But this his Lordship, hoped he would be allowed to say (his auditors would not pardon him were he to say less), we owe to him, as a people, a large and heavy debt of gratitude.

He it is who has opened to foreigners the grand and characteristic beauties of our country.

It is to him that we owe that our gallant ancestors and the struggles of our illustrious patriots--who fought and bled in order to obtain and secure that independence and that liberty we now enjoy--have obtained a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote and comparatively obscure nation, and who has called down upon their struggles for glory and freedom the admiration of foreign countries.

He it is who has conferred a new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on Scotland an imperishable name, were it only by her having given birth to himself.

(Loud and rapturous applause.) Sir WALTER SCOTT certainly did not think that, in coming here to-day, he would have the task of acknowledging, before three hundred gentlemen, a secret which, considering that it was communicated to more than twenty people, had been remarkably well kept.