]
Ladies and gentlemen,--Dr. Johnson's experience of that club, the
members of which have travelled over one another's minds in every
direction, is not to be compared with the experience of the
perpetual president of a society like this. Having on previous
occasions said everything about it that he could possibly find to
say, he is again produced, with the same awful formalities, to say
everything about it that he cannot possibly find to say. It struck
me, when Dr. F. Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that
the case of such an ill-starred president is very like that of the
stag at Epping Forest on Easter Monday. That unfortunate animal
when he is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes place,
generally makes a point, I am told, of making away at a cool trot,
venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he
lives, and there subsides into a quiet and inoffensive existence,
until he is again brought out to be again followed by exactly the
same field, under exactly the same circumstances, next Easter
Monday.
The difficulties of the situation--and here I mean the president
and not the stag--are greatly increased in such an instance as this
by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending
solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me--for I have carefully
considered the point--it presents no opening whatever of an
oratorical nature.
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