It is the health of our Chairman, and
coupled with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland-
-a literature which he has done much to render famous through the
world, and of which he has been for many years--as I hope and
believe he will be for many more--a most brilliant and
distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the
land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as
inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old
man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch--Christopher
North. I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a
real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day
hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye--but
that is no fiction--and the greyest hair in all the world--who
wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the
wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he
could not help it, because there was always springing up in his
mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent,
and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you
might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single
drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw
the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I
was disposed to take it as a personal offence--I was vexed to see
him look so hearty.
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