The Express.
London, England, 1861-05-20 00:00:00

010. WITH AND MN

PIIRI EXTRACT-or-biCvss' FEET,
'fur Invalids _• Cidleery Una
Slid la 111.,4 . St. and 42. parties& by all sitsuilsta 'nem, Re
111ANCYALTIOWY. 2S. LITTLIIIPOSMANDOI.. isgint,si. W.

.OYB2III HYDROSTATIC TIA and COFFZI
PTALULAToIt —1 to 100.1030 ea" woes am la •
isoutool Oroot goyim. MOOS Wit Prams Oa
Pnepocsas wet f...—i. 011.1.13.205 t. IS. Caelleal+traot. LC.

SECOND-HAND PIANOFORTES. MOM, BULK sni On awe • aye sessrlesen et
opseminnal In•atusiss. by the non esnessee anon le
rune nand pass.-11% aspeaminsit.

Tht enireoo.

10 00111111101NTIL
Idoorthowowbo blembil be "The Limos " Leedom Ibsen
raw, wo4 be el tie elle. lib, lioovorlwattoot, by Two
York oe tbe dep elyellfreebea.

IRA t 1 NATULIT.
TIM r V1C41114, BLAME surir. %lowa Backskee, Coatgokm.
Vllhan. an.l Mn. C. Vaunt. Mrs. Wilkins, Mrs. Cor.
l'..peter. arul Mks Lovell —And TIM MILLI& AND
lit S. el 7.

PiMICIPProk
Int. KY 0111110, TRILICI KAMM Nr. Mon soll Mw
Le. le r% - %sad RA ULM% Mews. Ryder. law n%
Wilma. 1 ens. Weems. afti !Wm ; Miss anyway and
MI. Heath.

lialTarrta.
Tars Comm Ear mamma& Ikniorra W. Cranford
IL Varecid. awl It law by Mr. M. M. Isithrea AAA
Mr M. liploory.-1(11 MYIRILL IinVOSIIIIL Mimi. Jacobs
WM* LAM Weeder.—Aad ZINGAULLA. Mrs. L Runner.

WWI WATER AT 105101 ARID=
TWO DAT -4118wais WA Ilia.— Ahommeas. IC4I. an
TthEWWW—WwWwi Lis lim .... Mumma. WA BD&

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 20.

THe interests of Literature and its professors
have deed rather prominently before the public
eye just lately. The Dec D'Aeuata's speech at
the Literary Fund Dinner was well worth listening
to. We were well disposed to hear about the
appreciation of literature from a member of a great
nation which differs widely from us in its view of
the place which literature should hold in the can-
didature fur social honours. All that the French
Prince told us was full of interest ; and perhaps it
might be equally interesting to a company of his
countrymen to hear from a contented English
author why political office and social rank are not
with us among the rewards of literary effort. We
occasionally hear a lamentation that it is not so,
it is true. Now and then a wail is uttered that,
while distinguished authors in France and Ger-
many become office-holders and pensioners, no
such patronage is accorded to them in England.
But, on the whole, we seem to be satisfied that it
is better am it is. Englishmen believe that literary
pursuit of any high order requires all a
mans powers, exercised without disturbance and
distraction. We believe that to give political
office to an author is to spoil two kinds of work,
either of which is cuough for any man. We be-
lieve that there is no relation between the natural
and inevitable rewards of intellectual service—the
fame and influence which great authors enjoy—
and the arbitrary recompenses awarded by patron-
age from any quarter. We believe that great
authors are not ennobled by rank, nor distinguished
by titles, nor enriched by pensions, nor blessed by
being taken from their natural work to do some-
thing quite different, however fair an object of
ambition the poet may otherwise be. An English
author would pine in any State office, and long
for the quiet of his study. He would be irritated
by the forms and tone of Court life, and sigh for
the freedom and busy leisure of retreat. We
do not want peerage., and secretaryships,
and diplomatic stations for our author. ;
nor do they desire them for themselves ;
though one or another may occasionally ask
with some discontent, what we do for our intense,-
tual noblemen, while France and Germany, and
now Italy and Hungary, thrust thorn into the fore-
most positions of honour.
Still there is something wanting here. It is
not to our credit that the only public acknow-
ledgment of literary service should be in the form
of charity, however delicate end noble, or a patron-
age so capricious and fortuitous that it discharges
the whole element of honour from its gifts. We
have the Literary Fund for charitable purposes ;
and it is admirable in its way : and we have a
small apparatus for pensioning literary and scien-
tific persons which is a blot on our reputation as a
cultivated people. The poor 1,2001. a year which
is all that the nation provides for pensions for scien-
tific and literary service is perhaps as much an
annoyance for those who have to dispense it as a
vexation and hnmiliatiou to those who par-
take of it. Nobody has ever been satisfied
with that appropriation as far as we have
ever heard. Nobody thinks the amount
proper, nor the distribution, nor the mode of dis-
pensation. So much is said to the recipients about
the honour of that pension that they feel the more
keenly that it is a humiliation. The story of Mr.
FARADAY'II morning visit to Lord MILDOCENE will
never be forgotten, nor that outspoken Premier's
description of those pensions. That story, and
whatever else has been said against that small de-
partment of patronage, has been revived in men's
minds by the case of the so-called poet of West-
moreland, about whom a question wee asked in
the House, a week or two since, by Mr. Benue°,
the member for Perthshire. Some of our con-
temporaries have been making themselves merry
with this Mr. Cuss's lays, since Lord Psymtaerwir
declared him to be "in the same category with
" Brume ;"—" not equal to Brain, but in the
" same category." The indisputable truth is that
Mr. ewer writes doggrel, which would have been
disdained for bellman's verses in the last days
of the old corporations. He may be "in the same
" category with Beans," in as far as that he
is " a poor man, with five small children"
(though the frontispiece to one of his tracts
exhibits a handsome printing-office and circulating
library); but, inainnuch as he is not a poet, his
case in widely unlike that of Brevet. Yet Lord
PaLinsiurros has given him a pension of 501. a
year. So much feeling has been excited about
this grant that it may be hoped that some good
will come out of it. The misapplication of the
money is the smallest part of it. h
is the insult to literature which is so stratify
resented. It is a humiliation to every other reci-
pient of a literary pension to be placed "in the
"saris category" with "the Laureate of the
" King of BONNT ;" and it jars upon everybody's
feelings to know that the gifts of the Government
can be obtained for any impostor or say quack in
literature fur whom a certain amount of importu-
nity is exercised. Mr. genius° promises to
renew the inquiry in the House ; and we hope he
will, as a means of drawing attention, in some
practical way, to these pensions.

, - The oini(;us remark is that Lord Pm-mammy
is not the person to blame in the ease. A Minister
cannot read the literature, nor study the science
which springs up while he is busy in his own func-
tion. Doss this not suggest the question whether
the Pruitt Iftworris is therefore the proper souros
of such patronage! It is easy to say (what is
quite true) that the persons who recommended
this Mr. ewes for a pension are the censurable