h but taciturn, slow-speaking men. We need scarce
say in which of these schools we have been trained. You will at once
see--to borrow from one of the best and most ancient of writers--that
we are "not eloquent," but "a man of slow speech, and of a slow
tongue." And yet we think we may venture addressing ourselves, in a
few plain words, to an association of young men united for the purpose
of mutual improvement. We ought and we do sympathize with you in your
object; and we congratulate you on the facilities which your numbers,
and your library, and your residence in one of the most intellectual
cities in the world, cannot fail to afford you in its pursuit. We
ourselves have known what it is to prosecute in solitude, with but few
books, and encompassed by many difficulties, the search after
knowledge; and we have seen year after year pass by, and the obstacles
in our way remaining apparently as great as at first. And were we to
sum up the condensed result of our experience in two brief words of
advice, it would amount simply to this, "Never despair." We are told
of Commodore Anson--a man whose sense and courage ultimately triumphed
over a series of perhaps the most appalling disasters man ever
encountered, and who won for himself, by his magnanimity, sagacity,
and cool resolution, the applauses of even his enemies, so that
Rousseau and Voltaire eulogized him, the one in history, the other in
romance,--we are told, we say, of this Anson, that when raised to the
British peerage, he was permitted to select his own motto, and that he
chose an eminently characteristic one--"_Nil Desperandum_." By all
means let it be your motto also--not as a thing to be paraded on some
heraldic label, but to be engraved upon your hearts. We wish that,
amid the elegancies of this hall, we could bring up before you some of
the scenes of our past life. They would form a curious panorama, and
might serve to teach that in no circumstances, however apparently
desperate, should men lose hope. Never forget that it is not
necessary, in order to overcome gigantic difficulties, that one's
strength should be gigantic. Persevering exertion is much more than
strength. We owe to shovels and wheelbarrows, and human muscles of the
average size and vigour, the great railway which connects the capitals
of the two kingdoms. And the difficulties which encompass the young
man of humble circumstances and imperfect education, must be regarded
as coming under the same