ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE. (JUNE 1823.) THIS is the age of societies. There is scarcely one Englishman in ten who has not belonged to some association for distributing books, or for prosecuting them; for sending invalids to the hospital, or beggars to the treadmill; for giving plate to the rich or blankets to the poor. To be the most absurd insti- | tution among so many institutions is no small distinction; it seems, however, to belong indisputably to the Royal Society of Literature. At the first establishment of that ridiculous academy, every sensible man predicted that, in spite of regal patronage and episcopal management, would do nothing, or do harm. And it will scarcely be denied that those expectations have

hitherto been fulfilled.

I do not attack the founders of the association. Their characters are respectable; their motives, I am willing to believe, were laudable. But I feel, and it is the duty of every literary man to feel, a strong jealousy of their proceedings. Their society can be innocent only while it continues to be despicable. Should they ever possess the power to encourage merit, they must also possess the power to depress it. Which power will be more frequently exercised, let every one who has studied literary history, let every one who has studied human nature, declare.

Envy and faction insinuate themselves into all communities. They often disturb the peace, and pervert the decisions, of benevolent and scientific associations. But it is in literary academies that they exert the most extensive and pernicious influence. In the first place, the principles of literary criticism, though equally fixed with those on which the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equally recognised. Men are rarely able to assign a reason for their approbation or dislike on questions of taste; and therefore they willingly submit to any guide who boldly asserts his claim to superior discernment. It is more difficult to ascertain and establish the merits of a poem than the powers of a

machine or the benefits of a new remedy. Hence it is in literature, that quackery is most easily puffed, and excellence most easily decried.

But

In some degree this argument applies to academies of the fine arts; and it is fully confirmed by all that I have ever heard of that institution which annually disfigures the walls of Somerset-House with an acre of spoiled canvass. a literary tribunal is incomparably more dangerous, Other societies, at least, have no tendency to call forth any opinions on those subjects which most agitate and inflame the minds of men. The sceptic and the zealot, the revolutionist and the placeman, meet on common ground in a gallery of paintings or a laboratory of science. They can praise or censure without reference to the differences which exist between them. In a literary body this can never be the case. Literature is, and always must be, inseparably blended with politics and theology; it is the great engine which moves the feelings of a people on the most momentous questions. It is, therefore, impossible that any society can be formed so impartial as to consider the literary character of an individual abstracted from the opinions which his writings inculcate. It is not to be hoped, perhaps it is not to be wished, that the feelings of the man should be so completely forgotten in the duties of the academician. The consequences are evident. The honours and censures of this Star-chamber of the Muses will be awarded according to the prejudices of the particular sect or faction which may at the time predominate. Whigs would canvass against a Southey, Tories against a Byron. Those who might at first protest against such conduct as unjust would soon adopt it on the plea of retaliation; and the general good of literature, for which the society was professedly instituted, would be forgotten in the stronger claims of political and religious partiality.

Yet even this is not the worst. Should the institution ever acquire any influence, it will afford most pernicious facilities to every malignant coward who may desire to blast a reputation which

topic.

he envies. It will furnish a secure am- letters. But I hasten on to another buscade, behind which the Maroons of literature may take a certain and deadly One of the modes by which our aim. The editorial we has often been Society proposes to encourage merit is fatal to rising genius; though all the the distribution of prizes. The muniworld knows that it is only a form of ficence of the king has enabled it to speech, very often employed by a single offer an annual premium of a hundred needy blockhead. The academic we guineas for the best essay in prose, and would have a far greater and more another of fifty guineas for the best ruinous influence. Numbers, while they poem, which may be transmitted to it. increased the effect, would diminish the This is very laughable. In the first shame, of injustice. The advantages of place the judges may err. Those iman open and those of an anonymous perfections of human intellect to which, attack would be combined; and the as the articles of the church tell us, authority of avowal would be united to even general councils are subject may the security of concealment. The ser- possibly be found even in the Royal pents in Virgil, after they had destroyed Society of Literature. The French Laocoon, found an asylum from the academy, as I have already said, was vengeance of the enraged people behind the most illustrious assembly of the the shield of the statue of Minerva. kind, and numbered among its assoAnd, in the same manner, every thing ciates men much more distinguished that is grovelling and venomous, every thing that can hiss, and every thing that can sting, would take sanctuary in the recesses of this new temple of wisdom.

than

ever will assemble at Mr. Hatchard's to rummage the box of the English Society. Yet this famous body gave a poetical prize, for which Voltaire was a candidate, to a fellow who wrote some verses about the frozen and the burning pole.

