oughout, and it has been such in my estimation, as I
have felt it a pleasurable duty to appreciate and defend, even in
the most doubtful and trying circumstances. You now enjoy the proud
distinction of advising and assisting, on public grounds, to form a
government, from which, on personal grounds, you have felt it your
duty to retire. You cannot suppose that I entertain a less exalted
opinion of your disinterestedness and high sense of honour, when
the strong opinions I have again and again expressed of it, have
been more than realized by your present patriotic and noble course
of proceeding.

In regard to the address which I have solicited you to deliver at
the opening of the next session of our College, I desire to state
that you will of course make it long or short, as you like,
although I should like it long. It is my intention to get, if
possible, some gentleman of high public standing and literary
talent to deliver an address at the commencement of each collegiate
year. I think that such addresses will have a salutary influence
upon the taste and feeling and ambition of the students; and the
notices and publication of them in the newspapers will tend to
elevate the standard of the public taste, and will, I think, be
useful to public men themselves. I shall be gratified, and I am
sure good will ensue, from your appearing before the public in a
somewhat new character.

To this letter Mr. Draper replied, on the 10th October:--

I find that, consistently with my professional engagements at the
different assizes (which are now of paramount importance to me), I
cannot prepare an address so as to do justice to your request. If
it involved only the attendance on the day, I would cheerfully make
some sacrifice to accomplish it; but there is more, for I would
wish, if I undertook the task, to perform it well, and try to
approximate the favourable expectation of those who were willing to
entrust it to me; and for this end I cannot devote time enough out
of the short interval between this and the latest day named by you.
Accept my assurance that I feel great reluctance in declining your
proposal. The compliment it conveyed was highly gratifying to me
under existing circumstances, and I should have felt sincere
pleasure in exciting my humble abilities