The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-05 00:00:00

unless it was accompanied with intelligence, civilization,
and intellect. If they were in poverty, what so delight-
ful as the inner resources derived from cultivation of our •
higher faculties, which no bankrupt taunt could ever ex-
tort from us ?—(Cheers.) He read with great pleasure
the letter of their old friend Mr. Thomas Hood, who said
in reference to this subject, in answer to an invitation to
be present on that occasion :—" The truth is, I am a
confirmed invalid, and almost set in for still life, a con-
dition irksome enough, and which would be intolerable,
but from the comfort and consolation I derive from the
diversions of authorship and the blessed springs of lite-
rature. Fortunately the head that has a mind to it
may travel without those pantings which beset spas-
modic lungs ; the thoughts can expatiate, without such
palpitations as result from the excursions of the legs.
Forbidden to walk, there is the run of the library ; but
I have already described the advantage of books and
reading, by help of which even the bedridden may enjoy
a longer range than even Captain Warner's. Suffice it,
that experience and suffering have confirmed my former
views, that if anything could aggravate the evil of be-
coming what the Scotch call a puir silly body,' it must •
be a poor silly mind, incapable of wholesome exercise,
without appetite for intellectual food, or the power of
digesting it. And as age and accidents to the human
machinery will impair the strongest horse-power of
health, whilst the fairest mercantile endeavours may fail
to secure a fortune—l would earnestly forewarn all per-
sons within reach of my counsel, especially the young,
to provide against such contingencies, by the timely cul- •
tivation and enrichment of that divine allotment which it
depends on ourselves to render a flower-garden or a dead
waste • a pleasure-ground visited by the graces, and fre-
quented by the fairies, or a wilderness hunted by satyrs,'
lie would only add, they were Young Manchester, and
he rejoiced to think they had Young England with them.
—(Cheers.) Let them go on as they had done, and
apply the same energy to that and kindred institutions,
and let them proceed in the firm belief that they were
not only adding to their own stores of happiness, but
tending to elevate the community among which they
lived—for upon them would depend the future greatness,
of Manchester and the surrounding community.
Lord J. MANNERS, who was loudly cheered, said—
When I first received the flattering invitation to he pre-
sent at this most brilliant and gratifying assemblage, I will
own to you that I hesitated whether to accept it or not,
because I was not sure that a stranger from another
part of England did right in participating in a work af-
fecting the local interests of this vast hive of manufac-
turing industry ; but then I reflected that Manchester
had now, by the enterprise and skill of her children,
become intimately and inseparably connected with
every portion, however remote, of the English kingdom,
and that every Englishman might therefore claim a
share in her greatness, sympathise in her endeavours
to promote the welfare of her children, and share
in her princely hospitality. Nor, indeed, will this
be the first time that I have partaken of this
hospitality, nor this the first occasion on which I
have expressed my grateful sense of it.—(Cheers.) In
appearing, therefore, among you this evening, although
to most of you, I fear, I must be a stranger, I cannot
altogether say I feel myself among strangers.—(Cheers.)
The kindness indeed of your reception of me, and those
cheers, would before this have dissipated my fears on that
score. In these days of political rancour, and class and
party distinctions, it is gratifying to any one who remem-
bers that the name of Englishman should be one or
prouder import, and bear a more quickening spell, than
that of Whig or Tory—(Cheers)—to find a field whereon
politicians of all opinions may meet without quarrelling,
and, better still, with a good hope that the result
of the meeting may be affording increased means
of mental amusement and recreation to the laborious
tradesman and toiling apprentice.—(Cheers.) I have
called it amusement and recreation, because I do not un-
derstand that your Athenmum professes to go beyond
that, and because I should think less well of it if it did.
And here I must beg a boon at your hands.—lf in any-
thing I have said, or am about to say, I may hazard an
opinion not altogether in harmony with that of every in-
divdual out of the 3,000 whom I have now the honour of
addressing, an event certainly by no means improbable,
I ask you to overlook it, and, as a love of independence
has ever been a characteristic of the Saxon, I am sure I
shall not ask in vain.—(Cheers.) The reason, then, why
Mechanics' Institutes were so strongly opposed at their
formation, and why, in my opinion, so ninny of them are
now either languishing or dead—was, that deserting and
exceeding this their legitimate province, they arrogated,
or at least their advocates arrogated for them, the edu-
cation of the country, and seemed to fancy it supplied by
a smattering of science and human philosophy. It was
but the other day I had the pleasure of listening to a
speech, which would have graced any assembly, de-
livered by a young Birmingham artisan, in which he
ascribed the decadence of all such institutions in his own
town to their forgetting amusement in instruction, and
acting on the assumption that a man, after working
twelve, or fourteen, or perhaps fifteen hours a day, would
or could sit down to recreate his mind with a
course of mathematics or a lecture on geology.—
(Cheers.) If then your Athenirum were founded on
any such basis, I frankly say I could not support it, bur,
believing it only proposes to supply the already educated
with wholesome and agreeable reading—to Would, soften,
and elevate the intellectual tastes of that middle class of
which it is chiefly composed, and to foster and encou-
rage rising talent, I rejoice at this opportunity your
kindness has afforded me of expressing my sympathy
in your objects and my warm approval of your endea-
vours—endeavours and objects which, taken in con-
junction with others, animated by a similar spirit, may
go far to supply the place of that more intimate con-
nection which once subsisted between the master and
his apprentice, and unite generally the various classes of
society in the firm bonds of mutual interest and good
will.—(Cheers.) It would be, indeed, most presump-
tuous in me and most unnecessary to do more in Man-
chester, than just allude to the fact that there are no
other steps to be taken besides this one of providing
intellectual recreation for the middle class.—(Cheers.)
