The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-26 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER ATHENXU/171.
MANCIIESTF:R, FRIDAY.—Last evening the fourth an-
nual soirée took place in the Free-tradelall, when the
vast area of that large and elegant structure was crowded
with well dressed ladies and gentlemen. The arrange-
ments, however—at least so far as the metropolitan press
was concerned—were not of that perfectly convenient
character its representatives had met with on previous
celebrations. Formerly covered tables for the reporters
were raised to nearly the level of the platform, but on
this occasion rough deal benches, oft which they were
compelled to wipe the dust with their own handkerchiefs
were placed on the level of the flooring, and so imme-
diately under the platform, that it was with great diffi-
culty we could hear the chairman, who could not be seen,
a he spoke behind a table, without advancing to the
front of the platform. The band of the 69th Infantry
was present, and at intervals, during the evening, played
some exquisite overtures, &c.
The Right Hon. Viscount Morpeth, M.P., was in the
chair, supported by his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin,
Lord Ebrington, M.P., the Right Hon. T. M. Gibson,
M.P., Mr. Brown, M.P., Mr. M‘Gregor, of the Board
of Trade ; Mr. Brotherton, M.P., Mr. Bright, M.P.,
Dr. Bowring, Mr. Edwin Chadwick, of the Poor-law
Commission ; Dr. C. Mackay, Mr. W. H. Ainsworth,
Mr. W. Chambers, of Edinburgh, &c.
Lord MORPETEC, on presenting himself, was received
with loud and long-continued cheering. When the ap-
plause had subsided, his Lordship said—Ladies and gen-
tlemen, I trust that I shall be believed when I say that I
appreciate my situation. With whatever incidents of
distinction or responsibility I may happen to be invested
elsewhere—honeured as I may be by the choice of no
mean constituency—(Cheers)—on the other side of the
hills which bound your prospects—permitted, as I am,
to take a part in the highest councils of the State—yet I
can with truth assure you, that I find something very
new, fresh, and large in the honour of being called upon
to preside at the jubilee of the Manchester Athenamm.
—(Cheers.) And this sense of honour, and, I may say
with as much truth, of difficulty also, is certainly not
lessened when I call to mind those who have preceded me
in the same post upon these brilliant occasions. The last

echoes of this place, which I feel it a hardihood in my-
self to rouse again, answered to the accents—deep, gentle,
and earnest as his own spirit—of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd.
—(Cheers.) Why, gentlemen, the name of the Athe-
naeum itself suggests that it is a befitting theatre for all
the utterances of the bard of lon and the Athenian Cap-
tive. Next before him, I know your spirits must have
thrilled under the spell of so potent a magician as Mr.
Disraeli. In the very hottest conflicts of political
party from which we are happily here sheltered, I think
it would have been impossible, even for his most exposed
victim, to have been blind to the point, the genius, the
brilliancy, which played even around the wounds they
made. But here, on this gorgeous stage, amid this con-
genial auditory, on the topic familar to him, of literature,
of art, and of imagination, I, who could only read in
cold print what he said, apart from all the kindling ac-
cessories of time and place, can easily believe how the

admiration, which is not withheld froin him even on the

barren ground of political controversy, must have hero
swelled into enchantment.—(Loyd cheers.) On the first
of these annual occasions, the first at least that was held

upon this scale of size and splendour, this chair was
filled, and it never can be filled more worthily, by

Charles Dickens.—(Applause.) That bright and genial
nature, the master of our sunniest smiles and our most

unselfish tears, whom as it is impossible to read without
the most ready and pliant sympathy, so it is impossible
to know, at least I have found it so, without a depth of
respect and a warmth of affection which the rare union
of singular qualities at one commands.—(Cheers.) I
have made it my business to read what these, my
predecessors, have said. But this, while it ministered
most highly to my excitement, has certainly in no way
diminished my embarrassment ; for I feel that it
would indeed be an office irksome to you, and hopeless
to myself, to endeavour to recal in fainter expressions
and with feebler colouring what was portrayed by them
with such richness and exuberance. I feel that at this
time of day, and especially in this place, it would be at
best an impertinence to inculcate that knowledge in no
community will b.-3 a dangerous thing ; that commerce,
which originally formed, and which still ennobles such a
community as this, is the natural ally of literature and
art ; and that the pursuits which may be here cultivated,
and the habits which may be here fostered, if rightly
directed and properly guarded, are such as to give a
grace and a glory to the lives and characters of men
(Cheers.) Ido indeed feel, with the most ardent and

gifted of those who have preceded me, and of those who
now surround me, that the impulses and associations
which are impressed upon our own times are to be hailed
with gratitude, and fostered with anxious attention, to
rivet and transmit them. Ido indeed rejoice that Eng-
lish commerce seems in these our days to be rising to the
real height of its position, and to feel the true dignity of
its calling.—(Cheers.) But this the Tuscan, this the
Genoese, this the Venetian may have done. The worthies
of our English commerce are content to be merchants,
without being princes. If we have our Medicis, they
are not intent upon seeking alliances with the thrones
of Europe, but they feel it ought now to be their true

