The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-20 00:00:00

S NOVEMBER 20, 1847.

'of commerce and intellect—to the vicinity of the
harbour of Pirmus to the temples of the Acropolis.
Rome, herself the mistress of the world, owed her
vast and enduring dominion mainly to the energies of
' commerce ; and we have only to cast our eyes on the
map, and behold her provinces clustered round the
waters of the Mediterranean, to be convinced that
more even than:to the arms of the legions, her power
was owing to the strength of the maritime cities
which glittered along its shores. It was the cara-
vans of the desert which raised those wonderful struc-
tures which still at Tadmor and Palmyra attest the
magnificence of the queen of the East, and attract the
admiration of the European traveller. It was in com-
mercial Alexandria that alone a library was formed
worthy of the vast stores of ancient knowledge; and
when the dominion of the consuls had fallen, and the
arm of the Roman could no longer defend Italy from
the swords of the barbarians, the incomparable situa-
tion and commercial greatness of Constantinople per-
petuated for a thousand years longer on the frontier
of barbarian wilds the empire of the East. Nor has
commerce in modern times fallen from her high voca-
tion as the chief spring of social improvement, and
most powerful humaniser of man.—(Cheers.) It was
in the manufacturing city of Florence that a rival
was found in Dante to the genius of ancient poetry;
in the mercantile city of Venice that painting rose to
its highest lustre on the canvas of Titian. Genoa
sent forth that daring spirit which first burst the
boundaries of ancient knowledge, and exposed to Eu-
ropean enterprise the wonders of another hemisphere.
It was in Lisbon that there was once found, in Vasco
de Gama, the courage to brave the Cape of Storms,
and open the ocean path to the regions of the East,
and the genius of Camoens to celebrate the glorious
enterprise, and for ever enshrine it in the hearts of
men.—(Applause.) Great as these achievements are,
there are yet greater things than these. It is in the
north that the chief triumphs of the alliance between
commerce and intellect are to be found. To one com-
mercial city in Germany we owe the art of printing
—to another the Reformation. The first has rendered
certain the diffusion of knowledge, the last impos-
sible the slavery of thought.—(Loud cheers.) Paint-
ing has again in the north reached its highest per-
fection, in a commercial city—in Antwep, where the
immortal genius of Vandyke and Rubens was exhi-
bited. Commerce in Holland achie'ved a glorious
victory alike over the storms of nature and the op •
pressions of man. But why should we travel to other
times and distant lands for a confirmation of the same
eternal truth ? In this age, in this country, in this
city, its highest glories have been found. Here it
was, and here alone, that a successful stand was at
last made against the aggressions of revolutionary
France ; it was the discoveries of Watt, of Ark wright,
and of Crompton, which arrayed the forces which the
arms of Napoleon were unable to subdue. It was a
company of British merchants which subjected the
vast realms of Hindostan to the sceptre of Queen
Victoria, and exhibited the prodigy of a single Delhi
Gazette announcing in one day the capture of Caubul
in the heart of Asia, and the submission of the
Celestial Empire under the walls of Nankin.
It is the energy of British commerce which has
peopled the western hemisphere with our descend-
ants, and is spreading through the eastern archipe-
lago the wonders of European art, and the blessings
of Christian civilization. Hitherto the progress of
improvement has ever been from east to west; from
the rising to the setting of the sun ; but the merchants
of England have, for the first time in the history of
the world, rolled back the tide: of civilization to its
source, and returned its blessings to the regions of the
sun. It is their efforts which have realised the beauti-
ful vision of the poet :
" Come, bright Improvement in the car of Time,
And rule the spacious world from clime to clime:
Thy handmaid Art shall every wild explore,
Trace every wave, and culture every shore.
On Erie's banks where tigers steal along,
And the dread Indian chants a dismal song:
Where human fiends on midnight errands walk,
And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk:
There shall the flock on thymy pastures stray,
And shepherds dance at summer's opening day;
Each wandering genius of the lonely glen
Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men,
And silence mark en woodland heights around

The village curfew, as it tolls profound!"
