Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Willis's Rooms Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18640412 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Gentlemen, On all other occasions of this nature ‘The Army and Navy’ have but to be named, and they are sure of evoking the general admiration and respect. But they have a special interest for a school of medicine, inasmuch as the medical officers of those two services, representing equally, as they do, the noblest studies of peace and the noblest humanities of war, are among their brightest ornaments. Further it may be observed that the better our public institutions for the recovery of the sick, so much the better and stouter is the stock of which our soldiers and sailors are made. This latter remark will apply with equal strength, though in a less degree, to that fine-spirited body, the Volunteers, of whose Muscular Christianity I avow myself a devoted admirer – holding, as I do, that muscular development of anything that is good is strong presumptive proof of soundness of condition. If the various corps of Volunteers had been enrolled in the ‘school-days’ of a certain youth with whom I believe we have all made acquaintance, I have little doubt that I should have found at the head of their list the name and title of Lieut.-Col. Tom Brown. As I have searched the list in vain for that name and title, and as I cannot, therefore. have the pleasure of coupling that name with the toast, I will, with your permission, substitute the name of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Hughes. Gentlemen, My first remembrance of a certain spot in northwestern London, which I have reason for recalling, is of a very un-inviting piece of wet waste ground, and a miserable pool of water; it looked rather like a barbarous place of execution, with its poles and cross-poles erected for the beating of carpets; and it was overrun with nettles and dock-weed. Associated with this place was a story, captivating enough to my boyish imagination, concerning the ‘Field of the Forty Footsteps’; a part of the rank place so called, as I remember – and I remember it very distinctly now – because of a duel that was traditionally supposed to have been fought there between two brothers, one of whom, advancing upon the other certain paces as he retreated, to wound him mortally, the grass got trodden down by forty dreadful footsteps, upon which the grass grew never more. I remember to have gone, accompanied by an adventurous young Englishman of my own age, about eleven, with whom I had certain designs to seek my fortune in the neighbourhood of the Spanish Main, as soon as we should have accumulated forty shillings each and a rifle, which we never did, I remember to have gone, accompanied by this young pirate, to inspect this ground. I also remember to have counted forty places on which the grass indubitably did not grow – though whether grass grew anywhere thereabouts for a few feet together, without being chequered with bald patches I will not say. This ‘Field of Forty Footsteps’ was close to the site on which was afterwards built University College, and formed, generally, a part of the open space of ground on which now stands University College Hospital. On looking over the papers this morning issued by this society in illustration of the usefulness of its charity, I found the old story so strangely changed, and yet with so odd a preservation of the number four in it, that this field has become the field of 440,000 odd footsteps. For I found that it is recorded here that 440,000 odd sick and weary creatures – brothers too – had taken refuge in the hospital since its first foundation, thirty years ago. And so humanely has the old unnatural story become transformed – much as the brutes in other stories become transformed into men – that the struggle through all those years has been against death, and for the restoration of all those many brethren to life, enjoyment, industry, and usefulness. Gentlemen, you already know, as well as I do, that it is the cause of this Hospital that I have now to present to you, and that it is its claim upon the gratitude and pride of all London – I will go so far as to say of all England – that I have to urge upon your generosity. That it is much in want, sorely in need of help, I think I can make plain by the aid of as few figures as I have ever had to deal with on an occasion of this nature. The annual expenditure of the hospital is £6,000. Its annual income is not nearly half the money. And even of that insufficient income, almost one-halt is derived from the noble generosity of its medical staff, who relinquish every year to the charity all the fees paid by the students for clinical instruction. Thus there has to be got together every year, by the zealous administrators of the Hospital, no less a sum than £4,000 to supply the deficiency; and, emphatically, God knows how they do it! But that it would seem that well-gotten money must sometimes come in, as people say ill-gotten money always goes out – no man can tell how – it would be absolutely impossible that this charity should continue to exist. Add that there is a debt upon it, amounting in round numbers to the whole of a year’s expenditure, and I believe that I have stated the case of its need quite as fully as if I had taken the whole night to state it in. Of course I know very well that the mere statement of need in such a case is no claim upon the public help. I know very well, as you all do here, and as the public outside do, that a very bad institution may be in want. Therefore I will proceed, as the main part of my duty, to the question of