The magnificent example set by Manchester to all
other large towns, and with which all England is at this
moment ringing—that great undertaking to provide
parks and walks for all classes of the community—open
alike to the highest and the lowest—shows how well that
truth is understood in Manchester, and I trust, before
long, it will be followed by another step in the same direc-
tion, the opening of museums and collections of that na-
ture to the people at large. Most encouraging indeed is
it to witness the eagerness with which the people every-
where avail themselves of every opportunity which is,
offered them to frequent exhibitions of art, places of in.
nocent amusement—still wore gratifying their demea-
nour while there. The meeting I had the pleasure of
attending this morning bore witness to another fact as
to the taste of the members of the various literary insti-
tutions which I think is remarkable. We were told that
history was a favourite study—(Cheers)—now, I think
it a matter of congratulation, that contemporary with.
this increased demand for history do we find a satisfac-
tory revolution in that department of literature. We
see a truth-seeking inquisition at work, which refuses to
accept the low and party views of the historians of the
last century ; the data upon which history is to be
formed are carefully sought out, revolved from the ob-
scurity in which they arc shrouded, and from them in-
dependent conclusions are formed, often at variance with
received notions and opinions. The formation and suc-
cess of societies like the Camden, the Roxburgh, the
Archaeological, and others which are constantly bringing,
those data to light, are proofs of the zeal and earnest-
ness with which the records of the mighty past are
being ransacked for the benefit, we may hope, of
the future. In a social and political point of view—.
political, I mean, in its most legitimate and least
party sense—l rate highly the good which may
accrue to this country from having its pest his-
tory not tt mere record of the kings who reigned
and the battles they fought, but the history of its inner
life, the habits, thoughts, and tastes of its people the
real aims and objects of its governors laid faithfully be-
fore us, because I am every day more and more convinced
that half the mischief which is done to a country like
this by its legislators and rulers is done from a misunder-
standing of its past history—(Cheers)—and it is to socie-
ties like these, and to meetings like these, that they, who
are thus pioneering the way to a faithful, understanding
of the past, must look for support :ad encouragement
against the obloquy and oppositv:,n which every one who
disturbs the slumber of conte,ated lethargy must encoun-
ter.—(Cheers.) In aneelher, perhaps subordinate, but
still important branch of contemporary literature—that
of taste and the fine arts, no one can entertain a doubt as
to the salutary change which has come over the popular
mind in that respect. Glance at the literary advertise-
ments, observe the works lying in every bookseller's shop,
on every stall at your railway stations, enter the schools
of design now happily opened in some of our large towns,
listen to the lectures of such men as Professor Dyce or
Professor Willis—in all we see signs not to be misunder-
stood of an improved, a more noble, a more English, a
more Christian taste. That which M. Rio and others
have so appropriately termed Christian art has once more
' raised its head, and promises fair to emulate, not to sur-
pass, but to emulate its past grandeur and bto eautj.
Be it then the part of the Manchester Atheiate9ma.
rising
art, cul-
tivateand foster that manly literature,
this
urenadg
and this
En
e
art, in their endeavour to
n
place,already
so remarkable etlieireometa purityercin
beauty of their l
sand
manufacturing
greatness,eg fore
equally so
for th
artsand literature.—(Cheers.) Be it
yd
ourstorene render obsolete the taunt that manufactures
must produce a dry, harsh, unpoetical, material spirit ;
be it yours to practicallybyretfbuote
mtahsetertearrroibblieteoto
f contrast
the
which has beendrawn
day between such a town as Manchester in 1480 and in
1840, by inducing a love for, and an appreciation ot,
whatever is elevating and ennobling in the fire arts and
literature : do this.—(Cheers.) I know those will stilt
be tasks of greater moment and greater d;.fficulty to ae
complish ; but do this—you will have done somewhat-e.
a great somewhat ; you will blend together in harmony
elements heretofore most contradictory; you will have
used them for preparing the ground., it may be for others
to bring into rich cultivation ; you will have set an
example to the people of England, that however weighty
political differences may be, social accord and improve.
meat is still more so ; and depend upon it, your chil-
dren's children will have reason to bless those evenings
spent as this evening is being spent, in good fellowship
and the interchanges of kind wishes and of thought be.
tween the various classes of this careworn empire', in we
attempt—may it be successful—to soften the harsh ten•
dencies of toil and wealth by the gentle means of litera-
ture and art.—(Loud and continued cheering.)
Mr. M. GresoN congratulated the meeting on the
brilliancy of the assemblage. He felt the force of the re.
marks of his lion. Friend tho Member for Stockport
when he expressed the embarrassment he experienced to
endeavouring to address an assembly where al wee,
agreed—there were no arguments to combat, ne fallacies
to refute ; there were none incredulous whom it was
necessary to convince or surprise, no believing minds
that it was desirable to attempt to strengthen or con.
firm—all were agreed. It was animating to behold such
a vast assemblage of lo.nyknc,l7,iit!ienliiive,e:nb.ruLdnognua.b4,