On a History of Greek Commerce

Extract

In electing me to the Presidency of the Hellenic Society you have paid me the highest compliment to which any British Hellenist can aspire. It is an honour which I accept with all gratitude and, I can assure you, with all humility. It is impossible for me to look back at the names of the distinguished men who have already held the post, without reflecting that I am not of their rank—I am by profession neither a great academic teacher nor, like my old schoolfellow and friend Sir Arthur Evans, whose position I am prematurely called upon to fill, a man who has devoted his whole life to the advancement of archæology. It would be an impertinence in me to praise the work done by Sir Arthur; it is on the lips of all the learned world.

When I think of Evans as we knew him at Harrow, I remember him in a double capacity. First as a scientific observer, by inheritance, as I need not remind you, from his distinguished and many-sided father. Whether it was a question of coins, of flint implements, or of natural history, Evans was always the leader of our school Scientific Society—matched only in some points by another friend, too soon lost to science, Frank Balfour. I remember one small matter, which always strikes me as characteristic—that Evans exhibited at one of our meetings specimens of leaves of plants from the carboniferous epoch which he had picked out of the coal-scuttle in his room.