The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-23 00:00:00

and aggregated in that mass of information which is hid
daily as a matter of course before the expectant eyes of the British
public—ls it not astonishing to think that not only all that has been
said the night before by all the great men of the age, but all that
they would have said—(Laughter)—has been most skilfully col-
lected and culled, and put into type, and that much that they would
have omitted they have the greatest happiness of discovering is not
recorded where they expected and dreaded to find it would be?—
(Laughter.) For there was no person who has taken part in
public affairs from whom, in the hurry and haste of debate,
and in the eagerness of conflict, words have not escaped
which he would have been glad never to have uttered. Is it possi-
ble, therefore, to overrate the talent Which has exerted Itself in so
satisfactory a manner to persons whO are most sensitive upon such
subjects ? It would be attempting to make a demonstration of that
which is in itself a demonstration to say, that the periodical press
of this country is the daily bread of the mind.—(Cheers.) 'When
we reflect upon the age in which we live, and upon all its varied
improvements, let us not cease even to bear in mind that it is not
merely the quick transporting of mere substantial mate-
rials, but that it is the rapid conveyance of ideas that
constitutes one of the most prominent of those improve-
ments. In short, I may say, if another illustration is re.
quired, that the daily press of this country is, as it were, the rail.
road of the human intellect.—(Cheers.) There are other works
of higher pretensions and greater duration; but where in any
other country and period in the history of the world should we ever
find such a mass of information collected together, and rapidly
conveyed to where it is most welcome and most wanted. I will
add one more word while I speak from personal experience. I
think no one can be thoroughly sensible of the real advantages of
the condensation of that mass of information which is now conveyed
to every part of the world by the daily press of this empire, who has
not lived at a very great distance from it, and been engaged in
the service of his country. There are many things which friends
forget to write of, that are speedily brought back to one's recol.
lection on the perusal of the newspapers. The matters there re.
corded revive associations which time and distance had almost ob-
literated. It is this which makes the periodical visitation of the
public journals one of the most welcome kind to all the best sym-
pathies of the human heart.—(Cheers.) I censmenced by saying
that I would leave the toast to speak for itself. lam sensible
how very imperfectly I have conveyed what I myself feel on
the subject ; but I trust you will do me the justice to believe that I
have pleaded the cause of this Association most sincerely% and I hope
you will not yourselves cease to remember that there may be con-
nected with those who diffuse so much knowledge and convey so
much pleasure, some who, suffering from the uncertainties of human
life, may by your charitable exertions he rescued from the privations
to which their lot would otherwise smpose them.—(Cheers.) With
this concluding remark, I give you " Prosperity to the Press Be-
nevolent Association."—(Drunk with reiterated cheers.)

Duet—" Torquato," by Signora Tosi and Signor Collett).
Mr. THORNTON, the Chairman oft he Directors, in the name of
the Association, offered their grateful and respectful acknowledg-
ments for the kind wish expressed in the toast, and for the
honour which the company, by their presence, had conferred upon
this institution—an institution formed for the benefit of the less
fortunate members of a body of persons who, according to no
mean authority, " supplied the entire mental aliment of the
larger half of the community." To borrow a bolder and
happier figure of their Noble Chairman, they might be
called the machinery which put into motion the railroad
of intellect. If this were a true description of the body
of literary contributors to the newspaper press of this
country, it could not be presumptuous to say that they pos-
sessed some title to public consideration. Upon a moderate cal.
collation, there were above two hundred individuals employed by
the metropolitan daily press alone in preparing this mental aliment,
most of whom had no immediate resources but the stipends which
that employment afforded them. It had been said that in a neigh.
bouring country (in by-gone times, it was true) all who were con.
