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

cbtning

I OND.)N. 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 for official interposition wherever the mementoes
of bygone geniuses have been threatened with dese-

oration or destruction. That we have not altogether

been disappointed in our anticipations is shown by

• -
the different pensions awarded by the munificence o

the Administration since Lord J. RUSSELL was sum

moned to the direction of affairs. When the orphans
of T. Hoop and the widow of T. CUALMaRS are
not overlooked, and when the declining years ot
Lstora 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 iAith the breathings of their philosophy,

the music of their eloquence, and the splendours 01
their poetic creations.
An interesting occasion elicited from the First
Commissioner of her Majesty's Woois and Forests, on

Wednesday evening, certain observations, which will
not be considered lightly by the people of these

islands. Despite the pressure of political exciteinel

consequent upon a general election, there has been
anything but a manifestation of indifference at the

sale of SHAKSPERE'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
SHAKSPERE from the lips of Lord MORPETII Wit
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
elected 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 Moat. erg 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 be, " 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 of
a value scarcely equivalent to that of a sub-soil
plourh, 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 morals 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 Aloft-
?ETU illustrated, by a Grecian myth, the utility and
necessity of combining with bodily industry the
charms of intellectual loveliness. " Those of you,"
ha 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, hamtrenrig huge an-
vils, blowing huge bellows, heating
vast .
urnac es, and
Well, begrimmed with soot and dirt. f
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 VEN us, the goddess of love and beauty.
Now, what is the especial meaning of the marriage
of VULCAN with V
EN US—of the hard-working arti-
ficer with the laughter-loping 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
VULCAN, 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
—d untrammelled mind—may go forth, may pierce the
dun
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 Lost fair, genial, and
lovely
in creation."
Let that great truth, so exquisitely and nobly nob
lyenun-
- 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
more than great A and symmetrical pothooks.
It WU after the declaration of this ennobling truth
that Lord Mare=s referred to the efforts which are