You will find a somewhat illuminating passage—­illuminating, that is, if you choose to interpret and apply it to our subject—­in Lucian’s “True History,” where the veracious traveller, who tells the tale, affirms that he visited Hades among other places, and had some conversation with Homer, among its many inhabitants—­

Before many days had passed, I accosted the poet Homer, when we were both disengaged, and asked him, among other things, where he came from; it was still a burning question with us, I explained.  He said he was aware that some derived him from Chios, others from Smyrna, and others again from Colophon; but in fact he was a Babylonian, generally known not as Homer but as Tigranes; but when later in life he was given as a homer or hostage to the Greeks, that name clung to him.  Another of my questions was about the so-called spurious books; had he written them or not?  He said that they were all genuine:  so I now knew what to think of the critics Zenodotus and Aristarchus and all their lucubrations.  Having got a categorical answer on that point, I tried him next on his reason for starting the “Iliad” with the wrath of Achilles.  He said he had no exquisite reason; it just came into his head that way.

Even so diverse are the questions that may be asked concerning any great work of art.  But to discover its full intent is always the most difficult task of all.  That task, however, and nothing less difficult, will always be the one worthiest of a great University.

On that, and on that alone, Gentlemen, do I base all claims for our School of English Literature.  And yet in conclusion I will ask you, reminding yourselves how fortunate is your lot in Cambridge, to think of fellow-Englishmen far less fortunate.

Years ago I took some pains to examine the examination papers set by a renowned Examining Body and I found this—­’I humbly solicit’ (to use a phrase of Lucian’s) ‘my hearers’ incredulity’—­that in a paper set upon three Acts of “Hamlet”—­three Acts of “Hamlet"!—­the first question started with ‘G.tt. p..cha’ ‘Al..g.tor’ and invited the candidate to fill in the missing letters correctly.  Now I was morally certain that the words ‘gutta-percha’ and ‘alligator’ did not occur in the first three Acts of “Hamlet”; but having carefully re-read them I invited this examining body to explain itself.  The answer I got was that, to understand Shakespeare, a student must first understand the English Language!  Some of you on leaving Cambridge will go out—­a company of Christian folk dispersed throughout the world—­to tell English children of English Literature.  Such are the pedagogic fetters you will have to knock off their young minds before they can stand and walk.