The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-29
THE BENEFACTOR
 OF POOR AUTHORS

This is the centenary of the death of David Williams, an English author whose works are now seldom read. but whose benevolent spirit still lives in the Royal Literary Fund, an insti- tuition of which he was the founder, and similar agencies for the relief of poor and struggling authors and men of letters. Williams was seventy eight at the time Of his death, and his long life had been devoted to the ser vice of humanity and the advocacy of unpopular causes. 14ecause of his s'.extreme radicalisn'' in religion and politics although he would now be looked upon as conservative-he reaped little financial reward for his labors and lived and died a poor man. Like most benefactors of hu-
 manity, he was hooted and jeered
 while alive, and honored only after his death.
 It was in 1790 that the Royal Lit erary Fund was instituted in London for the purpose of succouring literary men in pecuniary distress and pro- | viding for their surviving relatives. l Williams, in spite of his own pre- carious Smeans of subsistence, devot- 1 ed almost his entire time to the pro- l ject for several years, and raised a fund of $3O.0O0 for the society. He | was inspired to do this by the sad
 case of F1oyer Sydenham, a Greek
 scholar of great learning and wide I
 Plato. who was arrested and thrown | into the prison for debtors because | of a, small amount he owed for his l frugal meals. The scholar, broken
 hearted and miserable, died in prison | in 1788, at the age of eighty. The
 sympathy excited by this case helped
 Williams to mature his project, and
 the Royal Literary Fund which he | founded has since been the means of ] saving hundreds of worthy authors
 from misery and want.
 1 David Williams began his career as
 a Unitarian minister, but later he be- | came deist and freethinker and was
 in charge of 8 liberal congregation in 1 London. He was a close personal | friend of Benjamin Franklin, and the American philosopher and scientist 1 was often his guest while in Eng
 land. Williams and Franklin were in | substantial agreement in their reli- gious and political views.
 In the early days of the French
 revolution Williams went to Paris and
 was declared French citizen, like pr. 1 Priestley, Sir James Macintosh l Thomas Paine, and other liberals of 1 English birth. He mingled with the l Girondists and was consulted as to l the form of constitution for France. l When the revolutions original pur-
 pose was swallowed up in the abyss ] of terrorism Williams returned to
 England, and it was then that he l brought to a successful conclusion his
 project for a fund for literary men. | The works of Williams include
 books on religion, theology, public
 worship, political principles and ethi-
 cal and moral issues. Like his reY-
 low revolutionist, Thomas Paine. Will Hams was animated throughout his 1 life by noble impulses for serving 1 humanity, and, like Paine, he was | the spokesman for snany causes and
 movements which are now accepted
 as necessary to the maintenance of 1 civilized society, but which were then execrated devices of the devil. If Williams were alive today he would be looked upon kindly and bene-
 Volent old fogy, but hope1essly behind the times, instead of being the pro- pagandist of "moustrous ideas.''
 In one respect, however there has
 been little change in the conditions l with which Williams was familiar While the writers of ''best sellers
 now enjoy incomes vastly greater than the most gifted of authors of a cen-
 tury ago dreamed of, those who de-
 vote their time and talent to sert- 1ous literary are. as rule. as poorly