Mr Vice-Chancellor, and gentlemen of the university,
The general expectation of ſo numerous and reſpectable an audience, the novelty, and (I may add) the importance of the duty required from this chair, muſt unavoidably be productive of great diffidence and apprehenſions in him who has the honour to be placed in it. He muſt be ſenſible how much will depend upon his conduct in the infancy of a ſtudy, which is now firſt adopted by public academical authority; which has generally been reputed (however unjuſtly) of a dry and unfruitful nature; and of which the theoretical, elementary parts have hitherto received a very moderate ſhare of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of inſtruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and ſuperficial, it will caſt a damp upon the farther progreſs of this moſt uſeful and moſt rational branch of learning; and may defeat for a time the
- ↑ Read in Oxford at the opening of the Vinerian lectures; 25 Oct. 1758.
