roducing Mr. Morley: "With Literature I associate, not for the
first time, the name of a master of strong and sober English, a man in
whose writings the clear vision of a seeker after truth controls the
generous fervor of an idealist, and of whom every appreciator of a
fine literary temper must earnestly hope that the paths upon which he
has so long trod with growing honor may never become wholly strangers
to his feet--I mean Mr. John Morley."]

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN:--I feel that I am more unworthy now than I was eight
years ago to figure as the representative of literature before this
brilliant gathering of all the most important intellectual and social
interests of our time. I have not yet been able like the Prime Minister,
to go round this exhibition and see the works of art that glorify your
walls; but I am led by him to expect that I shall see the pictures of
Liberal leaders, including M. Rochefort. [Laughter.] I am not sure
whether M. Rochefort will figure as a man of letters or as a Liberal
leader, but I can understand that his portrait would attract the Prime
Minister because M. Rochefort is a politician who was once a Liberal
leader, and who has now seen occasion to lose his faith in Parliamentary
government. [Laughter and cheers.] Nor have I seen the picture of "The
Flowing Tide," but I shall expect to find in that picture when I do see
it a number of bathing-machines in which, not the younger generation,
but the elder generation are incarcerated. [Laughter.] The younger
generation, as I understand, are waiting confidently--for the arrival of
the "Flowing Tide," and when it arrives, the elderly gentlemen who are
incarcerated in those machines [laughter] will be only too anxious for a
man and a horse to come and deliver them from their imminent peril.
[Laughter and cheers.]

I thought that I detected in the last words of your speech, in proposing
this toast, Mr. President, an accent of gentle reproach that any one
should desert the high and pleasant ways of literature for the turmoil
and the everlasting contention of public life. I do not suppose that
there has ever been a time in which there was less of divorce between
literature and public life than the present time. ["Hear! Hear!"] There
have been in the reign of the Queen two eminent statesmen who have
thrice had the distinction of being Prime Minister, and oddly enough,
one of those statesmen [Lo