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 ON PRESENT TENDENCIES IN CLASSICAL STUDIES.

institution of a Section of Philology in the Philosophical Society of Glasgow may justly be regarded as an event of some interest, even in the history of a Society so distinguished and so useful as this has been. I am bound to say at the outset that I have no claim to even the least share in the merit of having promoted this addition to the fields of work which the Society comprehends; that credit belongs, I believe I may say, to Dr Colville, Mr James Morison, and other gentlemen who have co-operated with them; and when they did me the honour—one which I appreciate highly—of inviting me to become President of the Section, I felt considerable hesitation in occupying a place which ought rather, as it seemed to me, to have been filled by one of them. I am not a comparative philologist; and if Philology, in relation to this Section, was to bear the specific sense which is sometimes attached to it in this country, then I had assuredly no title to become President of it. But I was reassured on this point by learning that