The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-29 00:00:00

SIDNEY ITERRERT, ALP., ON NEWS-
PAPER LITERATURE AND POLITICS,

IVAIIMINSTER, THURSDAY,
The opening of the new buildings recently erected
by the members of the Warminster Atheneum, an
institution established for the promotion of litera-
ture and science, was inaugurated in this town to-
day. A public meeting was held in the lecture-room,
at which the Marquis of Bath presided, supported,
by the Right Hon. S. Herbert, M.P.,Lord Henry
Thnne the Hon. and Rev. S. Best, fr. E. Baines,
of Leeds, President of-the Yorkshire Association of
Mechanics' Institutes, the Rev, A. Fane, vicar of
Warminster, and a large number of the gentry and
clergy of the town and neighbourhood.
The Marquis of BATH opened the proceedings in
a brief speech, in which he pointed out the advan-
tages which the town of Warminster would receive
from the establishment of the institution.

Mr. WARREN, the secretary, then, at the request
of the noble chairman, read a statement of the fin-
ancial position of the institution, after which
The Right Hon. S. HERBERT, M.P., rose to move
the first resolution. He said,—My Lord Bath,
ladies, and gentlemen, I. have had a resolution put
into my hands, which I have the greatest pleasure
in moving. It is a resolution of thanks to those to
whom we are indebted for conceiving and carrying
out the idea of erecting this building in the town of
Warminster. Perhaps you will permit me to say
before I go further into the subject, that a contrast
between this meeting and the objects for which it
has been-convened and a similar meeting which any
gentleman might have been present sit in an sd-
joining, country ssliciws at once.the difference be-

iweenour institutions and habits and those of our

French neighbours. If Warminster had been a coun-
try town in France, and you wished to have an insti-
tution of a scientfie and literary character, Mr. 'War-
ren would not have read to you that bill of costs, be-
cause the expense would not have been a matter in
which you would have had any concern. You would
have have had nothing to do with the groparation,
nothing to do with the execution, and nothing
to do with the, carrying on of the institution. The
application would have been made in the first in-
stance to the Government. A public grant might
probably have been refused ; but if not you would
have had the advantage of entering this room with-
with-
out paying anything for admission, though your
watched by two
seennttrYrielSvoautltdhehadvoeor. been(Acarefullylaugh.) No
landowner ful-
filling the duties of his station with liberality-, and
making a warm display of public spirit, would have
presided, but you would have had the prefet of the
district in the chair, probably in full unform, with
a cocked hat ; and throughout the existence of your
institution this wholesome fear would operate upon
you, that you must be maul what language you
hold and what topics you broach, or you might,
possibly, very unexpectedly and suddenly have the
opportunity of testing upon your constitutions the
effects of the warm climate of Cayenne. (Laughter.)
A very different state of affairs prevails in this
country ; we love to do all these things for our-
selves, and in my heart I believe that we do them
infinitely better. If it be a disadvantage to do them
out of our own pockets, from our own funds, it is,
on the other hand, an advantage to us, because it
teaches us a lesson of liberality and the responsibi-
lity of providing ourselves and our neighbours with
institutions of this kind. (Cheers.) Now, when I
am asked as I have been to speak to you of the ad-
vantages of such institutions, I confess I am at a
loss what to say. During the last six weeks we have
had this subject put before us in every possible light,
and argued in,every possible manner, by the most
illustrious and able men whom the country has pro-
duced in the present day. Indeed we have had bold
people beginning to complain of such a dose of socio-
logy, if I might coin a word. (Laughter.) We have
bad it in doses so copious that .at last one is almost
afraid to approach the subject. At the same time we
have this consolation—the extent to which these
matters have been discussed renders it impossible for
any man to say anything new. Everything has been
anticipated. Even the great enchantment of plea-
sure every man receives in a walk, how the beauties
of nature are developed and unfolded when know-
ledge enables him to appreciate them—somewhat
after Mrs. Trimmer's popular story of " Eyes and
No Eyes," as an illustration of the advantages of
learning, has been forestalled. Then again, the old
adage that " a little learning is a dangerous
thing," which made almost a stock in trade, so
well .might it be combated in showing that if a
little learning be dangerous no learning at all is in-
finitely more dangerous, and that where all of us
have a little learning our object should be to aug-
ment the source of it so as to escape all danger—all
this has been forestalled. But looking at the dis-
cussions which have lately taken place, I think
they have enabled us to get at a far more correct
view of what the intentions and objects of these
institutions are, and what they are likely to accom-
plish, than we possessed before. We began, in my
opinion, with an impossible standard. We hare
begun now to look at human beings as they are,
and to administer to them according to their real
capacities and likings. I recollect at one time that
the opinion very much taken up was, that these
institutions, by offering to all of us the means of
studying abstruse sciences, would have the advan-
tage of creating, at any rate of increasing, the num-
ber of men eminent in literature and science ; that
they would, in point of fact ,be the nurseries of
men like Hugh Miller, Stephenson, or Dr. Living-
stone—men who struggled through every disadvan-
tage in their determination to encounter and
conquer learning. Now, I don't believe that
institutions of this kind have any such effect,
and I don't think it is right that they should have
any such effect. You ought to meet here for
purposes of intellectual recreation, and not neca-
sadly for laborious study. Stephenson, Hugh Mil-
ler, and such men, do not want opportunities given
to them ; they make them. They are not the crea-
tures but the authors of opportunity. They had
artificial difficulties to contend with, and it was by
conquering those difficulties that they educated and
braced their minds to the performance of the great
deeds which afterwards rendered their names illus-
trious. (Cheers.) Now, we are apt, when we make
rules for others, to take a very high standard. We
are very' virtuous when we make regulations to
affect the conduct of other people, and many of
these societies have begun by purging their libraries
of books of amusement. Now, I am not against
offering abstruse books to those whose tastes would
lead them to study science, but what I say is, don't
restrict your library to such books. On the con-
trary, give the people wholesale intellectual amuse-
' ment. Because we are virtuous I have no hesita-

