Sir Stafford Northeote's Rectorial address to the University of Edinburgh
on Wednesday was the best Rectorial address of the kind that we can remember. He was very happy in his quotations from the Athenian thinkers and historians who given their estimate of the strong points and the deficiencies of youth. He quoted the saying of Pericles, "The taking of the youth out of a State is like taking the spring out of the year." Ile quoted Aristotle's description of youth as ardent, changeful, passionate; eager for honour and still more eager for victory ;
• good-natured, credulous, hopeful, easily deceived, courageous, modest, magnanimous ; disposed to excess; confident, positive, sometimes wanton, but not malicious; compassionate, cheerful, lively. All these qualities of youth, Sir Stafford wanted to have either confirmed or chastened, according as they are good or -otherwise ; and he believed that there was no training so good as -that of the ancient learning for refining and subduing the greater qualities of youth. The truth is that, as Sir Stafford Northcote's whole address showed, he thoroughly enjoys going back to the Greek culture of his youth, and sunning himself in it once more. He prefers the Antigone of Sophocles' play even -to Shakespeare's Isabella-in Measure for Measure, and he finds Thucydides more taking, if not more informing, than Mr. Grote. The simpler and more statuesque forms of character and of narrative "find" Sir Stafford Northcote more easily than the more elaborate and complex.
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