desert. I will assume that everybody here has sufficiently considered what an immense amount of good may be done through such a means with a little money. I will assume that everybody here has reflected how narrow, how small, how insignificant is the space occupied by a single hospital-bed, yet over what a breadth of misery its relief and rest extend. So, passing at once to the claims of this institution, in its specialities on public support and aid, I think we may take them, for our present purpose, to be three. The first is the least, because comprised within the narrowest limits, but it is, nevertheless, of immense importance to the charity. The Hospital is founded in a poor district, where no such institution previously existed, and which suddenly received a great access of population. That it is of unspeakable advantage to such a population cannot be doubted, as the local clergy and others best acquainted with the people there abundantly testify. But it is to be observed, that it is not founded in a specially and exclusively poor neighbourhood such as we may find in the eastern districts of London, but exists in a quarter in which there are many large houses, which are inhabited by people who are extremely well-to-do. If the occupants of those houses would subscribe only one guinea a year each to the Hospital, they would render to it incalculable assistance. And, surely, it has this special claim upon them, that if any workman or servant in their employment received an injury, the sufferer would be carried to this Hospital straight, as a matter of course, and would there have the best assistance; while the restoration of such sufferers to their suspended labour as speedily as possible must diminish the local rates. The second speciality is a different one, because it appeals not only to the gratitude and support of north-western London, but to that of the whole country. I may take it for granted, for it is undoubted, that the establishment of the University College school of medicine has been of immense service to the cause of medical education all over England. I may venture to say that this Hospital has been in its time a school for schools, and a hospital for hospitals, and that it has discharged cured many obstinate cases of almost chronic obstruction and general debility. That herein it has conferred immense benefit upon the community, and that the community in supporting it are only supporting their best interests, I suppose no reasonable creature can doubt. The third speciality is a wider one still, and on that I lay even higher stress. And it is this – highly important in this time, and in all times. University College Hospital represents, if I understand it, the largest liberality of opinion. It excludes no one – patient, student, doctor, surgeon, nurse – because of religious creed. It represents the completest relinquishment of claims to coerce the judgement or conscience of any human being. It exacts professions from no one. It may hold, for anything I know, that the Lady Britannia, like the Lady Desdemona, ‘doth protest too much’. But, in any case, it gives all that to the winds, to be blown whithersoever it may; perhaps to take refuge at last in the Hospital for Incurables. I say that, in consistently doing this, it renders, and has always rendered, an unspeakable service, by its influence and example, not only to the cause of medical education, but to the cause of general education. I feel perfectly convinced that the high reputation attained by this Hospital has been of immense service in calling public attention to University College. I cannot separate it in my own mind from the establishment of the London University, and the granting of degrees there. I will go further, and say that I think it no great stress of imagination to pursue the wholesome influences of this place even away into the Queen’s Colleges of Ireland, and at home again into the rubbed eyes and quickened steps of those famous old universities that we all admire. Gentlemen, for all these reasons combined, I confidently submit to you that this University College Hospital holds a distinguished and exceptional position, and one that has been obtained in an equal degree by no other similar institution, however unimpeachable its benevolence. And I would beg to remind you of this fact, that it would not be easy to draw a line anywhere across the map of the world, and say, ‘This is the geographical line beyond which this influence has not been extended.’ Among the students of University College, there have been Parsees, and other native youths from the far East, who have been enabled to obtain medical education there owing to the absence of religious tests, and who have carried home to their countrymen the blessings derivable from their skill and knowledge. This liberality has been so appreciated by their own countrymen, that in one instance, a great Parsee merchant presented the Hospital with a liberal donation, expressly to mark his high estimation of that liberality. Also, among the students of University College there have been, as I perceive by looking at its records, men now distinguished in Calcutta, in Bombay, and elsewhere, for their attainments in botanical science, in medical science, and in natural science of all kinds. Also, I am delighted to find that there has been among the students of the University College Hospital, one gentlemen, at all events, who has wandered so far afield as the Celestial Empire, and has established there a hospital for the succour of the native Chinese. Now, surely it is impossible to suppose that this seed can ever have fallen upon absolutely barren ground. Surely