The Sun.
London, England, 1847-09-04 00:00:00

II: truing

LONDON, SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 4, 1847.

The most brilliant of our living Essayists remarks
in his inimitable criticism upon " Some Statesmen,
who have written Verses," that the present Adminis-

tration is, perhaps, the most literary of any of the
Governments to whose wisdom the destinies of Eng-
land have been committed. Therefore it is, that
we have been sanguine in anticipating from the mem-
bers of this Literary Cabinet that encouragement of
our National Literature, which circumstances have
of late so imperatively demanded. We have looked
with confidence for Ministerial assistance to such
living writers as have been undeservedly unfortunate
and fur official interposition wherever the mementoes
of bygone geniuses have been threatened with dese
cration or destruction. That we have not altogether
been disappointed in our anticipations is shown
the different pensions awarded by the munificence ot
the Administration since Lord J. RUSSELL was sum-
moned to the direction of aff iirs. When the orphar.
of T. HOOD an i the widow of T. CHALML.RS are
not overlooked, and when the declining years of
LEIGEC HUNT are relieved from anxieties of a pecu-
niary character, we have no reason to complain of the
indifference of our rulers to those who have adorned
our literature with the breathings of their philosophy.
the music of their eloquence, and the splendours of
their poetic creations.
An interesting occasion elicited from the First
Commissioner of her Majesty's Woods and Forests, on
IVednesday evening, certain observations, which will
not be considered lightly by the people of these
islands. Despite the pressure of political excitement
consequent upon a general election, there has been
anything but a manifestation of indifference at the
sale of SFIAIESPERE'S birthplace, at Stratford-upon-
Avon. Now that those elections are completed, and
that that excitement is abated, it is not very probable
that an allusion to the home of the infant
SRARSPERE from the lips of Lord MORPETTI will
be listened to in careless negligence by the thousands
who venerate the memory of our matchless bard.
In making the allusion to which we allude the Noble
Viscount seemed to avail himself of an opportunity
for which he had long tarried. The occasion he
selected was in truth -most appropriate—it was on
the laying of the foundation-stone of the Sheffield
Athenaeum and Mechanics' Institution by the Earl of
ARUNDEL and SURREY ; and the exordium by which
the Noble Lord's allusion was introduced was
no less appropriate than the occasion—being
a panegyric upon the advantages accruing to an in-
dustrious community from the intellectual cultivation
of its youth. After expressing a hope that the fore-
most attention of the members of the Sheffield Athe-
naeum would be directed to those studies and objects
which are most important for advancing the real,
moral, political, and social improvement of the mul-
titude, Lord MORPETLI remarked that it would be
judicious to combine with those investigations
some attention to the higher walks of elegant ac-
complishments and graceful literature because,
said he, " the cultivation of a taste for art, poetry,
and music tend so much not only to relax, but to re-
fine the human mind." That is a recommendation which
would scarcely have been comprehended by the obtuse
conservatism of our ancestors, by that respectable old
Toryism that regarded a merchant's clerk as not more
worthy of care or embellishment than a calculating
machine, that looked upon the artizan merely as an
instrument made to saw, and hammer, and so forth,
and viewed an agricultural labourer as a machine ot
a value scarcely equivalent to that of a sub-soil
plow4h, and possessing the additional blemish of re-
quiring food for deglutition. Nobler ideas have since
then become prevalent, and statesmen aspire, in these
our days, not only to insure quietude and plenty, but
to purify the mor and arouse the dormant intellects
of the hind and the journeyman. They no longer
regard the aggregate mind of the nation as a spiritual
microcosm, not more worthy of examination and en-
largement than the sliding-glasses of a raree-show, or
the orifice of a phantasmagoria. The mental specu-
lations of Governments are gradually becoming
as exoteric in purpose as they were formerly esoteric
in principle. That some such change has affected
the administration of these islands is manifested by
the language addressed on Wednesday to the inhabi-
tants of Sheffield by the Noble Viscount the Chief
Commissioner of the Woods and Forests. During
the course of his very animated address Lord MOR-
?ETU illustrated, by a Grecian myth, the utility and
necessity of combining with bodily industry the
charms of intellectual loveliness. " Those of you,"
he said, "who have the opportunity of consulting the
old legends and classical mythology are aware that
among the fancied deities with which they peopled
their world, one more especially was regarded as the
god of labour, and of handicraft, VULCAN by
name, who was always represented as employed in
huge
smithies and workshops, hammerirg huge an-
vils, blowing huge bellows, heating vast furnaces, and
begrimmed with soot and dirt. Well, ladies. and
gentlemen, for this hard-working and swarthy-looking
divinity they wished to pick out a wife. And they
did not select for him a drab--not a person, taken
herself from the scullery or kitchen dresser, but they
chose for him VENUS, the goddess of love and beauty.
Now, what is the especial meaning of the marriage
of VULCAN with VENUS—of the hard-working arti-
ficer with the laughter-loving queen..-of labour with
beauty ? What is it, ladies and gentlemen, but this,
that even in a busy hive of industry and toil like
this, even here, upon a spot which is in many respects
no inapt representator of the fabled workshop of
VoLcaN, even here, amid the clang of anvils, the roar
of bellows, and the sputtering of forges—even here,
Amid stunning sounds and sooty blackness, the mind
—untrammelled mind—may go forth, may pierce the
dna atmosphere which is poised around us, may
wing its way to the freer air and purer light
which are beyond, and may ally itself with all
that is most fair, genial, and lovely in creation."
Let that great truth, so exquisitely and nobly enune
elated, be to all a proof that statesmen are becoming
alive to the advisability of enlarging the field of
po-
pular education, and teaching the masses something
u than great A and symmetrical pothooks.
It was after the declaration of this ennobling
truth
that lArd Manus ;viewed to the efreite which a>ce
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