The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-02 00:00:00

SEEDS.

Linseed is less active, and the late advance in prices is
with difficulty maintained. Rapeseed is firm, but the busi-
ness doing is rather limited. Cloverseed is dull, and in
canary seeds very little is doing. Tares are in moderate
request, at full prices. In the value of cakes no change has
taken place.
furnip,White,p.bus.l2o to 145
Swede
Mustard, Brown—
White, new l3s 16s
Tares,Winter, new.. 7104 8s
Old -s -s
Canary, per quarter 50s 546
Rye grass, new 22s 26s
Clover, Red Eng., ct. 4t5 60s
White
Foreign Red ll5 52s
White 805 940
Trefoil, new. lBs 24s

Carraway
Coriander lOB 13s
Hempseed, per qr 348 36s
Linseed,Eng.sowing 668 70s
Crushing
Baltic —B —8
Odessa —s —6
Linseed Cake, p. ton—
English £9 58 £lO 158
Foreign, p ton £9 5s 11l Os
Rape Cakes,p. ton 4 15s 5 51
Rapeseed, p. qr, .... 568 60s

WOOL MARKET.

Holders of all kinds of wool are very firm in their de-
mands ; but the business doing is very moderate. The
supply on offer is limited. Last week's imports were 1,593
bales from Melbourne.

TALLOW
The amount Of business doing ba 01 IC market io YerY

ARTISTS' GENERAL BE.N.EVOLENT

INSTITUTION.

The annual festival of this charity tcok place on
Saturday night at the Freemasons' Hall under the
presidency of the Right Hbn. W. E. Gladstone,
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. gen-
tleman in proposing the toast of "Prosperity to the
Institution," said the society is one which is of a
nature that can never be confined to simply recom-
mending its name, even to an audience favourably
disposed. There is something in its nature
which gives it a peculiar hold upon the feelings,
and likewise requires that we should assure
ourselves that in proposing such an institution
as an object of commendation and support, we
are offending against none of those rules of pru-
dence and good sense which, in this mixed state of
things, it is necessary to apply even to the control of
the impulses of human and Christian benevolence .
It is not usual, perhaps, that those belongin4 to any
special class should appeal, should join in endeav-
ouring to conciliate support for establishments
which have the object of relieving distress among
the members of that class themselves. It requires
that we should be convinced there is something
special and peculiar in the condition of the class in
order to satisfy us that it is altogether wise to
attampt specialiprovision which shall possess Remind
and title to public support. I do not 'hesitate to
say that it appears to me but too eas7 to make out
that special claim on behalf of this institution.
It is easy on account of abundance of objects
which present themselves to your philanthropy,
yet, at the same time, it is not " too easy" in one
sense, because there is nothing degrading nor dis-
honouring in this institution to the noble profession
which you pursue. Those who are not numbered
among the band of artists, who have not been en-
dowed with those peculiar faculties which mark
that description of genius, or have not had the op-
portunity for their exercise, must all feel that they
are under permanent obligations to the authors of
much innocent delight, so many elevating lessons,
so much of useful and practical instruction, and so
much power and influence, as art, through the
exertions of its professors, brings to Lear upon the
course and progress of society. It is not merely a
rendering of a debt which gratitude must prompt,
but it is likewise in meeting and satisfying pecu-
liar wants which render it right that this institu-
tion should be commended to public and general
support. You have heard pronounced from this
chair most intelligent and deserving commendation
of the management of this institution, and all that
I can give in the moments abstracted from other
and more labourious duties is little more than the
testimony of the sincerity of my feelings which is
afforded by my presence among you this evening.
(Cheers.) To those who have beard the addresses
which have been delivered by my predecessors in
the chair it would be needless, and even imperti-
nent, for me to presume to offer any observations.
But it is in the nature of such institutions that
what has been very well said should be said
again and again, in order to revive, to freshen
in the public mind the demands which you so
justly make upon their sympathy and sup-
port. (Cheers.) You must all have been struck,
no doubt, in surveying the state of society, by the
marked characteristics in the economical distribu-
tion of labour, and the rewards attaching to it, in
the times in which we live. This is a time in which
the highest professors of all the arts and in all the
professions, having attained a certain position, can
usually command abundant, and in some peculiar
cases even splendid means of livelihood. It is also
a time when, owing in a great degree to the wise
legislation of recent Parliaments, the labouring
classes of this country are able to command a rate
of remuneration for their toil such as for many long
generations has not been the case. But between
the great capitalists, the great possessors of estedes,
and those at the head of the profession upon one
side, and the mass of the labouring popu-
lation upon the other, there are the classes
which belong to the intellectual departments, who
dwell in the lower regions of that department,
whose remuneration is, in many instances, scanty
and even miserable. There is no labour, in fact,
in this country so ill paid as that which may be
called the labour of educated men in the lower
classes of educated men. Art, like everything else,
must have among its professors a multitude of
shades and degrees of merit and power. It is really
astonishing, when we come to consider the power
of tha human mind as developed in the productions
of art, what combination, what concentration of
character it requires to produce that something
which is represented upon, perhaps, a yard of
canvass, which we call a picture. (Cheers.)
Slight as they are in fabric, those works are
yet reckoned among the greatest productions
of which mankind has been the author. (Cheers.)
It is no wonder that in a pursuit which occupies
so immeasurable a space between the highest and
the lowest grades, we should find persons who
grace the courts and the palaces of the land, and
who enjoy all that this world can supply, and others
who have to encounter the hardest and most painful
struggles, and the labours of whose hands with the
chisel or pencil produce them far less than if as
mechanics they were engaged in some workshop
or foundry. (Cheers.) This state of things is
due to the working of those laws which we call
political economy, and the operation of which
work out great and beneficial results in the end,
but which also produce by their action distress
and disappointment to many persons. There is
this point in connection with the occupation of the
artist, that his work must always be to him a
labour of love, and the feeling with which
for the first time he takes a brush in his hand must
be very different from that with which the young
man articled to an attorney must commence his la-
bours. (Cheers.) In my experience of life nothing
has struck me more than the high degree of spe-
ciality, and the peculiar and marked character,
which attaches to artists. They seem to stand re-
moved to a greater distance from other classes, not
in sympathy, but in ability to accomplish what they
wish. So faras regards their habits of perception and
the exercise of the powers necessary for their art,they
seem to have a most absorbing power, such as iR
many instances may disqualify for the homelier opera-
tions of the business of life; and though no man can be
dispensed from the duties of the daily performance
of life, yet this incapacity does attach in some de-
gree, to the pursuits of his art, and where an unfor-
tunate incapacity for the performance of these
duties is found, it is far less culpable, and should be
visited with far less severity, than in the case of
ordinary men. (Cheers.) Anothers peculiarity in
the case of artists is, that the ills and crosses of
life act upon them with greater severity than upon
other men, just as the man of more sensitive nerves
and more fully developed feelings is more sen-
sitive to pain than the mere boor. On these and
various other grounds to which reference was
made, the right honourable gentleman commended
the institution to the support of the friends and
lovers of art. A common interest should, he
said, unite us all; each class was a debtor to the
other, and each should seize every suitable occasion
for acknowledging those bonds of mutual obligation
by which we are united as children of one common
father, heirs of one common hope, and as working
together for one great and common end. (Loud
cheers.)
A sum of about £750 was announced as collected
in the course of the evening.