tion in confessing that lam not virtuous on these
points myself—(laughter)—it is no reason why we
should forbid "the cakes and ale" to others. IVho
is it that sits down after a hard day's work—l don't
care whether it be physical work or mental work—
anxious to refresh his mind, who would take up an
abstruse volume on conic sections—any learned
volumes of philosophical study? Do we ourselves
do it ? I say we do not. We want something to be a
relief to the tension which the mind has latelybeen
undergoing, and I don't care what that relief may
be provided it be wholesome. That, in my opinion,
is the right course to pursue, because it is one which
Nature herself teaches us. (Hear.) I recollect read-
ing a very able address delivered two or three years
ago at a meeting of this description, in which it
was deplored that novels were read. But novels—
good ones I mean—are, in my mind, a great school
of human nature. Look at the effect upon the lite-
rature, character, and associations of Scotland
which was produced by the novels of Sir Walter
Scott. So completely to human nature are they
that I have heard over and over again, when a
motive or an action has been said to be unnatural,
a character in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels
quoted, in which one of the characters did a similar
thing, as a proof that the act was either correct or
otherwise, the person making the quotation looking
upon the character in the novel as though it were
a human being which had moved and acted. There
is another class of novels, novels of the domestic
class, Which has also a great influence. I recollect
hearing a very eminent Frenchman, M. Guizot, say
that the literature of France would match—by,
which, of course, he meant would beat—all our lite-
rature, with . one exception, mid that was our do-
mestic novels. He said, " In science we match you ;
in poetry we match you (though in that he was
quite mistaken) ; in history we match you ; but we
have not got anything— in our literature like the
Heir of Itedcliffe and your domestic novels. All
books of that class are peculiarly English. They
are books describing a virtuous domestic life, books
describing a simple domeStic life. They do not go
to the tragic or dramatic for interest, but they draw
it from the simple springs of natural life. This we
have not got in the literature of France." I believe
they have. not got it because they have not got in
France the same kind of domestic life. That which
is our representation of domestic life, and which,
according to M. Guizot, is wanting in the French
literature, has no existence in France. The French
have their description of domestic life, but it differs
very much from ours. There are many works—
finch, for instance, as the works of Mr. Kingsley—