e's real anathemas against
rhetoric were but the expression of his knowledge that there is a
rhetoric beyond all other arts."

In the _Times_ the following leader appeared upon Mr. Carlyle's
address:--

"There is something in the return of a man to the haunts of his youth,
after he has acquired fame and a recognised position in the world,
which is of itself sufficient to arrest attention. We are interested
in the retrospect and the contrast, the juxtaposition of the old and
the new, the hopes of early years, the memory of the struggles and
contests of manhood, the repose of victory. A man may differ as much
as he pleases from the doctrines of Mr. Carlyle, he may reject his
historical teachings, and may distrust his politics, but he must be
of a very unkindly disposition not to be touched by his reception
at Edinburgh. It is fifty-four years, he told the students of the
University, since he, a boy of fourteen, came as a student, 'full of
wonder and expectation,' to the old capital of his native country, and
now he returns, having accomplished the days of man spoken of by the
Psalmist, that he may be honoured by students of this generation,
and may give them a few words of advice on the life which lies before
them.

"The discourse of the new Lord Rector squared very well with the
occasion. There was no novelty in it. New truths are not the gifts
which the old offer the young; the lesson we learn last is but the
fulness of the meaning of what was only partially apprehended at
first. Mr. Carlyle brought out things familiar enough to everyone who
has read his works; there were the old platitudes and the old truths,
and, it must be owned, mingled here and there with them the old
errors. Time has, however, its recompenses, and if the freshness of
youth seemed to be wanting in the address of the Rector, so also was
its crudity. There was a singular mellowness in Mr. Carlyle's speech,
which was reflected in the homely language in which it was couched.
The chief lessons he had to enforce were to avoid cram, and to be
painstaking, diligent, and patient in the acquisition of knowledge.
Students are not to try to make themselves acquainted with the
outsides of as many things as possible, and 'to go flourishing about'
upon the strength of their acquisitions, but to count a thing as known
only when it is stamped on their mind. The doctrine is only a new
reading of the old maxim, _non multa sed multum_, but it is as much
needed no