to be read to him, and at once, without ado, awarded the prize to the
other, up to the great Frenchman whom I shall finally invoke to sustain
my hope of building something; that is if you, Gentlemen, will be content
to accept me less as a Professor than as an Elder Brother.

The Frenchman is Sainte-Beuve, and I pay a debt, perhaps appropriately
here, by quoting him as translated by the friend of mine, now dead, who
first invited me to Cambridge and taught me to admire her--one Arthur
John Butler, sometime a Fellow of Trinity, and later a great pioneer
among Englishmen in the study of Dante. Thus while you listen to the
appeal of Sainte-Beuve, I can hear beneath it a more intimate voice, not
for the first time, encouraging me.

Sainte-Beuve then--_si magna licet componere parvis_--is delivering an
Inaugural Lecture in the École Normale, the date being April 12th, 1858.
'Gentlemen,' he begins, 'I have written a good deal in the last thirty
years; that is, I have scattered myself a good deal; so that I need to
gather myself together, in order that my words may come before you with
all the more freedom and confidence.' That is his opening; and he ends:--

As time goes on, you will make me believe that I can for my part be
of some good to you: and with the generosity of your age you will
repay me, in this feeling alone, far more than I shall be able to
give you in intellectual freedom, in literary thought. If in one
sense I bestow on you some of my experience, you will requite me,
and in a more profitable manner, by the sight of your ardour for
what is noble: you will accustom me to turn oftener and more
willingly towards the future in your company. You will teach me
again to hope.