sleeted with the public journals (to use the words of the writer)
"gorged upon the good things ;" that in six months they grew
"literally and physically" fat. These happy, halcyon days, are
yet to visit us.—(Hear, hear.) He could undertake to say
for several of his colleagues, certainly for himself, that they
had been battening upon this regimen for many years, and had not
reached the point of obesity yet.—(Hear, hear.) In England it
was not present reward so much as future prizes—in professional
advancement or literary eminence—to which many of these persons
aspired ; and they all knew how rare these prizes were.—(Hear,
hear, bear.) It was not every gem, however pure its ray, whose
fate it was to sparkle in the diadem ; it was not every genius that
" broke out into sudden blaze," like the modern Fielding, the
inimitable Boz, who, he was proud to say, belonged to them before
he was given to the world. True it was, that the labours of the
mind in this country were not, generally speaking, underpaid, and
by severe economy, and rigid precautions against the misapplication
of candle-ends, a literary contributor to the newspaper press might,
perhaps, make a provision for the future. But these economical
virtues did not belong to the literary character. Who could con-
vince the man of genius, full of aspiring hopes and eager ambition,
—who felt springs of invention and of fancy, which he deemed
Inexhaustible, gushing up within him,—that he should ever be-
come the victim of penury ? In forming, therefore, an institution
for the benefit of men who, whilst especially assailable by the ills
of life, acted at least as if they were beyond their reach, it was
necessary to disguise self.providence with the attributes of
benevolence, and to deceive those who, generous and bountiful to
their needy brethren, too often forgot the frail tenure of their own
hopes, into a belief that they were only giving to others, whilst in
fact they were also laying up a store for themselves.—(Cheers.)
This was a difficult undertaking ; it had been often projected and
as often abandoned as impracticable, and it had been only accom-
plished by the perseverance and zeal of Mr. Anderson and those
gentlemen from the whole metropolitan press who had laboured
with him in this disinterested work—(Cheers)—and a fund was now
accumulating, from whence any subscriber might in the hour
of adversity claim the succour which he needed. (Long
continued cheering.) It had been objected that they ought to
have refused contributions from any but their owe body; but this
objection appeared to savour more of pride and exclusiveness than
of delicacy. This did not profess to be a provident institution ; it
was a benevolent fund ; and what right had they to monopolise to
themselves the grateful rewards which spring from the offices of
benevolence, by churlishly and scornfully repelling the spontaneous
co-operation of others? It had been customary on former
anniversaries, for the Directors to submit a Report of their
proceedings during the past year ; but upon the present oc-
casion, they had judged it better to relieve the company
from the irksome task of listening to a Report, and had left
it to him to state the results in a few words, and he should do
it in a single sentence.—(Hear, hear.) The institution was pros-
pering as much as, in its peculiar circumstances, and under the
difficulties attending so novel an experiment, could reasonably be
expected ; in proof of which he need only mention that the per-
manent fund, after providing for all incumbrances in this, its third
year, was upwards of 1,000/.—(Cheers.) So much for their pro-
ceedings. But there had been two incidents during the past year,
to which he must allude, because they most forcibly illustrated,
in their simple garb of facts, the utility, the necessity, of
such all institution as this. Two gentlemen, connected with the
London daily press, had been suddenly cut off in th e very
prime of youth and the bloom of life. One of them was a
Member and a Director of this Association. Ile (Mr. Thornton)
well remembered the emphatic words in which that gentleman de-
clared to him that, in joining it he had not the remotest view to his
own interest, but subscribed from benevolent motives alone. A
few weeks only elapsed alter that declaration was made before the
person who made it was stretched upon the bed of sickness and
death, and he had left a widow and a young family entirely un.
provided for, who bad asked and accepted the small sum,
which under the circumstances, they were entitled to. In
the other instance the individual was not a member of this
Institution. He had concurred heartily in its objects, and
had promised it his support, but he failed to send his
subscription. He was young, unmarried, and he had not only a
lucrative literary employment, but private funds of his own. Un-
happily those funds were embarked in a speculation, which not
only absorbed them, but drew into its fatal vortex the fortune of
a sister, who was thus cast upon him for support. Anxiety ag-
gravated disease, and he died without the consolation which he
might have had, if, knowing that he had bequeathed that sister—
who was now thrown upon the cold reluctant charity of relations—
to the protection of this institution. He made no comment upon
these instances (which might be multiplied.) He left them to
produce their own effect, to instil their own lessons, and he
would trespass upon their time no longer than to repeat his cor-
dial and respectful thanks.
Lord NuGear proposed the health of the Noble Chairman. It
was his fortune to see the beginning and outset of this Institution;
lie watched it and ti islicd well to it in its cradle, and he now hailed
t in its vigorous and hopeful growth.—;Cheers.) His Royal
Highness the Duke of Sussex having condescended to becsme its
President at the first dinner, the Chair was taken by his Royal Bro-
ther, the Duke of Cambridge, who felt it no degradation to royal
blood, hut, on the contrary, a distinction to one of a royal house
ruling over a free nation, to preside at the celebration of an
institution which was to forward one of the great distinctive
marks of a free people.—(Cheers.) Last year they had as
their president one of the most distinguished orators and states.
