MY PREDECESSORS. [XVII. 43« fessorship during my occupation is its final and complete connexion with Oriel College. Of the professors before me, three, Dr. Beeke, who was in office during the early years of this century, and two better known men, Dr. Arnold and Mr. Halford Vaughan, had been fellows of Oriel. The Ordinance of 1857, passed nearly at the end of Mr. Vaughan's tenure of office, allowed Oriel College to undertake the payment of a considerable sum in augmentation of the annual income provided by King George II, which augmentation might be exchanged for a fellowship of the College : and by a University Statute of 1859 a new body of regulations was provided for the conduct of the professor. Under these Mr. Goldwin Smith and I have held office; he being, as fellow of University, ineligible for the Oriel Fellowship, became by election after his resignation an honorary fellow, and I was in 1868 elected to the fellowship which I still hold : henceforth the Regius Professor will, under the Commissioners' Statutes, be a Professor Fellow. Whilst I look back with pride and gratitude on the honour which the College conferred on me so early in my career as professor, and with a lifelong pleasure on the friendships that my connexion with Oriel enabled me to form, I fear that I have been a very unprofitable member of governing body and educational staff : I console myself with the reflexion that there are some minds, which, in some situations, acquit themselves of their responsibilities most satisfactorily by never getting in the way. Non-obstructiveness is not the highest degree of efficiency, but there are worse faults. Anyhow my successor will have a chance in this line of work of approving his superiority to what has gone before. The fact that two of my predecessors are alive and well is a matter of congratulation: Mr. Halford Vaughan and Mr. Goldwin Smith have both conferred on the Professorship an honour which I am glad to recognise. Both, eminent as