The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-23 00:00:00

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313 t,

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1855.

A bombshell has fallen suddenly in the midst
of the torpid and dozey group of gentlemen re-
presenting the Royal Literary Fund Association.
It dropped amongst them—plomb 1 and with
scarcely a moment's forewarning—on the after-
noon of the 14th of this present month, and hardly
fell before it exploded. No charitable augur hadl
conjured the unfortunates even by a hint or an
innuendo to Beware the idea of March ! Every-
thing seemed to them, doubtless, to be going on
pretty much as usual, just in precisely the same
sluggish, idle, dawdling fashion to which the
society had become, by the sheer force of habit,
regularly accustomed. The annual meeting of the
Fund, that is to say, in other words, of its sym-
pathisers and supporters, was in due course an-
nounced. The cobwebs were swept out of the
Society's Rooms, the shutters were opened for
light and the windows for ventilation, and for
once the outer-door stood a-jar in Great Russell-
street, Bloomsbury. At the appointed hour the
gathering commenced. The members of the
Council for the current year were there, but
nervous as by a- sort of presentiment. Tito
members of the General Committee were
there, likewise, but in numbers so unusually
large as to threaten something that had
never, until then, been dreamt of either
in the Auditors' or in HORATIO'S philosophy.
The venerable Oxford evergreen, with the pe-
rennial flower blooming, no doubt, as freshly as
ever in the accustomed button-hole, was selected
as Chairman for the occasion. The accounts were
looked over, possibly as it might have seemed to
the uninitiated merely pro formd, with all usual
languor and habitual negligence. When—the
bombshell before mentioned, smoking, hissinr,
grim, hot, and detonative, was unexpectedly
trundled on to the platform. Such dismay and
confusion as ensued ! Such desperate efforts to
quench the vitality of that horrible missile, laden
with the materials of destruction ! Such abortive
attempts to "put it out," to "throw it overboard.,"
to kick it under the table as an eyesore and a
nuisance—just as they do night after night thoGe
bundles of waste-paper, called petitions, in the
Commons House of Parliament. All to no pur-
pose, however,—in spite of that deprecative re-
mark of Sir R. H. INGLIS, " We are following the
precedent of the Royal Society"—in spite of that
gallant assumption of a nonchalance that could not
possibly have been felt by Mr. E. Foss, when lie
inquired so amusingly from the exquisite apposite-
ness of the query, " Would any reform do us any
100,11" 'Would it ? The question was answered,
just iu the nick of time, too, by the aforesaid
b°ral'hell, when it in due course exploded. Such
a wholesors6 explosion as it was, moreover—like
that of thunder Oa a sultry day—freshening and
purifying the whole atmosphere !
Now that the noise of it has been bruited abroad
from that little Classic corn
;alds
corner of Bloomsbury, we
may say of the society, as the Bourbon-heralds
were wont to say of royalty from the windows of
the Tuileries_ The Literary Fund
is Dead •Long
live the Literary Fund ! The Literary Fund,
that is, redivivus, thoroughly reformed and com-
pletely reorganised.
Virtually the Society is, from this moment,
already, thus reformed and reorganised. Although
nothing more has yet been done than the appoint-
ment of a Committee—to consider the propriety of
applying for a new Charter or Act of Parliament.
But then the manner in which this really remark-
able Committee has been 'constituted, is of itself
a sufficient guarantee that its labours will be every-
thing that could well be desired or expected. Its
chairman is the NESTOR of Politicians. Its lead-
ing members include amongst their number, be-
sides the accomplished celebrant of TASSO, and
the genial biographer of GOLDSMITH, the first
lyrist, the first humorist, and the first satirist of
our generation, to say nothing of that facile prin-
C.e.ps among living men of letters in England—.
the PROTEUS of prose and poetic fiction—the
Admirable CRICHTON of literature. Otherwise,

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