mess of the age, and on the present occasion they had in the chair
one who had been consdered worthy in two eminent stations to
represent the person of his sovereign, and who now filled one of the
hignest situatious in the country.—(Cheers.) He might well say
that it was their lot upon this their third meeting, the chair having
been tilted by royalty th e first time. by a statesman the second,
1-ao aeulso non deficit alter."-a(Cheers.) In a place of this
sort, for advancing a public charity, and celebrating a work
of public usefulness, they found persons of ;Al shades of
difference on political opinions cheerfully meeting together—
It was common-place to call it a truce of public differences, a sacred
truce ; but on this occasion it was much more than a sacred truce,
it was an earnest and active league.—(Hear.) Persons of every
shade of opinion united to pay homage to an institution which men
of all parties felt an equal interest in supporting. It was sad by
Lord Clarendon of Lord Falkland, that his Secretaryship did not
take from him the privilege of his age. His Noble Friend (Lord
Normanby), he was sure, felt that his office did not take from him
the privilege or the duties of the age in which he lived.—
(Cheers.) Ore duty and one privilege of a statesman holding
the highest office in the age in which he lived was to advance
by every means in his power that great influence by which in a
free country public opinion gained its spring, and found its spread
throughout the land, and by which the people of a free nation gained
the means of forming their judgment and expressing their will.—
(Cheers 1 But it was not fur political objects only that the news-
paper was most advantageous in a free country. It was to encourage
and to generalise education. It was to teach men a taste for Mere-
tare—and the usefulness of literature. It was to teach them to as-
pire to think, to aspireto judge, to aspire to fill stations which were
open in a free country to all meta—Timers.) Without detaining
them farther, he begged they would till a bumper and drink the
health of their Chairman, the Most Noble the Marquis cf Nor-
manby.—(Loud cheering.)
The Noble LORD assured the company that he did not know how
sufficiently to thank them for tie manner in which they had re-
ceived his name. He was perfectly aware that there were upon
this occasion assembled persons of various political creeds ; it was,
therefore, peculiarly satisfactory to a person who occupied his po.
sition, and who was not entirely concealed from the public, to have
been received in so flattering a manner—(Cheers. ) He fully esti-
mated that kindness, and responded to it.—(Cheers.)
" Fra nembo crudeli," by Rubini, who was enthusiastically
encored.
Mr. 'l'. M. GISSON rose to propose the health of the Vice.
Presidents and Donors of the Association. He regretted
that so many of the distinguished personages who formed
the list of Vice-Presidents had been prevented attending on
this occasion ; nevertheless he considered that the circum-
stance of so many eminent men of every party coming for.
ward to support this institution, must have the tendency of
raising the newspaper press in the public estimation and re-
gard, and that it would operate as a great encouragement to in.
duce men of character and ability to pursue the public press as au
honourable and respected profession.—(Cheers.) This Association
would take away the truth from the expresspon of Sir Walter Scott,
when he said "that though literature to a man of the highest talent
may be a good staff, it was a bad crutch." It would supply to age,
infirmity,
oh : t
_ois,
ntinnity, and misfortune that support which the members of the
press
, I
vtedw da.udririnignk the.ditahyeshweleierns.they were in health and vigour.
mtli,eerGseelnfinuns
tohfetlpmeianS,pdroirntge,." by Miss M. B. Hawes,
who
accompanied r e
e
Mr. SHEH. then rose, and was received with shouts of applause.
very
yiesamid distinction, with havetheb edeuntye rot tfr nu,
ianngd
tI
ticionnkss_i d etrhletr
ea
cannot be a more pleasurable behalf of the Vice- Presidents
and Donors of this Institution. To do justice to that theme, if I
may follow up the idea suggested by ray friend Mr. Gibson, I should
possess accents in appealing to the mind analogous to those deep
and thrilling intonations which have been just uttered by that
charming songstress—(Cheers)—who refutes what Milton, says, that
aecptperairgehdt—in
" Eloquence the soul, song transports the sense ,'•
who, when tier throne was
for she proves that by song both soul and senisebelmieaieble
aeranlolyt
psl fat:pleu.r.ratehbeiLottl it,
inaccurate,r transported.—`Cheers.) n s po r t e
England issued in
surrounded by peril, and the liberties of her people were in hazard,
the reign o'f:/h''Callit7segtrlots;reiv'o'u'
when Spain put forth all its might, and the sails of the Armada
were swelling to invade our sacred shores, to the hearts of her peo-
ple addressed through the press her soul.stirring invocation—from
that moment to the present the press of England had been true to its