man to be a profound lawyer, surely that is no reason why each may not make himself acquainted with the general principles of the laws unr which he lives, and the constitutional history of his own country? The same truth holds good with respect to all professions and every department of learning. It is so with respect to the astronomer, the geologist, the botanist, the entomologist. Though we may not have a deep knowledge of formal astronomy, or even of the mathemat surely it becomes us to know the general map of the st

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Heavens, and the motions and distances of the Heavenly bodies? He who has obtained a general knowledge of the principal truths of Geology and Botany, not only opens to himself a new world of pleasures, but may benefit his race, and perhance become the founder of his own fortunes, if, on exploring the interior, in the course of journies on which his duties may send him, he should discover some valuable gum, or herb, or mineral. Surely it is legitimate to "taste," though we cannot find time to "drink deep?" Only, care should be taken to master all we can, with accuracy, not superficially. And as one of the speakers this evening has remarked, there is nothing in the objection so often urged, that there is no time for study after the every day labours of life are over. There is a passage in Bacon's Advancement of Learning, no doubt familiar to many of you, which admirably meets this objection. I cannot recall it to mind; but it begins something like this "The busiest man that is or hath been, hath no doubt seasons and returns of leisure &c.," and practical experience has shown me, that method and a determination not to fritter away our spare moments, enable us to get through work which seems impossible. I believe that, let a man be as busy as he will, he can still find time to do something more, if he has only the inclination.

My advice to you is, never to let the sun sink down without your being able to say that the past day has enabled you to master some fresh fact. It is thus that you may open up to yourself gratification even with respect to the commonest things. There is no one probably who does not latter himself that he has a taste for the beauties of Nature. I am sure, for my own part, that I thought I surveyed Nature with a Poet's eye. Yet for forty years I walked with beauties everywhere around me, of which I had no conception. It was not till I read by chance Ruskin's Landscape Painters of England, where the subject is treated technically, that I

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perceived what beauties there are in Cloud and Earth and Sea, to which my eyes were sealed before. Such knowledge causes one to walk in a new world. Who shall say that, because a man is not a painter, he should abstain from investigating, even curiously, the elements of the Painter's Art ? The fact is, that the argument strikes at the root of all knowledge. It is the argument of Mandeville in his treatise against Charity Schools. "If a horse," says he, "knew as much as a man, I should be sorry to ride him." The answer is obvious. 66 If a man knew as little as a horse, I should be sorry to let him ride." In the words of Bacon, A man is but what he knoweth;" a text on which I will not now enlarge, but which is full of the profoundest matter for reflection.

But though this poetical paradox is not free from fallacy, it is not without its modicum of truth. If it had no truth in it, it would not please; it would be simply puerile nonsense. It is a half-truth: such as these smart sayings usually are. A little learning is a dangerous thing with reference to a man's special profession. If a man hangs himself out as a physician, and really knows no more than Dr. Sangrado, whose practice was confined to the simple expedient of bleeding at the toe; then his little learning is a dangerous thing indeed; dangerous to every individual who becomes his victim. What could be more scandalous than for me to represent myself as a lawyer whose advice on intricate points may be safely taken, and whose advocacy will fitly represent my clients' interests, if I have but a smattering of the laws I profess to be familiar with? Here it is that the saying has its truth.

But if the practice of self-improvement, through the amusements of elegant literature, is a wholesome practice for all classes, especially is it so for those who are not men of fortune; by which I mean, of such independent means as do away with the necessity of seeking their daily bread, as

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you and I do, by some active profession or business. For the tendency of active life is to make a man hard and narrow-minded, though acute and ready. And it is only by counteracting these hardening influences, through the medium of polite studies, that we can hope to keep the mind open to the gentler influences of humanity. It is by keep" ing ourselves informed in the current literature of the day that we advance with the Age, and enlarge our views. In the language of Archbishop Whately, "we should then cul"tivate not only the corn fields of our minds, but the pleasure grounds also. Let not the Christian then think scorn of 'the pleasant land! That land is the field of ancient and "modern literature of philosophy in almost all its depart"ments-of the arts of reasoning and of persuasion."

I will conclude by giving you two practical illustrations of the value of devoting our leisure to study and self-improvement. When SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, the keenest of practical politicians, the most acute observer and knower of men, resigned his long career of power, the brief remnant of his life was rendered restless, and a burthen, by his want of any resources to fall back upon. His old habits became his worst enemies: and he was miserable from sheer want of some congenial employment. When Bacon fell-the most lamentable fall recorded in profane history-with all that consciousness which he must have ever had present of his own degradation and debasement; he nevertheless retired with a certain dignity to the resumption of those studies which have so largely benefited mankind, and, as it were, gilded over his shame, by the glorious character of his researches in Philosophy.

ADDRESS delivered to the passed Candidates for Degrees in the Madras University; 1863.

GENTLEMEN,-You have this day finished your general education. The University to which you belong has stamped you with the seal of her approval, and sends you forth into the World valued and accredited with the honor of her degrees. But you would fall into a grievous error if you should suppose, and into a still greater if you acted upon that supposition, that you have now completed your education, and that henceforth you have only to discharge the duties of such offices as you may chance to occupy. Life is one long school, and the education of every man only closes with his dying day.

The objects of your general education have, I trust, been attained; that is to say, that you have become the masters of no inconsiderable mass of substantive information; that you have acquired habits of labour, order, and reflexion ; that your minds have become practised instruments for judging accurately and dispassionately on such subjects as may hereafter be submitted to you; and, above all, that you are imbued with sound principles of honorable and moral conduct.

So far from your education being finished, your special education now begins; and remember, that hitherto you have had careful, anxious, pains-taking, conscientious masters, to watch over, to guide, to instruct, and to correct you; but that you are henceforth your own teachers, and selfeducation has become to each of you, his sacred task and duty.

You may, if so disposed, carry your studies, even with reference to this University, to a far higher reach; for it