Excerpt from On Some Academical Experiences of the German Renascence: An Address Introductory to the Session 1878-9 of the Owens College, Manchester Among the many devices of the Renascence age there is one consisting of two words, engraved over a 'scholar's door, which, though it seems to breathe the atmosphere of a world where it is always Long Vaca tion, I may perhaps not inappropriately quote to you to-day. Inscriptions, even when they are not epitaphs, must not be read all too literally; and there seems something of irony in the contrast between sentiment and experience, when one remembers the life of the man who chose forbis motto, - I might almost say when one remembers the fate of the house for which the motto was chosen, - Beata' tranquillitas Blessed is tran quillity. For in many ways this life was a far from tranquil one, and the house which long sheltered it was in the end sacked by that natural enemy of all tranquillity - a mob with a cry. And if it is most true, in the words which Landor puts into the mouth of Machiavelli, that the sleeper is more tranquil than the wide-awake, and the dead even than he - then the tranquillity enjoyed within the walls which bore this placid legend was something very different from the repose of night and the stillness of the tomb. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.