--to him I say, with every confidence, that
he will choose a career in which, if it does not lead him to fame,
he will be sustained by the honorable exercise of some of the best
faculties of the human mind.

And now I can only thank you for the patience with which you have
listened while, in a slight and imperfect way, I have dwelt with some
of the most important of the actor's responsibilities, I have been an
actor for nearly thirty years, and what I have told you is the fruit
of my experience, and of an earnest and conscientious belief that the
calling to which I am proud to belong is worthy of the sympathy and
support of all intelligent people.

ADDRESS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

26 JUNE 1886

ADDRESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

When I was honored by the request of your distinguished
Vice-Chancellor to deliver an address before the members of this
great University, I told him I could only say something about my own
calling, for that I knew little or nothing about anything else.
I trust, however, that this confession of the limitations of
my knowledge will not prejudice me in your eyes, members as you
are--privileged members I may say--of this seat of learning. In an age
when so many persons think they know everything, it may afford a not
unpleasing variety to meet with some who know that they know nothing.

I cannot discourse to you, even if you wished me to do so, of the
respective merits of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; for if I
did, I should not be able to tell you anything that you do not know
already. I have not had the advantage--one that very few of the
members of my profession in past, or even in present times have
enjoyed--of an University education. The only _Alma Mater_ I ever knew
was the hard stage of a country theatre.

In the course of my training, long before I had taken, what I may
call, my degree in London, I came to act in your city. I have a very
pleasant recollection of the time I passed here, though I am sorry
to say that, owing to the regulation which forbade theatrical
performances during term time, I saw Oxford only in vacation, which
is rather like--to use the old illustration--seeing _Hamlet_ with the
part of Hamlet left out. There was then no other building available
for dramatic representations than the Town Hall. I may, perhaps, be
allowed to congratulate you on the excellent theatre which you now
possess--I do not mean the Sheldonian--and at the same