Would that
the criterion of a scholar's utility were the number and moral value
of the truths, which he has been the means of throwing into the
general circulation; or the number and value of the minds, whom by his
conversation or letters, he has excited into activity, and supplied
with the germs of their after-growth! A distinguished rank might not
indeed, even then, be awarded to my exertions; but I should dare look
forward with confidence to an honourable acquittal. I should dare
appeal to the numerous and respectable audiences, which at different
times and in different places honoured my lecture rooms with their
attendance, whether the points of view from which the subjects treated
of were surveyed,--whether the grounds of my reasoning were such, as
they had heard or read elsewhere, or have since found in previous
publications. I can conscientiously declare, that the complete success
of the REMORSE on the first night of its representation did not give
me as great or as heart-felt a pleasure, as the observation that the
pit and boxes were crowded with faces familiar to me, though of
individuals whose names I did not know, and of whom I knew nothing,
but that they had attended one or other of my courses of lectures.
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