The substance of the following Discourse was delivered in the Chapel of Trinity College, on the day of the Annual Commemoration in December last, and is published at the request of the junior Members of the Society, to whom it was more immediately addressed. As the long delay in its publication requires some apology, the Author begs leave to state, that the request, on which he is now acting, first reached him during the Christmas vacation, when he was absent from the University; and that for some weeks after his return he was so much occupied in completing a course of lectures and in passing two memoirs through the press, that the Lent Term had nearly expired before he had time to revise his MS. for the printer. Without any further delay it was then struck off as far as page 33; and he hoped to have published it at the commencement of the Easter Term.

During its progress through the press he found however that he had undertaken a more difficult task than he had imagined: for having animadverted with much freedom on some parts of the Cambridge course of reading, he felt himself compelled, before he dared to give what he had written to the public, to enter at more length on a justification of his opinions.