a speech which shows that our distinguished guest is as
felicitous at the dinner-table as he is signally successful in other
fields of oratory. But if you have deluded yourself with the idea that
because of this change in the programme you are to escape the infliction
of the usual address by the President of the Society, it is now my duty
to undeceive you. [Laughter.] Even the keen reflections of General
Harrison respecting the prepared impromptu speeches shall not deter us.
The rest of us who are not as gifted as he is have expended too much
midnight oil and sacrificed too much of the gray matter of the brain to
lose our opportunity. You will see that we have anticipated his
impromptu observations by carefully premeditating our impromptu reply.
[Laughter.] Lord Beaconsfield said that Carlyle had reasons to speak
civilly of Cromwell, for Cromwell would have hanged him. [Laughter.]
General Harrison has been hanging the rest of us--yes, hanging and
quartering us--though this is far from being the only reason for
speaking civilly of him, and yet we must go on with the exhibition.

You have observed that on the programme, as arranged by the Committee,
the first number is a prelude by the President and the last a hymn by
the Society. The Committee evidently intended to begin and end with
music. What particular solo they expect me to perform I am somewhat
uncertain. But the truth is you have already had a part of the music and
you will have the rest when I am done. For my part is only that of the
leader in the old Puritan choir--to take up the tuning fork and pitch
the key; and I do this when I say that we are assembled for the two
hundred and seventy-third time [laughter] to commemorate the landing of
the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. If any one doubts the correctness of that
chronology, let him consult Brothers Shortridge and Lewis and Clark and
Cornish, who have been with us from the beginning. [Laughter.] We have
met to celebrate these fourfathers [laughter], as well as some others,
and to glorify ourselves. If we had any doubts about the duty we owe our
ancestors, we have no scruples about the satisfaction we take in their
posterity. "My idea of first-rate poetry," said Josh Billings, "is the
kind of poetry that I would have writ." So our idea of first-rate
posterity is the kind of posterity we are. [Laughter.]

But while not forgetting the posterity, it is not forbidden at these
dinners to make an occasional and casual all