it is impossible to suppose that those things can fail to have suggested to the man a little above the average – the man everywhere to be found, however high his cheek-bones, however long his pigtail, however lithe his figure, however brown his colour, however complicated the folds of his turban, however sacred his river, of however intolerant his caste – it is impossible to suppose that those things can have failed to have suggested to such a man, that there must be something good in the Liberty which secures such results, and in that comprehensive religion, which, without distinction of creed or faith, permits this to be done. Hence, gentlemen, it is that I present to you this Hospital for your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital whose salutary influences extend, and always have extended, far beyond its walls; as a Hospital that does good to the sound, no less than to the sick; as an institution that consistently enforces – alike in the public principles on which it takes its quiet stand, and in its daily practice at the bedsides of its poor patients – that practice is infinitely better than any amount of professions, and that those who have good gifts in charge cannot possibly make a better use of them, than by diffusing them unconditionally among the whole human family. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to University College Hospital’. Before I propose the toast which I have now in charge, allow me to say that I listened with great pleasure to Mr. Jaffray’s excellent speech, until my mind seemed to misgive me that he was disposed to include me in his catalogue of ‘powerful pumps’. I sincerely hope that you will bear testimony to this not being the case, and that you will prove it by coming to the surface with your money without this species of persuasion. Now gentlemen, if anyone expressed a doubt to me about the high position of University College Hospital, or hesitated to place unbounded confidence in its treatment of the sick, I should content myself by simply referring him to its list of medical officers. Of the disinterestedness and generosity of those medical gentlemen I have already spoken. To their patience, to their unwearied attention, skill, humanity, and kindness, there are better witnesses than I am, and their name is Legion. No patient passes through this Hospital but carries out of doors his or her tale of pain relieved, disease cured, or casualty remedied, through the agency of these gentlemen. I need not remark to this company that these services, rendered without price, are above all price: and that these gentlemen are not only distinguished in the foremost ranks of their calling, but are foremost among the most generous members of the most generous profession known to civilization. I have been requested by the managers of this dinner to couple with the toast of the medical officers, that benevolent body of Ladies who now act as nurses in the Hospital; and I have particularly been requested to convey to you the earnest assurance of the managers, that the vigilance, patience, and tenderness of those Ladies, combined with their undoubted qualification for the duties they have undertaken, have given to those who have had the best opportunity of observing them, the warmest satisfaction. Also, that they have in all things most honourably observed their pledge never in the least to interfere with the religious opinions of the patients. Gentlemen, I propose to you to drink ‘The Medical Officers of the Hospital, and the Ladies of All Saints’ Home, coupled with the name of Dr. Reynolds’. I have next to propose ‘The health of the Chaplain of the Hospital, the Rev. Dr. Stebbing’. I hope that I may be excused for saying that it is personally interesting to me to have an old fellow labourer in literature in so distinguished and responsible a position. Through more years than one cares to count at a festival, I have known Dr. Stebbing to have enriched the sounder literature of the time, with various contributions strongly expressive of his ability, his industry, and his learning. And so various has he been, that I should bestow here a word of eulogy upon his verse if I were not immediately jostled by the recollection of his prose papers in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and should recall the merits of his continuation of the History of the Church, if I were not divided between that and the merits of his Italian Poets. But sure I am, gentlemen, that the influence of these attainments upon so modest a nature and so good a man, must always tend to the advantage of his charges in the Hospital, and as I observe the wards themselves to have been recently brightened and humanized by some infusion of the arts, so I feel convinced that their occupants, who are the subjects of the Chaplain’s gentle ministration, never find it the less persuasive or the less consolatory, because of the graces of his mind. I immediately accept the duty suggested by my reverend friend, as one who has been a student, as one who knows the aspirations of a young and striving man, as one who has felt them, accompanied with that poverty which is the lot of many young men, as one who has attained to that success which is the lot of few. I beg to propose to you the health of the young and striving body, ‘The Students of the University College Hospital’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource University College Hospital Anniversary Dinner Description An account of the resource Speech at the University College Hospital Anniversary Dinner (12 April 1864). