16 MAY 1891, Page 2

On Wednesday, the day for the presentation of degrees,. when,

as it was hoped, the new Chancellor, LordiDerby, might have appeared to do honour to his predecessor's memory and to inaugurate his own official career, the prevailing epidemic, from which Lord Derby is only slowly recovering, deprived the University of his presence. Sir James Paget, however, the Vice-Chancellor, supplied his place with his usual dignity and ability, and paid an eloquent and graceful tribute to Lord' Granville for his long and most devoted services, as well as his most apt and wise counsels. He announced, in the name of the new Chancellor, that a scholarship of not'less than £50 a year would be provided to bear the name of Lord Granville, and to perpetuate the memory of his great work for the Univer sity. On the subject of the rejection of the Draft Charter. by Convocation, Sir James Paget deliberately refrained from touching. Probably he hardly agreed with Lord Herschel in thinking that the immense dissatisfaction with which the revised constitution had been received, afforded a remarkable. testimony to its impartiality and general merits. Indeed,. testimonials to merit of this description are not usually regarded with favour by the advocates of a representative system. Unpopularity may sometimes be a criterion of merit ;, but where it is, it is a criterion of merit that condemns the generation which was blind to virtues it ought to have recognised.