The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1853.

It is observable from the statistics of the annual
mortality furnished by the Registrar-General, that
the most critical age of man is—Sixty-Three.

Why it should be so, it were perhaps difficult to
decide. But so it is, and so it continues to re-
main a problem baffling the elucidative powers of
the physiologist. Its solution may be traceable
possibly to the mystery of numbers ; or it may
be arrived at through what has been aptly termed
the metamorphosis of the tissues—one of the most
surprising of the many marvels making up the sys-
tem of the animal economy. However it may be
—there the fact is perpetually before us, in the
Doomsday-Book of Death, that momentous re-
cord which is being published ever and ever, leaf
by leaf, in periodical instalments. An average
proves beyond the reach of doubt, that the sixty-
third year is the most critical age with the gene-
rality of individuals. Philosophy shows us that
every seventh year the human frame, even to the
very marrow of our bones, is entirely renovated.
Whether any peculiar crisis is reached on the
attainment of the ninth seventh, it were some-
what puzzling to conjecture. About as puzzling
as it would be to attempt anything like a distinct
estimate of the relative value ''of the numbers
involved in the matter under discussion. As we
have already remarked, the only certainty in rela-
tion to the subject, as shown by the incontestible
evidence of statistics, is the fact that the sixty-
third is our most critical anniversary.
Without any question, it would be altogether
frivolous to place under this head within the same
category, not only men, but institutions. Our
conduct in doing so would, of course, be merely
idle and preposterous. Yet, remembering the
rather formidable coincidence of the crisis, as it
occurs to man, it is satisfactory (at least to our-
selves) whenever we see the perilous interval
passed by in safety, by institutions in whose ex-
istence our sympathies have become in any man-
ner interested.

Recently it has so occurred in reference to the
Literary Fund, now firmly established as a Royal
Corporation. Yesterday witnessed the sixty-
fourth anniversary
uofits foundation. The event
custom, by a
public , celebrated, according to
dinner at Freemasons' Hall—
s banquet presided o
the by the Right Hun. iiver, on _
present occasion,
ENJam-Dr DISRAELI. Those
management intrusted with the eaement of the institution
could scarcely have ma,,
under the circumstances. Encouragement
happier selection
fortunate and despondinc,es3uragelnent to menun-
fortunate of letters,
ob-
viously implied by the nomination was
as chairman
over the proceedings of last evening, a
who has risen to power simply through °f
.the
influ-
ence
acquired by aid of his intellectual
achieve-
ments--one who ultimately became a Ministerial
adviser of his Sovereign, by the exercise of those
capacities whic'l first gained him a name in litera-
ture—one, in fact, who presented to the world in
his own proper person, the unprecedented pheno-
menon of a novelist gazetted as Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Remembering the career of Mr.
DisuAlLt—remembering it even under the lurid
and distorting light thrown out by the malevolence

