The Press.
London, England, 1854-05-06 00:00:00

MAY 6, 1854.

appearance than I see him this evening. (Cheers and
laugher.) The president has adverted to the opportunity
that the noble lord and his colleagues posers& of advancing
the fine arts iu this country. (hear, hear.) I think that
the expressions of sympathy on the part of the noble lord and
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are not phrases only to
be remembered on the anniversaries of the Royal Academy.
I know that it is easy to say that at the present period it is
almost impossible either to call public attention ur to apply
pnblic resources for the furtherance of the interests of the
fine arts, or to support th e efforts that may be made to form and
reifine the public taste. But it la a great fallacy to pretend, be-
cause a nation ie unhappily at war, that the arts of peace ought
not to be cultivated. Yon will rather find. if you appeal to
history, that it is when a nation feels an thinks the most
deeply that the arts moat flourish—(Hear, hear)—and we
ought to feel at this moment that we aggravate the evils
of war if, while it is our determination to make those
efforts that are necessary to vindicate the honour and in-
terests of this country, we do not also do ell in our
power, by our sacrifices and by our energy, to advance the
cultivation of the human mind and the refinement of the
human intellect. (Cheers.) After all it is a marvel how
little is required greatly to assist the public taste. We
have had many occasions to mourn over those opportu-
nities which we have lost from the want of a very small
sum advanced by the Government to purchase works
which would have improved the public taste. I can ima-
gine the despair of a public servant when he sees millions
expended for the operations of war, and the arrangements
of a campaign, and feels that a gallery must be sacrificed,
and that the opportunity of obtaining works of art of price-
less value must be foregone when they might be obtained
at a slight expenditure compared with the vast coat that is
entailed by the policy which we from a sense of duty pur-
sue. (Hear.) We ought not to tolerate the opinion that
it is necessary to pass those opportunities which may pre-
sent themselves of advancing the public taste, and we
ought, on one day in the year at least, to look forward to
the time when it shall be considered the duty of a states-
man to serve his country and to advance the arts. (Loud
cheers.)"
" The health of the Lord Mayor and prosperity to
the city of London " was accompanied by the expres-
sion of a slight hope that at some future time the
well-being of the City would not be found incompa-
tible with the external beauty of the metropolis. The
toast of the Home Secretary was then given, to which
Lord Palmerston replied by a speech in which he mo-
destly limited his own claim to service in the cause of
arts to the passing of a bill for consuming the smoke
that destroyed its productions. Other toasts of less
interest followed, and the company about ten o'clock
dispersed through the rooms to take a passing glance
at the pictures.

ROYAL LITERARY FUND.
THE 65th anniversary of this institution was cele-
brated on Wednesday evening by a dinner at the
Albion Tavern. Viscount Mahon took the chair,
supported by a numerous circle.
The CHAIItHAN, in proposing the toast of the day,
" Prosperity to the Literary Fund," expressed his
respect for the motives of the founders and his
gratitude for their exertions. He proceeded to
enumerate the various advantages of a collateral
and adventitious kind which the institution had
occasioned :
" Among the subservient advantages of a meeting like
the present might be numbered the friendly communion
which it established between different classes of literary
men. A poet who should live only with poets, a novelist
who should live only with novelists, an historian who
should live only with historians, would acquire but a very
slight and imperfect knowledge of the great field of litera-
ture in which there were so many labourers. flat by a
friendly communion of different classes of writers in a
meeting like the present, they were each of them enabled
to form a juster appreciation of the merits of the rest. And
it was not merely the different classes of literary men that
were brought together at a meeting like this. It had also
the advantage of eliciting the sympathy of various nations.
They saw among them not Englishrhen merely, but men
who had come from the furthest regions of the earth, all
ready like themselves to testify, by taking part in the
meeting, their love and their respect for literature. He
thought it was a great advantage that these meetings
should give an opportunity of union to those who were no
strangers to each other in feeling, and who only desired to
become better acquain'ed with each other in order to hi
crease their mutual friendship and regard. (Hear, hear.)
lint this meeting VMS also important from the encourage-
ment which it must hold out to those younger men who
had just entered upon the field of literature. It must be
an encouragement to them to see, as might continually be
seen at these annual meetings, men who had attained to
great eminence in various professions and walks of life
come forward and express the delight and gratification
which, in the midst of their pursuits, they had derived
from the study of literature. It must be an encouragement
to young men of letters to see some of the most eminent
men of every profession in this country brought together
by their love for that study, for it was certainly a remark
able and an animating fact that we might point to some of
to most learned persons, to some of those who had
ined the greatest eminence in this country, as men
who apart from their professional distinction, had achieved
'
gr?.at renown in literature. If they looked amongst the
tt-cessful physicians they would find that Halford and
Idolland were distinguished, the one for his classical pro-
s ductions in the Latin language, while the other wag dis-
tinguished not in one but in many branches of literature.
If to the law, he had only to mention the names of
Brougham or Canning, or refer to that eminent man