The French academy was, of all such associations, the most widely and the most justly celebrated. It was founded Yet, granting that the prizes were by the greatest of ministers; it was always awarded to the best composition, patronised by successive kings; it that composition, I say without hesitanumbered in its lists most of the eminent tion, will always be bad. A prize poem is French writers. Yet what benefit has like a prize sheep. The object of the comliterature derived from its labours ? petitor for the agricultural premium is What is its history but an uninterrupted to produce an animal fit, not to be eaten, record of servile compliances-of paltry but to be weighed. Accordingly he pamartifices of deadly quarrels-of per-pers his victim into morbid and unfidious friendships? Whether governed natural fatness; and, when it is in such by the Court, by the Sorbonne, or by a state that it would be sent away in the Philosophers, it was always equally disgust from any table, he offers it to powerful for evil, and equally impotent the judges. The object of the poetical for good. I might speak of the attacks candidate, in like manner, is to produce, by which it attempted to depress the not a good poem, but a poem of that exact rising fame of Corneille; I might speak degree of frigidity or bombast which of the reluctance with which it gave its may appear to his censors to be correct tardy confirmation to the applauses or sublime. Compositions thus conwhich the whole civilised world had structed will always be worthless. The bestowed on the genius of Voltaire. I few excellences which they may conmight prove by overwhelming evidence tain will have an exotic aspect and that, to the latest period of its existence, flavour. In general, prize sheep are even under the superintendence of the good for nothing but to make tallow all-accomplished D'Alembert, it con- candles, and prize poems are good for tinued to be a scene of the fiercest ani- nothing but to light them. mosities and the basest intrigues. I might cite Piron's epigrams, and Marmontel's memoirs, and Montesquieu's

The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England was Dartmoor. I thought that they intended

a covert sarcasm at their own projects. | and one of them thus addressed the Their institution was a literary Dart-king: moor scheme;-a plan for forcing into cultivation the waste lands of intellect, -for raising poetical produce, by means of bounties, from soil too meagre to have yielded any returns in the natural course of things. The plan for the cultivation of Dartmoor has, I hear, been abandoned. I hope that this may be an omen of the fate of the Society.

mission to resign the office of deciding Thou knowest Ascobaruch who hath between such detestable potions.

66

"In the name of Belus, how can this have happened?" said the king. Merolchazzar, the high-priest, muttered something about the anger of the Gods at the toleration shown to a sect of impious heretics who ate pigeons broiled, "whereas," said he, our religion commands us to eat them roasted. Now therefore, O King," continued this respectable divine, "give command to thy men of war, and let them smite the disobedient people with the sword, them, and their wives, and their children, and let their houses, and their flocks, and their herds, be given to thy servants the priests. Then shall the land yield its increase, and the fruits of the earth shall be no more blasted by the vengeance of heaven."

"Nay," said the king, "the ground lies under no general curse from hea

ven.

The season has been singularly good. The wine which thou didst thyself drink at the banquet a few nights ago, oh venerable Merolchazzar, was of this year's vintage. Dost thou not remember how thou didst praise it? It was the same night that thou wast inspired by Belus and didst reel to and fro, and discourse sacred mysteries. These things are too hard for me. I comprehend them not. The only wine which is bad is that which is sent to my judges. Who can expound this to us?"

The king scratched his head. Upon which all the courtiers scratched their heads.

He then ordered proclamation to be made, that a purple robe and a golden chain should be given to the man who could solve this difficulty.

the great vineyards in the north, and Cohahiroth who sendeth wine every year from the south over the Persian gulf. Their wines are so delicious that ten measures thereof are sold for an hundred talents of silver. Thinkest thou that they will exchange them for thy slaves and thine asses? What would thy prize profit any who have vineyards in rich soils?"

"Who then," said one of the judges, "are the wretches who sent us this poison?"

"Blame them not," said the sage, "seeing that you have been the authors of the evil. They are men whose lands are poor, and have never yielded them any returns equal to the prizes which the king proposed. Wherefore, knowing that the lords of the fruitful vineyards would not enter into competition with them, they planted vines, some on rocks, and some in light sandy soil, and some in deep clay. Hence their wines are bad. For no culture or reward will make barren land bear good vines. Know therefore, assuredly, that your prizes have increased the quantity of bad but not of good wine."

There was a long silence. At length the king spoke. "Give him the purple robe and the chain of gold. Throw the wines into the Euphrates; and proclaim that the Royal Society of Wines is dissolved."

SCENES FROM "ATHENIAN
REVELS." (JANUARY 1824.)

A DRAMA.

I.

SCENE-A Street in Athens. Enter CALLIDEMUS and SPEUSIPPUS.

CALLIDEMUS.

An old philosopher, who had been observed to smile rather disdainfully So, you young reprobate! You must when the prize had first been insti- be a man of wit, forsooth, and a man tuted, came forward and spoke thus:- of quality! You must spend as if you "Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! were as rich as Nicias, and prate as if Marvel not at that which has hap- you were as wise as Pericles! You pened. It was no miracle, but a must dangle after sophists and pretty natural event. How could it be other-women! And I must pay for all! I wise? It is true that much good wine must sup on thyme and onions, while has been made this year. But who you are swallowing thrushes and hares! would send it in for thy rewards? I must drink water, that you may play

Ay, by Jupiter! Is such a show as you make to be supported on nothing? During all the last war, I made not an

He does! Would that it had fallen obol from my farm; the Peloponnesian

This was the most disreputable part of you, doubtless, when you are squeezing