unanimity and readiness, accepted the offer of the recent subject, with acclamations. The subject was produced in accordance with their good resolutions, and the course has proceeded regularly, not only without disgust, but with that genuine delight which accompanies _perfect_ information. Thus has Dr. Birkbeck accomplished that object in the acquisition of which I should have preceded him, (though in a very humble manner as to the Lecturer, yet with the proud and pleasing advantage of addressing professional, literary and scientific men with regard to the audience) but for Yarde’s direct disobedience to very plain and positive orders. Dr. B. is a champion of science and education, but not such only; he is a true and an enlightened patriot. He is teaching his countrymen “the _task of greatness_,” as well as “the path of honour;” and, what is perhaps of more moment than either, he is teaching them to be happy. “Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. _Quod si ipsi hæc neque attingere, neque sensu nostro gustare possemus, tamen ea mirari deberemus, etiam cùm in aliis videremus.”_――CICERO. So much for the prosecution: and having been acquitted as a matter of course, of the obnoxious part of the charge, by a _jury of common sense_, as I have ever been by those who can appreciate the motives of a student of science and the feelings of a gentleman, as well as at that bar, which is to every man of honour as tangible and as terrible as that of any Guildhall in Europe, the bar of my own conscience; having, I say, passed unhurt through that ordeal which my prosecutors presented to me, and through that which they ought sometimes to impose upon themselves, (on Sundays at least,) I can but say in return, that I am equally obliged to those who followed up, and those who suggested, that unique indictment. I regret only, that all its details were not cited in open court, in order that the deep malignancy, and the entire impotency of the originators might have appeared in ludicrous opposition, face to face; and that my own name, of so small consequence as it is, _per se_, might have borrowed a moment’s lustre from its proximity to so black a foil. “Let them digest the venom of their spleen,” and beware, lest some harsh-sounding truth teller apply to them the lines of the Satirist, “Compound for sins they are inclin’d to, By damning those they have no mind to.”