After the Queen had left, the Chancellor distributed the medals
and certificates of degrees, and made his annual speech, which was, this year, to some extent a review of the history of the University, and, therefore, somewhat more formal and less amusing than Lord Granville's speeches on these occasions usually are. He referred, however, rather happily to the occasion when Queen Elizabeth made her visitation to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, "questioning, and answering, and scolding, not only in Latin, but also in Greek." It was perhaps lucky for some of the Senate of the University of London that Queen Victoria has no gift for such visitations as that, or the scolding might have been fairly earned, by inability to become interlocutors in such a conversation. Mr. Lowe, in a short speech, which he was called back into the theatre to deliver, and which he said his 'natural modesty' had alone prevented him from delivering before, while congratulating the University on its new building and the Queen's visit, took the opportunity of contrasting its reputation as a University with reputations gained by historical associations, the grant of lands, or "by royal favour," and expressed his belief that the London University must always rest on its honesty and ability in testing intellectual attainments, without prejudice or favour. But the speaking was a mere fringe to the pageant. The costumes of the doctors, and of the statesmen, and of the lifeguards, and the trumpeters, and the royal outriders in their scarlet and gold, were so splendid that the spoken words were blanched by the contrast. A university as a university might easily be drowned in pageant.
