The Sun. — 1852-07-21 (London, England)

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1852.  Another proof has just been afforded of the niggardliness with which the genius of England is rewarded. The appearedcustomary annual-list of pensions yesterday, I and from that melancholy catalogue, which will found elsewhere in our impression of this evening, it will be perceived that the sum total reaches, as usual,inthe the paltry pittance of twelve hundred pounds —when twelve tlaousan(ggregate. Twelve hundred :ould have been very far indeed from an extrava enough, GOD know F—and "e ! The regret is old • we have ourselves so very frequently given utterance to it beforea now, without 6 the consolation of witnessin— better, that we find it impossible to e for the . to chap g to the matter otherwise than with a profoundtb art-sickness. , , as well as We might say with STruNE upon b upon many other occasions, that " they man things better in France"—in France, where under these u the Monarchy a novelist could be creatednder a Viscount, and where under the Republic the man of letters can at leest obtain the solace of an honourable decoration ! But we can go further—we can say that they manage these things better even in the United States. There—if the current literature or the day he stunted, as I. unirippily is, by the lamentable and Pernicious denial of an international copyright—the merits of intellect are r.!; ..lny rate recognised by the wh °' , " mass 01. the free citizens, by the spontaneous conferete, - of a multitude of graceful -11 v' and grateful prerogati e ' There homage is almost everywhere done to thris 8 V4hO&P mental capacities have acquired fur them a notable degree of celebrity.  The renowned are treated in the majority of instances in the light of public benefactors—free pass being yielded to them in places of general resort, or through the ordinary means of conveyance—payment being repeatedly refused at their hands on the steam-boats and on the railroads. Evidences of respect like this as displayed towards DANIEL WEBSTER might be regarded as only a matter of course in America—but we doubt very much if the most credulous man in Great Britain could believe that a similar tribute had been offered to THOMAS MACAULAY, or, believing it, could regard it as a sign of anything but irremediable insanity. Surely, we may remark, then, that in one particular, at least, they manage these things better in the United States. Better too in one part of Germany—where WILLIAM HUMBOLDT is a Baron, and in another where the same title has been conferred upon Llama Better in Denmark, where the once poor, and ignoble, and contemned CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN could be received as no dishonouring guest in the palace of his Sovereign. Better in the days of antiquity, and during the supremacy of paganism, when SOCRATES was not less revered, although a poor man, than CICERO himself, surrounded with all the splendours of one of the wealthiest and proudest of patricians. How different for ages past until now has been the treatment of the great men of England, both by the Monarch and by the multitude ! Here the literary biographer, in particular, is but too familiar with the records of calamity as the surest among the fruits of a high poetic reputation. It is an old tale now, the death of OTWAT —strangled by a crust in the last agonies of a protracted starvation—a tale as old as the demise of CaMOENS, the sweetest among the bards of Portugal. A narrative more awful, and as well remembered also, is that of the suicide from hunger in the garret at No. 4, Brook-street, Holborn (with ten or twelve pounds still owing to him by the well-to-do and well- conditioned booksellers), of "the marvellous boy that perished in his pride," the noble-hearted and nobleminded Cueerreileora We all of us preserve, moreover, among the catalogue of these numerous and harrowing recollections the memory of BUDGELL drowning himself in the Thames, of SAVAGE dying in a debtors' prison, of DErDEN beggared in his old age —that old age glorious with the fame of one of the truest men, as he was also one of the most resplendent geniuses this country has ever possessed amongst the number of her children. The greatest critic of his age—as he is himself the finest prosewriter in the language—has told us in moving words that the grnatiegs and slohberings of Doctor Jonssox over his dinner, even when in the society of ladies, was the unconscious penalty of that famine which in his youth had so often driven him to devour a plate of broken meat behind the screen at St. John's Gate. In the instance of that great man, it is true that a tardy recognition of his powers was among the few noble acts recorded of his late Majesty King