(Cheers.) Why do I recal thus anxiously to your
recollection the prodigies effected by the union of
commerce and genius in times past? Not to nourish
a senseless, it may be, a hurtful vanity, but to impress
you with a serious, even a solemn sense of the re-
sponsibility under which you are acting. I would
have you recollect what has been done by your pre-
decessors—what will be expected of you by your
descendants. Midway between the past and the future,
possessed of greater advantages, wielding greater
power than ever yet was enjoyed by man, will you fail
in your glorious mission ? But how is that mission
to be fulfilled but by the elevation of the n.inds of the
middle classes of society, who are entrusted with its
powers ? It is too late now to inquire on what basis
the foundations of government should rest in this
country. The foundations are laid ; we have only
to raise the superstructure. It is in cities such as
this that the moving power which ultimately obtains
the direction of affairs resides ; it is in assemblies such
as this that the spirit which animates them is elicited:
but it is in institutions such as this that the wisdom
which should guide them is alone to be found. It has
been truly said by the poet—

" A little knowledge is a dangerous thing;"
and it is precisely to guard against that danger that
such institutions as this are valuable; for no one has
ever said that " much hnowledge is a dangerous
thing." The people everywhere have that dangerous
amount of information ; it is in the extension and
elevation of that information that the antidote to this
peril is to be found. " Knowledge," says Lord Bacon,
"is power." He has not, observe, said it is either
wisdom or virtue. But though not itself wisdom or
virtue, it may be rendered such, and it was to secure
that direction that you are associated. Great indeed
are the results to public and private welfare which
may be expected from the spread and success of insti-
tutions in which the real treasures of genius are to be
found ; the fortunes of our descendants are wound up
with their success. I know of no security for good
government in a popular cotnmunityl but in the wisdom
moderation, and public spirit of the governed ; and I
know not where these virtues are to be learned but in
the great book of experience which is here laid open to
your view. When a philosopher was asked," When does
your education cease ?" he answered " with my life."
And well might he say so, for what is life but the
education for eternity ?—(Cheers.) Viewed in this
light, this association is, indeed, an educational in-
stitution; but it is one where education, in its highest
sense, is to be obtained—that education which does
not end at seventeen but at seventy —which does
not merely aim at giving the rudiments of knowledge
to youth, but the means of information, the power of
elevating the thoughts, of gratifying the taste, to the
whole of life. The great question of general instruc-
tion is viewed in too narrow a light, if it is regarded
in relation only to the training of youth, or giving
the means of reading to the poor. What is most
required in society at this time is a proper training of
the minds, and elevation of the feelings, and extension
of the information of the middle and upper classes,
and that not in youth only, but through the whole of
life.—(Applause.) Unless this is done, the expan-
sive force from beneath will become too strong for
their direction, and the vast impulse of knowledge,
instead of being the moving power which is to put in
regulated and blissful activity the great machine of
society, may induce th© frightful explosion which is
to shiver it to atoms. It is in the spread of real
knowledge, aided by institutions such as this, that the
fly-wheel is to be found. "Whatever," says Dr.
Johnson, in words which can never become trite,
so noble is the sentiment they convey, " whatever
makes the past and the future predominate over the
present exalts us in the scale of thinking beings." If
to the celebrated aphorism of the sage we add " the
distant," we shall form a fitting conception of the ca-
pacity of that soul which, able to look back through
time and forward to eternity, is limited only in its
present flight by the bounds of space. " Fully," says
Gibbon "to appreciate this important truth, let us
attempt in an improved society to calculate the im-
mense distance between the man of learning and the
illiterate peasant. The former, by reading and reflec-
tion, multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant
ages and remote countries ; while the latter, rooted to
a single spot, and confined to a few years of existence,
surpasses but very little his fellow-labourer the ox in
the exercise of his mental faculties." In vain does an
utilitarian age ask what is the use of such pursuits ?
what benefit is thence to arise to society ?--in what
respect is the sum of human happiness to be increased
by this extension ? What, I would ask, in reply, is
the use of the poetry of Milton—the music of Handel
—the paintings of Raphael ? Why are the roses
more prized than all the harvests of the fields, though
they are beautiful alone ? To what does everything
great or everlasting in nature tend, if not to the soul
itself—to that soul which is eternal and invisible, and
never ceases to yearn after the eternal and invisible,
how far soever it may be removed from whatever
meanswhich
iul
ileti ultimate aatleo
n destiny,
d
affects only present existence ; and which, in that
averynd points
t 0 reveals
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a thet
once
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destinying, i, to l
then, attained
literatureaine
great fountain, not merely of useful aspect,
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knowledge, but

[PRICE SD.