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1864-04-12 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1864-04-12_Speech_University-College-Hospital-Anniversary-Dinner Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the University College Hospital Anniversary Dinner' (12 April 1864). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-04-12_Speech_University-College-Hospital-Anniversary-Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-04-12_Speech_University-College-Hospital-Anniversary-Dinner</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, On all other occasions of this nature ‘The Army and Navy’ have but to be named, and they are sure of evoking the general admiration and respect. But they have a special interest for a school of medicine, inasmuch as the medical officers of those two services, representing equally, as they do, the noblest studies of peace and the noblest humanities of war, are among their brightest ornaments. Further it may be observed that the better our public institutions for the recovery of the sick, so much the better and stouter is the stock of which our soldiers and sailors are made. This latter remark will apply with equal strength, though in a less degree, to that fine-spirited body, the Volunteers, of whose Muscular Christianity I avow myself a devoted admirer – holding, as I do, that muscular development of anything that is good is strong presumptive proof of soundness of condition. If the various corps of Volunteers had been enrolled in the ‘school-days’ of a certain youth with whom I believe we have all made acquaintance, I have little doubt that I should have found at the head of their list the name and title of Lieut.-Col. Tom Brown. As I have searched the list in vain for that name and title, and as I cannot, therefore. have the pleasure of coupling that name with the toast, I will, with your permission, substitute the name of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Hughes.  Gentlemen, My first remembrance of a certain spot in northwestern London, which I have reason for recalling, is of a very un-inviting piece of wet waste ground, and a miserable pool of water; it looked rather like a barbarous place of execution, with its poles and cross-poles erected for the beating of carpets; and it was overrun with nettles and dock-weed. Associated with this place was a story, captivating enough to my boyish imagination, concerning the ‘Field of the Forty Footsteps’; a part of the rank place so called, as I remember – and I remember it very distinctly now – because of a duel that was traditionally supposed to have been fought there between two brothers, one of whom, advancing upon the other certain paces as he retreated, to wound him mortally, the grass got trodden down by forty dreadful footsteps, upon which the grass grew never more. I remember to have gone, accompanied by an adventurous young Englishman of my own age, about eleven, with whom I had certain designs to seek my fortune in the neighbourhood of the Spanish Main, as soon as we should have accumulated forty shillings each and a rifle, which we never did, I remember to have gone, accompanied by this young pirate, to inspect this ground. I also remember to have counted forty places on which the grass indubitably did not grow – though whether grass grew anywhere thereabouts for a few feet together, without being chequered with bald patches I will not say. This ‘Field of Forty Footsteps’ was close to the site on which was afterwards built University College, and formed, generally, a part of the open space of ground on which now stands University College Hospital. On looking over the papers this morning issued by this society in illustration of the usefulness of its charity, I found the old story so strangely changed, and yet with so odd a preservation of the number four in it, that this field has become the field of 440,000 odd footsteps. For I found that it is recorded here that 440,000 odd sick and weary creatures – brothers too – had taken refuge in the hospital since its first foundation, thirty years ago. And so humanely has the old unnatural story become transformed – much as the brutes in other stories become transformed into men – that the struggle through all those years has been against death, and for the restoration of all those many brethren to life, enjoyment, industry, and usefulness.   Gentlemen, you already know, as well as I do, that it is the cause of this Hospital that I have now to present to you, and that it is its claim upon the gratitude and pride of all London – I will go so far as to say of all England – that I have to urge upon your generosity. That it is much in want, sorely in need of help, I think I can make plain by the aid of as few figures as I have ever had to deal with on an occasion of this nature. The annual expenditure of the hospital is £6,000. Its annual income is not nearly half the money. And even of that insufficient income, almost one-halt is derived from the noble generosity of its medical staff, who relinquish every year to the charity all the fees paid by the students for clinical instruction. Thus there has to be got together every year, by the zealous administrators of the Hospital, no less a sum than £4,000 to supply the deficiency; and, emphatically, God knows how they do it! But that it would seem that well-gotten money must sometimes come in, as people say ill-gotten money always goes out – no man can tell how – it would be absolutely impossible that this charity should continue to exist. Add that there is a debt upon it, amounting in round numbers to the whole of a year’s expenditure, and I believe that I have stated the case of its need quite as fully as if I had taken the whole night to state