of the Edinburg/I.—remembering it through all
the derision of the Times, and all the spite of the
Post, and all the sneers of the Chronicle—we re-
peat, that substantial encouragement was affo ded
to men of letters by the instalment as Chairman
of the Literary Fund, this year, of the Right
Honourable Gentleman the leader of Her Ma.c sty's
Opposition. It was appropriate, moreover, that
he should have won his way to that position, that
he should have been selected to preside over the
anniversary proceedings of the Literary Fund
Dinner—himself a Scholar, and the son of a
Scholar—himself a labourer, and the descendant
of a labourer, in the beautiful fields of polite
literature. As he intimated in the course of his
remarks last evening, many years have elapsed
since the rise of the very institution over
the anniversary banquet of which lie himself was
then presiding, was watched over with peculiar
solicitude by his father, then in the first glory of
the popularity which has now ripened into a
classic the " Curiosities of Literature." It was
just, therefore, and graceful, that what was
tended in its infancy by DISRAELI the Elder,
should be commended in its maturity to the in-
terest of DISRAELI the Younger. It is impos-
sible for us not to admire the tone evidently
adopted throughout the remarks to which the
latter yesterday gave utterance, when speaking
of the band of authors,- to him a veritabl
brotherhood. That such was the feeling whiel
pervaded his allusions to them and their attendant
difficulties last evening, is to us, we repeat, suffi-
ciently evident, although we have listened to
them, not warm from the lips of the speaker, but
cold and faint, through the subtile but inadequate
echo of the stenographer. It is impossible, in-
deed, after carefully perusing, as we have done,
the speech delivered yesterday at the Literary
Fund Dinner by the ex-Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, not to admire the gentle and tender
appreciation evinced by him of that class among
whose honoured ranks he himself had first grasped
the guerdon of a reputation. No one but a man
who had himself struggled in that noble contest
for celebrity could have commented as Mr. Dm-
RAELI commented last night upon the inner life,
upon those hidden casualties and secret pangs
which impede from time to time, unknown to the
generality, the solitary labours of the student of
literature. No one but a man of literary experi-
ences could have referred in terms of such deli-
eate and refined sensibility to those intervals
when, the charmed public eagerly expecting to
witness a repetition of the spell it had found
fraught with fascination, " Nature might whisper
to the author that the brain which had been over-
worked should lie fallow, and that the frame
which had trembled with agitation required for
its nerves repose and stillness"—intervals which
the orator afterwards finely designated " those
great pauses which are the universal appanage
of imaginative minds.'' Everything through-
out that speech of the evening, the speech
in which the Chairman proposed as a
toast, " Prosperity to the Literary Fund, and
the health of its President, the Marquis of LANS-
DOWNE," everything in it, from first to last, ap-
pears to have demonstrated more and more clearly
the appropriateness of yesterday's proceedings
being presided over by a man like Mr. DISRAELI
—a man who has proved himself not only a
writer, but a statesman, not only au essayist,
but an orator, not only a novelist, but a financier,
the author of " Coningsby," and the Leader of
her MAJESTY'S Opposition.
Altogether the interesting festivities of last
eveningin Freemasons'-hall, could not it would seem
have passed off more satisfactorily. Among the
toasts proposed, we are surprised to observe one
remarkable omission—that is to say, supposing
the report given to be scrupulously accurate.
There were toasts such as " Professor CREASY and
the Historians," proposed by Lord STANLEY ; or
as " Professor AYTOUN and the Poets," proposed
by Mr. DIGEY SEYMOUR ; or, again, as " Justice
HALIBURTON (Sam Slick) and the Essayists," pro-
posed by Lord JOHN MANNERS. But with the
witty author of the " Chronicles of Clover-
nook," in the apartment, there was no toast of
" DOUGLAS JERROLD and the Novelists." At
any rate, we can perceive no such toast in the
report of last night's proceedings. And we are
the more surprised at the omission, because we
remember it to have been once remarked by the
Chairman of the evening—if we recollect rightly
the thought occurs somewhere in " Contarini
Fleming"—that prose fiction has latterly taken
the place of poetry, or rather that the true poet
of this age is—the Novelist. Besides, sonic
tribute such as this was due, we conceive, under
the circumstances to a popular writer like DOUGLAS
JERROLD, to say nothing whatever about the toast
here suggested being in a singularlygraceful manner
complimentary to the Right Honourable Gen-
tleman in the Chair. Excepting this single
hiatus, we can detect nothing in these fes-
tive proceedings of last night at which the
most captious could cavil, or at which the
most phlegmatic could carp. The dinner of
yesterday, in short, yields admirable augury for
the future prospects of the Literary Fund—to
ourselves, and no doubt to many others likewise,
the most interesting among our great eleemosynary
establishments.

The Commissioners appointed to inquire into
the process, practice, and system of pleading in
the Superior Courts of Common Law have pub-
lished a second Report, an analysis of which
appeared in our impression of last Monday. It
is a well-considered and carefully-formed docu-
ment, containing many valuable suggestions and
recommendations for the further improvement of
the procedure and practice of the several tribunals.
With the majority of these recommendations, we
fully coincide ; and we trust that they may be
speedily brought into practical operation by
a judicious extension of the Common Law Pro-
cedure Act.
The first point adverted to by the Commis-
sioners is the "Trial by Jury." They review
with great acuteness the various argu-
ments as to its comparative advantages
and disadvantages with the existing system.
The conclusion at which they arrive is favourable
to that which has long been considered the
" Palladium of English liberty," stating that,
" whilst they feel that there are cases in which a
jury may be advantageously dispensed with—as,
for instance, in matters of undisputed facts, and
where the question turns upon the legal effect of
evidence—they do not feel themselves warranted,
except in cases of account, to recommend that it
should be dispensed with ;" adding, that " on the
whole it works well, and enjoys the confidence of
the public." We believe that, there are few per-
sons who will not concur in this view of the case,
or in the slight modification suggested by the learn-
ed Commissioners, viz., that while Trial by Jury
constitutes the rule, it may be dispensed with, and
the issues of fact, as well as of law, left to the
decision of the presiding Judge, but only with the
consent of all parties. While every litigant, there-
fore, is entitled, ex debito justitice, to the judgment
of twelve of his peers, he may, if his opponents be
also willing, leave all matters in dispute to the
judgment of the Court, without the delay or ex-
pense of impannelling a Jury, or subjecting men
of business to the great inconvenience of absenting
themselves from their counting-houses, at the
greatest possible inconvenience to themselves and
their customers.
There is a class of cases such as are not fitted for
investigation before a jury. Loud and well-
founded complaints have been repeatedly put for-
ward by Judges and Juries at the time of the
Court being most uselessly and vexatiously wasted
in investigating matters of mere account that
could be far more easily settled, and at a tithe of
the expense, by an accountant or arbitrator. The
usual course in such eases is, after all the expenses
have been incurred, when several voluminous
briefs have been prepared and delivered, with
heavy fees to leading counsel, to merely open the
question ; and then, at the strong recommenda-
tion of the
Judge--sometimes approaching to
judicial
coercion—to refer the matter to the
arbitration of some barrister nominated by the
Judge or selected by the parties. Nothing gave
the public time is saved b ' y thug practice. Even
the Court fees must be satisfied,
meluding, if in