of elevated and generous sentiments, let me earnestly
entreat you to apply vigorously to that which can
alone give the passport to its whole treasures—the
study of foreign languages.—(Cheers.) 'The Empe-
ror Charles V. said, that whenever he read a foreign
language he felt a new soul within him. It is the
command of them which is the great cause of the
difference between men of cultivated minds and mere
ordinary information. How great soever may be the
genius of our own writers, there mus!- ever be a cer-
tain sameness in their conceptions. Foreign reading
is like foreign travelling, you receive new ideas at
every step.—(Applause.) No amount of information
derived merely from the writers of our own country
can supply the deficiency. No mind can become
enlarged which is not familiar with the thoughts
of remote ages and distant countries, as no com-
merce can be extensive in which foreign is not
largely exchanged for domestic produce. It is by
the collision of flint and steel, not by steel alone,
that fire is struck. It is by promoting this inter-
change of ideas that commerce in every age has so
powerfully contributed to the advancement of the
human mind. Nor is such knowledge of less vital
importance to individual and domestic happiness.
" All our views (says an author who knew the human
heart well) spring from the inability to be alone."
Every day's experience must convince you of the
truth of La Bruyere's remark. Thence comes the de-
sertion of domestic life, the neglect of its duties, the
careless parent, the disobedient family, and that
wretched craving after external excitement which
converts the paradise of home itself into an arid wil-
derness. But can that man ever be alone, can he ever
dread solitude, who can converse alternately with
Virgil and Cicero, with Tasso and Ariosto, with
Racine and Corneille, with Shakspere and Scott ?
To such a man is really true, what Cicero said of
Scipio Africanus, " Never less alone than when
alone; never less at rest than when at rest." This is
the real exclusive society—this the magic circle
which, indeed, dignifies humanity; for it interests
without corrupting, and elevates the feelings without
hardening the heart. But no haughty pride guards
its approach—no zealous spirit forbids its entrance ;
the portals are open to all, but they are to be passed
only on the wings of perseverance.—(Cheers.) Be
not deterred, then, by the difficulties of the ascent,
the toil requisite to reach the summit. Of such study
may truly be said what has been so finely spoken of
the moral use of affliction :—" It is like the black
mountain of Bunder, in India; the higher you ad.
vance, the steeper is the ascent, the darker and more
desolate the objects with which you are surrounded;
but when you are at the summit, the heaven is above
your head, and at your feet the kingdom of Cash-
mere."—(Applause.) I add only one other con-
sideration. I see with pleasure around me not
merely an assembly of men, but a large proportion
of the other sex. To the latter I would in an
especial manner address myself ere we part, and
that not in the spirit of chivalrous gallantry, but
of serious moral duty.—(Cheers.) I will do so in
the words of a man second to none that ever existed
in intellectual rower, and least of all liable to be
swayed in matters of thought by the attractions of
your society. "It is my decided opinion," said Na-
poleon, " that everything in the future man depends
upon his mother." If anything was requisite to sup-
port so great an authority, Twould add that, as far as
my own own observation has gone, I have never
either heard or read of a remarkable man who had
not a remarkable mother. If, then, study is requi-
site for men who are to rule the world, what must it
be for you, who are to form the men ?—whose
blessed province it is to implant those early lessons of
virtue, and inculcate those early feelings of religion
and habits of perseverance, on which the wh -le future
fate of life depends, and which, by the blessing of God,
when once received, will never be forgotten ?
(Cheers.) Thus it is that you will duly discharge
your inestimable mission ; thus it is that you will
contribute your part to the great work of human ad-
vancement ; and thus it is you will regain in home
the lost Paradise of Eden, and be enabled to say of it,
in your last hours, " This it is which has softened
the trials of time ; this has, indeed, been the gate of
heaven."—The Learned Gentleman resumed his seat
amidst reiterated expressions of applause.