it in. Of course I know very well that the mere statement of need in such a case is no claim upon the public help. I know very well, as you all do here, and as the public outside do, that a very bad institution may be in want. Therefore I will proceed, as the main part of my duty, to the question of desert. I will assume that everybody here has sufficiently considered what an immense amount of good may be done through such a means with a little money. I will assume that everybody here has reflected how narrow, how small, how insignificant is the space occupied by a single hospital-bed, yet over what a breadth of misery its relief and rest extend. So, passing at once to the claims of this institution, in its specialities on public support and aid, I think we may take them, for our present purpose, to be three. The first is the least, because comprised within the narrowest limits, but it is, nevertheless, of immense importance to the charity. The Hospital is founded in a poor district, where no such institution previously existed, and which suddenly received a great access of population. That it is of unspeakable advantage to such a population cannot be doubted, as the local clergy and others best acquainted with the people there abundantly testify. But it is to be observed, that it is not founded in a specially and exclusively poor neighbourhood such as we may find in the eastern districts of London, but exists in a quarter in which there are many large houses, which are inhabited by people who are extremely well-to-do. If the occupants of those houses would subscribe only one guinea a year each to the Hospital, they would render to it incalculable assistance. And, surely, it has this special claim upon them, that if any workman or servant in their employment received an injury, the sufferer would be carried to this Hospital straight, as a matter of course, and would there have the best assistance; while the restoration of such sufferers to their suspended labour as speedily as possible must diminish the local rates. The second speciality is a different one, because it appeals not only to the gratitude and support of north-western London, but to that of the whole country. I may take it for granted, for it is undoubted, that the establishment of the University College school of medicine has been of immense service to the cause of medical education all over England. I may venture to say that this Hospital has been in its time a school for schools, and a hospital for hospitals, and that it has discharged cured many obstinate cases of almost chronic obstruction and general debility. That herein it has conferred immense benefit upon the community, and that the community in supporting it are only supporting their best interests, I suppose no reasonable creature can doubt. The third speciality is a wider one still, and on that I lay even higher stress. And it is this – highly important in this time, and in all times. University College Hospital represents, if I understand it, the largest liberality of opinion. It excludes no one – patient, student, doctor, surgeon, nurse – because of religious creed. It represents the completest relinquishment of claims to coerce the judgement or conscience of any human being. It exacts professions from no one. It may hold, for anything I know, that the Lady Britannia, like the Lady Desdemona, ‘doth protest too much’. But, in any case, it gives all that to the winds, to be blown whithersoever it may; perhaps to take refuge at last in the Hospital for Incurables. I say that, in consistently doing this, it renders, and has always rendered, an unspeakable service, by its influence and example, not only to the cause of medical education, but to the cause of general education. I feel perfectly convinced that the high reputation attained by this Hospital has been of immense service in calling public attention to University College. I cannot separate it in my own mind from the establishment of the London University, and the granting of degrees there. I will go further, and say that I think it no great stress of imagination to pursue the wholesome influences of this place even away into the Queen’s Colleges of Ireland, and at home again into the rubbed eyes and quickened steps of those famous old universities that we all admire.  Gentlemen, for all these reasons combined, I confidently submit to you that this University College Hospital holds a distinguished and exceptional position, and one that has been obtained in an equal degree by no other similar institution, however unimpeachable its benevolence. And I would beg to remind you of this fact, that it would not be easy to draw a line anywhere across the map of the world, and say, ‘This is the geographical line beyond which this influence has not been extended.’ Among the students of University College, there have been Parsees, and other native youths from the far East, who have been enabled to obtain medical education there owing to the absence of religious tests, and who have carried home to their countrymen the blessings derivable from their skill and knowledge. This liberality has been so appreciated by their own countrymen, that in one instance, a great Parsee merchant presented the Hospital with a liberal donation, expressly to mark his high estimation of that liberality. Also, among the students of University College there have been, as I perceive by looking at its records, men now distinguished in Calcutta, in Bombay, and elsewhere, for their attainments in botanical science, in medical science, and in natural science of all kinds. Also, I am delighted to find that there has been among the students of the