Page:The Harveian oration for 1874.djvu/16

 revision, and a rule was then adopted that thereafter no Oration should be given in public until at least a month beforehand it had been submitted to and approved by the President and Censors.

I do not know how long it is since this rule was allowed to fall into disuse. Its existence, however, proves how responsible a post that was felt to be which I now have the honour to occupy, and I could wish, for my own sake, that instead of having simply to throw myself on the indulgence of my hearers, I could plead that my poor attempt to do justice to my theme had already been submitted to the President and Censors, and had been stamped by their authority as fit to pass current.

I said, Sir, that I have looked with care at almost all the Orations which have been given on this occasion. Need I add that I have not done so with the idle and unworthy purpose of decking out my work with the genius, or the learning, or the grace of my predecessors, for the unhandy patchwork would at once be discovered, and when Meade and Arbuthnot and