26 JUNE 1886




ADDRESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.


When I was honored by the request of your distinguished
Vice-Chancellor to deliver an address before the members of this
great University, I told him I could only say something about my own
calling, for that I knew little or nothing about anything else.
I trust, however, that this confession of the limitations of
my knowledge will not prejudice me in your eyes, members as you
are--privileged members I may say--of this seat of learning. In an age
when so many persons think they know everything, it may afford a not
unpleasing variety to meet with some who know that they know nothing.

I cannot discourse to you, even if you wished me to do so, of the
respective merits of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; for if I
did, I should not be able to tell you anything that you do not know
already. I have not had the advantage--one that very few of the
members of my profession in past, or even in present times have
enjoyed--of an University education. The only _Alma Mater_ I ever knew
was the hard stage of a country theatre.

In the course of my training, long before I had taken, what I may
call, my degree in London, I came to act in your city. I have a very
pleasant recollection of the time I passed here, though I am sorry
to say that, owing to the regulation which forbade theatrical