ſpirited deſign of our wiſe and munificent benefactor. And this he muſt more eſpecially dread, when he feels by experience how unequal his abilities are (unaſſiſted by preceding examples) to complete, in the manner he could wiſh, ſo extenſive and arduous a taſk; ſince he freely confeſſes, that his former more private attempts have fallen very ſhort of his own ideas of perfection. And yet the candour he has already experienced, and this laſt tranſcendent mark of regard, his preſent nomination by the free and unanimous ſuffrage of a great and learned univerſity, (an honour to be ever remembered with the deepeſt and moſt affectionate gratitude) theſe teſtimonies of your public judgment muſt entirely ſuperſede his own, and forbid him to believe himſelf totally inſufficient for the labour at leaſt of this employment. One thing he will venture to hope for, and it certainly ſhall be his conſtant aim, by diligence and attention to atone for his other defects; eſteeming, that the beſt return, which he can poſſibly make for your favourable opinion of his capacity, will be his unwearied endeavours in ſome little degree to deſerve it.
The ſcience thus committed to his charge, to be cultivated, methodized, and explained in a courſe of academical lectures, is that of the laws and conſtitution of our own country: a ſpecies of knowlege, in which the gentlemen of England have been more remarkably deficient than thoſe of all Europe beſides. In moſt of the nations on the continent, where the civil or imperial law under different modifications is cloſely interwoven with the municipal laws of the land, no gentleman, or at leaſt no ſcholar, thinks his education is completed, till he has attended a courſe or two of lectures, both upon the inſtitutes of Juſtinian and the local conſtitutions of his native ſoil, under the very eminent profeſſors that abound in their ſeveral univerſities. And in the northern parts of our own iſland, where alſo the municipal laws are frequently connected with the civil, it is difficult to meet with a perſon of liberal education, who is deſtitute of a competent knowlege in that ſcience, which is to be the guardian of his natural rights and the rule of his civil conduct.
