XVII.] EXCUSE FOR EGOTISM. 427 in preparation for meeting the Commission which was understood to be impending, and which has since worked changes in our constitution, collegiate and academic, which are now only beginning to develop results. I attempted, in the two lectures which I delivered then, to take a comprehensive survey of the condition of Historical Study, so far as it affected our own material and method, both within and outside of our own borders, and to express certain views which I hoped might find favour in the expected reforms. Without following the same plan, I propose now to take up, and, in the desultory way which is almost necessary under the circumstances, to remark upon some of the more important points which have varied our own history, as academic and historic workers, since that time. If I speak too much of myself, I will ask you to believe that it is not because I set an especially high value on my own services, for none knows or feels better than I do how much more I ought to have done, or how little my share has been in what has been done ; still less because I undervalue the labours of my fellowworkers, who have had far more personal anxiety and more direct and more measurable responsibilities than I have had ; it is mainly because the retrospect of my own work is forced upon me by the circumstances of my departure from Oxford ; also because, not only as Professor, but in several other capacities, as Delegate of the Press, Curator of the Bodleian, a Member of Council, and as having a share too of the representation of our Oxford School of History before the outside world, I have had work to do and a place to fill which it would be very mock humility on my part to leave out of sight now that I am parting from such a home as this. You will pardon me, I hope and trust, because it is the last time. A word first on our losses and our gains : and our losses and gains are so intimately bound together that I must take