aim to raise to the same level-of knowledge, of happi-
ness, of virtue, with themselves, the whole body of the
people.—(Cheers.) I rejoice that in Manchester, be-
yond all dispute the first city in the ancient or the mo-
dern world for manufacturing enterprise and mechanical
skill, you have not been content with that display of
wealth which may jostle in your streets, or be piled in
your warehouses ; you have not thought it sufficient to
raise factories tier upon tier, or magazines that will ac-
commodate the traffic of the world, but you have thought
it your business, too, to build and set apart a home and
a haunt for innocent enjoyment—for useful instruction—
for graceful accomplishment—for lofty thought, a shrine
of philosophy, a Pallas Athena, in a Christian land.—
(Loud cheers.) Long may it be the resort—with the
other and kindred institutions, which it does not seek to
overlay or eclipse, but rather to encourage and excite—
along with them may it be the favourite resort, where
all that are engaged and engrossed in the business or
the labour of this unparalleled hive of industry may find
repose for their flagging spirits, a neutral ground for
their manifold differences, invigorating food for their
reason, and an impulse onwards and upwards to all the
best and highest tendencies of our nature.—(Loud
cheers.) lam glad to perceive that while the benefits
of your institution are not confined to any condition, to
any class, to any denomination, so also they are not ex-
clusively appropriated even to one sex.—(Laughter and
cheers.) Women have always played an important,
perhaps I might dare to say not uniformly a beneficial,
part in this world's history. But, as civilisation advances,
I have all confidence that they will play both a more
recognised and a more elevated part than they have
ever yet done.—(Cheers.) Among the many currents
which the restless activity of our time is ever eddying
along, I trust that a prominen t one will be devoted to
make the educatioi, of women sound, substantial, en-
lightened, all that it ought to be to train those who, in
any case, must be the real trainers, and who may be the
best trainers, of all our citizens and all our workmen.
—(Loud cheers.) From all I can gather, the whole-
some effects of your institution have not been confined
to its own walls and its own operations. While it has
walked its own rounds it has also been suggestive of

many kindred processes; or, if I may borroivan illus-
tration from one of the disputed problems of the upper
sky, in its career of light and progress it has thrown off
from itself separate bodies, which harden into distinct
masses, and glow with independent lustre.—(Cheers.)
For I may ask you whether it is not very much owing
to the impulse of ideas thrown out and caught up here,
at your lecture rooms, in your school gatherings, or is.
the more earnest friction of your discussions—whether
it is not very much owing to the agency of your mem-
bers, your officers, your founders, that, to select an in-
stance, the public parks which add so much both to the
material and moral beauty of this great city—(Cheers)
—the public baths and wash-houses, which are calculated
to have deeper effects than on the mere skin and
linen—(Cheers)—and all the attention which has been
bestowed on sanatory regulations—(Cheers)—in &great
degree owe their rise?—(Cheers.) Can you look to
other sources for the foundation of your industrial
schools, for the weekly half-holiday in your ware-
houses, or for the early closing of your shops ?
(Cheers.) With respect to this
i last topic, one not re-
motely connected with the best interests and widest ex-
tension of this institution, my attention has been
specially called to a meeting which I believe it is pro-
posed to hold on this same classic ground, by the members
of the Manchester and Salford Early Closing Associa-
tion.—(Cheers.) My duties would prevent me from
accepting the invitation with which I have been honoured
to attend that meeting, and, indeed, I doubt whether it
is precisely the matter in which a stranger ought to in-
terfere. I can only say, that if any general arrangement
can be Arrived at between the employers and the: em-
ployed, which shall secure to the rising manhood and
womanhood of Manchester a greater amount of leisure
for blameless recreation and for mental culture, 1:to one
will rejoice more cordially than myself.—(Cheers.)You
will perceive that I have adverted to some of the more
()ere
obvious topics in connexion with this institntiont e h
g th pro-
indeed, the duty imposed upon me,
essence.
theceedings of this evening, in some
de-
manded. Let me for a little time os
nowofr tP
turn from arY
you who constitute it, you w
institution to yourselves, to
hyoouarwe
o
by whose eloquence
h its are
life 1 tasn members,
delighted, when addressing the
heretofore you have been
before him toldtheist •
of Manchester arrayed .
I perceive that one of the orators
youthemphasis to aspire. Far be ft from me to tell them
otherwise. All whofeel within themselves the sacred
flame, who are strung to the high endeavour, who are
girded for the immortal race, I would address in the
terms used by the great moralist-poet, Dr. Johnson :
Are those thy views, proceed, illustrious youth,
And virtue guard thee to the throne of truth;
Let all your soul indulge the generous heat,
Till captive science yield her last retreat,
Till reason guide thee with her purest ray,
And pour on misty doubt resistless day."
—(Mich cheering.) It is with these views, by patient
inquiry, by diligent study, by humble-minded searching
after truth, that all real knowledge is to be wooed and
won—(Cheers)—equally apart from that shallow pre•
sumption which sets up its own speculations and sophis-
tries in the place of conscious reason and a disciplined
faith, and from that blind bigotry which bears down fair
argument, decides against proof, and condemns without
a hearing. I have said that Ido not wish—that I could
not wish, to damp or discountenance the purpose of any
of the rising youth around me to aspire; for I well know
that genius is the property of no condition, the appanage
of no class. It will often be seen to rise, like the fabled
goddess of old out of the ocean billow, from those sur-
faces of society where you would least expect to find it,
break through the surrounding uniformity, and shed
sudden radiance around the new horizon.—(Loud cheers.)
But while I am ready to track its shining course, and to
bask iii its genial warmth, I would also beg to remind
you that there is something more admirable than genius,
and that is virtue ; there is something more valuable
than success, and that is duty.—(Load cheers.) The
hope to succeed in the world, and to play shining
part in the society mound us, any *a act