University College Hospital, one gentlemen, at all events, who has wandered so far afield as the Celestial Empire, and has established there a hospital for the succour of the native Chinese. Now, surely it is impossible to suppose that this seed can ever have fallen upon absolutely barren ground. Surely it is impossible to suppose that those things can fail to have suggested to the man a little above the average –  the man everywhere to be found, however high his cheek-bones, however long his pigtail, however lithe his figure, however brown his colour, however complicated the folds of his turban, however sacred his river, of however intolerant his caste – it is impossible to suppose that those things can have failed to have suggested to such a man, that there must be something good in the Liberty which secures such results, and in that comprehensive religion, which, without distinction of creed or faith, permits this to be done. Hence, gentlemen, it is that I present to you this Hospital for your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital whose salutary influences extend, and always have extended, far beyond its walls; as a Hospital that does good to the sound, no less than to the sick; as an institution that consistently enforces – alike in the public principles on which it takes its quiet stand, and in its daily practice at the bedsides of its poor patients –  that practice is infinitely better than any amount of professions, and that those who have good gifts in charge cannot possibly make a better use of them, than by diffusing them unconditionally among the whole human family. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to University College Hospital’. Before I propose the toast which I have now in charge, allow me to say that I listened with great pleasure to Mr. Jaffray’s excellent speech, until my mind seemed to misgive me that he was disposed to include me in his catalogue of ‘powerful pumps’. I sincerely hope that you will bear testimony to this not being the case, and that you will prove it by coming to the surface with your money without this species of persuasion.  Now gentlemen, if anyone expressed a doubt to me about the high position of University College Hospital, or hesitated to place unbounded confidence in its treatment of the sick, I should content myself by simply referring him to its list of medical officers. Of the disinterestedness and generosity of those medical gentlemen I have already spoken. To their patience, to their unwearied attention, skill, humanity, and kindness, there are better witnesses than I am, and their name is Legion. No patient passes through this Hospital but carries out of doors his or her tale of pain relieved, disease cured, or casualty remedied, through the agency of these gentlemen. I need not remark to this company that these services, rendered without price, are above all price: and that these gentlemen are not only distinguished in the foremost ranks of their calling, but are foremost among the most generous members of the most generous profession known to civilization. I have been requested by the managers of this dinner to couple with the toast of the medical officers, that benevolent body of Ladies who now act as nurses in the Hospital; and I have particularly been requested to convey to you the earnest assurance of the managers, that the vigilance, patience, and tenderness of those Ladies, combined with their undoubted qualification for the duties they have undertaken, have given to those who have had the best opportunity of observing them, the warmest satisfaction. Also, that they have in all things most honourably observed their pledge never in the least to interfere with the religious opinions of the patients. Gentlemen, I propose to you to drink ‘The Medical Officers of the Hospital, and the Ladies of All Saints’ Home, coupled with the name of Dr. Reynolds’.  I have next to propose ‘The health of the Chaplain of the Hospital, the Rev. Dr. Stebbing’. I hope that I may be excused for saying that it is personally interesting to me to have an old fellow labourer in literature in so distinguished and responsible a position. Through more years than one cares to count at a festival, I have known Dr. Stebbing to have enriched the sounder literature of the time, with various contributions strongly expressive of his ability, his industry, and his learning. And so various has he been, that I should bestow here a word of eulogy upon his verse if I were not immediately jostled by the recollection of his prose papers in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and should recall the merits of his continuation of the History of the Church, if I were not divided between that and the merits of his Italian Poets. But sure I am, gentlemen, that the influence of these attainments upon so modest a nature and so good a man, must always tend to the advantage of his charges in the Hospital, and as I observe the wards themselves to have been recently brightened and humanized by some infusion of the arts, so I feel convinced that their occupants, who are the subjects of the Chaplain’s gentle ministration, never find it the less persuasive or the less consolatory, because of the graces of his mind. I immediately accept the duty suggested by my reverend friend, as one who has been a student, as one who knows the aspirations of a young and striving man, as one who has felt them, accompanied with that poverty which is the lot of many young men, as one who has attained to that success which is the lot of few. I beg to propose to you the health of the young and striving body, ‘The Students of the University College Hospital’.