The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-16 00:00:00

THE ROYAL LITERARY PUND.

The seventy-eighth anniversary dinner of the
subscribers to this fund was given at Willis's Rooms, yes-
terday, the Very Rev. Dr. Miami, Dean of bt. Paul's,
in the chair. Amongst the oompsny present were :
Earl Stanhope, Viscount Stu andord, M. Van
de Weyer, Belgian Minister ; Dean of Westmin-
ster, Dean of Canterbury, the President of the Royal
Academy (Sir F. Grant), Sir Henry Holland, Bart., Sir
John Simeon Bart. Sir Francis Doyle, Bart, Sir W.
Milman, Bart:, Sir Robert Phillimore, Queen's Advocate;
Sir John Davis, Bart., Mr. Beresford Hope, M.P., Mr.
Newdegate, 11. P., Mr. Gurney, M.P., Mr. Moran, Secre-
sary of the American Legation; Brigadier-General Sharpe,
of the Unit4.-d States Army ; Mr. Fairbairn, F.R.S., Rev.
Cason Robertson, Archdeacon Emery, Mr. Anthony
Trollope, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Edward Dicey, Mr. John
Bagehot, Professor Bain, Professor Edward Poste, Mr.
Henri Bright, of Liverpool ; Mr. Follett Synge, Mr.
Hamilton Hume, Mr. Robert Potts, of Cambridge ; Mr.
George Godwin, Dr. CoplAnd, Dr. Wadham, Rev. W.
H. Milman, Ur. Oum, Dr. W. Smith, Mr. John Murray,
Mr. Robert Cooke, Mr. Macpherson, Mr. H. L Anderson,
Mr. W. E. Green, Mr. W. R. Greg, Mr. John Dickinson,
F.R.S., Mr. Edmund Pepys.
The usual loyal toasts having been drunk with due
honours,
_ -

The proposed the toast of the evening,
" Prosperity to the Royal Literary Fund." He said that
company had assembled for the purposes of showing their
sympathy with the less fel tuning member* of the literary
guild. He might perhaps be permitted to make a few ob-
servations on the state of English literature. English lite-
rature was not now confined to this country, but was
spread, he was going to say, over half the habitable world,
but he would say over half the civilised world. English
books were read and English authors were known, not only
on the banks of the Thames and the Severn, the Trent
widths Forth, but of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi,
and the Ohio, and on all the seaboards of the vast conti-
nent of Australia, of the Orange River, and of the streams
which washed southern Africa, of the Ganges and of the
Indus, and perhaps be might say of the Yellow River of
I China. The authorities of the Custom-house, he dared
say, took little account of the statistics of literature
or of intellectual progress, but when a ship from
' England arrived at BOstol2. or New York, or Sydney,
or Melbourne, and perhaps Hong Kong the inquiry was
not what calico had they got from Manchester or Glasgow,
or what hardware from Birmingham, or what cutlery front
Sheffield, but what had they got from Albemarle-street and
Paternoster-row—what new historical volumes had been
published, and what new works were there by Dickens,
or Trollope, or Bulwer or what more abstruse work or
essay by Mr. Stuart Mill or the Duke of Argyll ? or what
new essays were there on the history and progress of Lin-
: mime Professor Max Muller, or what works of science
by Sir John Herschel, or Mr. Tyndall, or Professor Owen.
The English boasted of being great founders of colonies,
but he maintained that the great conquerors, because their
conquests were the most durable and most beneficial to
mankind, were the author, of England, and their conquests
were not confined to the dominions of England, but ex-
tended over the whole civilized world. Shakespeare was
a greater conqueror than Alexander or Caviar or Napoleon.
Why, there was not a library from California to Labrador,
or from New York to Westminster, that had not the
works of Shakespeare on its shelves. But while some
authors were successful and got their reward, there were
others who were not able to continue the contest with the
vicissitudes and misfortunes of life. He would say nothing
of the uncertainty of the public taste, of the shifting of
fashion, of the variation in the wind of popular judgment,
nothing of those to whom originality was at once their
glory and their misfortune—men who were before
their age, who spoke • language unintelligible to their
age, and who in consequence left behind imperfect
structures out of the materials of which others who fol-
lowed built magnificent and famous edifices. Without
saying anything of these, he asked them to consider how
many there were whose hopeful career was suddenly cut
off by some of the inevitable calamities of life. It was
such men as these who received the assistance of this
society—assistance which was never given except the
claimant was a man of literary merit, but which had
been extended to men of whom literature was proud,
and on these grounds he thought the society worthy of
continued and extended support.
Mr. GODWIN then read an extract from the report, from
which it appeared that during the year 49 persons had
been relieved, comprising 33 males and 16 females, who
had received together 1,605/. He also read a list of the
subscriptions and donations, which amounted altogether to
about 700/., including a donation of 100 guineas, being the
thirtieth of a like amount, from the Queen.
Amongst the other touts were : " The Church," coupled
with the name of the Dean of Canterbury, which was pro-
Llstlby Mr. Beresford Hope, H.P., and responded to
e Dean ; " The Dean of Bt. Paul's, the Chairman,"
proposed by Earl Stanhope; "Historical Literatureand the
Dean of Westminster," proposed by the Queen's Advocate,
and responded to by Dean Stanley ; and " Imaginative
Literature," proposed by Sir Francis Doyle, and responded
to by Mr. Anthony Trollope.