"I should, therefore, feel much obliged to you if you would give the reply to the toast to some one else, and release me altogether from making a speech. For various reasons I am anxious not to speak on the occasion, especially as I have been compelled to decline all invitations to public dinners of late; otherwise anything that I could have done to contribute to the success of this well-deserved tribute to the great services of Mr. Cyrus Field I would have done with the greatest pleasure. "Yours truly, "A. H. LAYARD." "LONDON, _June 30, 1868_. "_My dear Field_,--I regret very much not being able to be one of those who will meet to-morrow to do you honor for your great services in carrying out telegraphic communication between this country and America. No one present will feel and appreciate more than I do how important a part you took in that great work, and with what energy and perseverance you devoted yourself to its success. "Wishing you long life and every happiness, "Believe me, "Yours very sincerely, "DANIEL GOOCH." The speeches made at this dinner can be given only in part. The Duke of Argyll said: "My Lords and Gentlemen,--It now becomes my duty to propose that which is pre-eminently the toast of the evening, and to ask you to return to our distinguished guest our warm and hearty acknowledgments of the great service he has rendered to England, to America, and to the world by his exertions in promoting the success of the Atlantic telegraph, an enterprise which is the culminating triumph of a long series of discoveries prosecuted by many generations of men. It is not easy to apportion with exactitude the merits which may belong to those who have engaged in it; but I much mistake the character of our distinguished guest--and I have now known him for several years, and have had much communication with him--I much mistake his character if he desires to displace for a single moment any of those who have preceded him in the history of electrical discovery. This great triumph may be looked at from various points of view, and in the first place I think I am safe in saying that we all feel it to be a triumph of pure science--I say, of pure science, of the pure desire and love of knowledge.... I have the honor of speaking to many distinguished scientific men, and I think they will hear me out when I say that if there is one question which they hear with the utmost indignation and contempt addressed to them when they are in the course of their investigations it is the question, What is the use of their discoveries? The answer which the man of science returns to this question, as to what is the use of his discovery, is, 'I only tell you what is the interest of that discovery, that interest which