drawing-classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working
blacksmith; and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive
the highest honours of to-night. Well may it be said of that good
blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the
American poet:


"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees its clause.
Something attempted, something done,
Has earn'd a night's repose."


To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local
societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance
from amongst them. There is among their number a most remarkable
man, whose history I have read with feelings that I could not
adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all when I
know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom
weaving until he dropped from fatigue: who began to teach himself
as soon as he could earn five shillings a-week: who is now a
botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire
valley: who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a
collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds:
who is now a conchologist, with a very curious, and in some
respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also
preserved and collected the mosses of fresh water and of the sea:
who is worthily the president of his own local Literary