Mr. R. COBDEN then advanced to the front of the
platform, and on taking up this prominent position
was repeatedly and eagerly cheered. It was some
time before the vociferousness of this welcome would
allow him to speak. He said he would be but ex-
pressing the sentiment and wish of all there present
if he at once for them all commenced the observations
he had to make by thanking the distinguished gentle-
man who had come so far to visit them and to pre-
side over them that day, for the very eloquent and
truly instructing discourse they had just heard.—
(Hear, hear.) And having done that, he would be
but discharging his own duty if he, in the second
place, thanked them for the kind and friendly re-
ception they had vouchsafed to himself after a long
absence from Manchester.—(Cheers.) It gave him
great pleasure that, after twelve months' absence, on
his first appearance in public, he should have met
those of his fellow-citizens who were members of the
Atheneum. His gratification undoubtedly would
have been the greater if he had found them assembled
together at a time when the Adler-imam and similar in-
stitutions had been in a more flourishing condition. The
circumstances marking this soirée were to be regretted;
but he believed their society was only sharing in a
general depression—the good or bad position of such
institutions being always a kind of barometer indicat-
ing the prosperity or adversity of Manchester; and
he did not entertain the least doubt but that, however
passing storms might blow, the Athenaeum had taken
such a solid hold and so deep a root in the commu-
nity, that it would continue to flourish despite all the ad-
verse circumstances that might befal it.—(Cheers.)
The Hon. Gentleman then adverted to the history of
the institution, inferring from the peculiar facts at-
tending its origin that it htltl been found to be a necessity
in the community, and that, from its commendable
characteristics, it would always be entitled to, and
would always receive, the support of those inhabitants
of Manchester who were engaged in active business,
and who in their leisure hours could appreciate and
were willing to avail themselves of intellectual advan-
tages and beneficial relaxation. He mentioned that
he himself had been one of the four or five gentlemen
who, in the year 1836, had met in a small room in
Manchester over a stationer's shop to consider and
discuss the feasibility of the project; and
though, as he declared, it might be that
the Athenaeum had obtained in England generally
more fame than it well deserved, from the
eulogiums passed upon it by the eminent men who on
successive occasions had occupied the position of Pro
fe-sor Alison in the chair, he yet considered that the
utility of the institution in regard to the opportunities
I it held out to the young men of Manchester for intel-
lectual advancement could not be over-rated.—
(Hear, hear.) They had never pretended to the
character of a learned society ; but they did profess to
hold out to those having a taste for the severer studies
the means of following their inclinations at the
Athenaeum • and it would not be denied that they
had succeeded at least so far in promoting and en-
couraging useful and aimable tastes among the
younger citizens of that town.—(Hear, hear.) When
he, then a youth, was starting business in London,
there had not been such an establishment existing in
any quarter of the metropolis; men, through the day
occupied in business, and happening to be of literary
tastes, had no chance of finding among people of their
own standing participation or sympathy L they were
driven and confined to their firesides and'their own
limited libraries; and were it only because such a
social defect found a remedy in the Athenaeum, the
institution might fairly and justly claim the assist-
ance and support of all the commercial men in
.t
Man-
chester. That departmentof the Atheneum in which 1
should be confessed there resided the attrac-
tiongreatestw ,
was unquestionably the news-room. Maintained
m It was,
perhaps well that such was the case. He
that to read that page of contemporary history--the
daily newspaper—was a worthy occupation for every
man intimately engaged in the business
of the coun-
try. He concurred entirely in. this respect in the
remarks of their Learned Chairman, that to study the
daily events, and thus to direct their minds on the
questions affecting the interests of their race and the
destinies of the world, was a necessary duty for the
free citizen.—(Hear, hear.) After making some
further observations referring to the situation and
prospects of the Athenaeum, interesting merely in a
local point of view, the Hon. Gentleman exhorted the
members, in this period of difficulty, when the funds
were low and creditors perhaps clamorous, to set aside
all petty jealousies; and even if former comforts and
conveniences were denied, to sympathise with, not
obstruct, the directors in their embarrassments, and
to make those self-sacrifices which were always ne-
cessary when one common object—in this case the
success of their institution—was sought for. These
few practical remarks he had madeaccording to his
custom, because he believed his
advice
how-
ever remotely, do might,
good.—(llear, hear.) He had,
on entering the hall, asked a friend what would
be the best subject to talk about
that evening,
and he was advised to dilate, as a great treat,
upon his foreign travels. The difficulty was where
to begin, for the realms through which he had roamed
ranged from Cadiz to Nishni Novgorod. He had
been advised to tell them something about the Euro-
pean extremes—Spain and Russia. He certainly