196 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. country, and been so useful a contributor to the early colonial history of Britain, would have met here the warmest reception, and represented not only the learning, but the heart of his countrymen (cheers). Lest it should be thought I have taken upon me voluntarily this office, let me say, that I have been obliged to yield to the importunity of your Secretary, whom I never saw but once before, and that a thousand miles off, in consenting to represent one feeling, one fraternal feeling, among the authors of America for the authors of Great Britain (cheers). If I could call up before you any one of five-and-twenty writers I might name, who dwell beyond the blue sea that divides us, to tell you how we feel towards the land of our fathers (cheers), how Americans feel towards this Institution, in whose beneficence some of them, I have every reason to believe, have participated, some words of fire should be struck off to-night that would make this fine old Hall echo to the shout of a literary brotherhood that must one day bind all our hearts together (prolonged and enthusiastic cheering). The object contemplated by your Institution is one of the purest and noblest man ever conceived-to relieve the sufferings of those gifted men into whose hearts the God of Light has breathed the inspiration that belongs to a higher crder of intelligence, but who, in the devoted work of redeeming the lost millions of earth, have been left, like the Son of Man, with no place to lay their heads (cheers). On such a mission what angel would not have been proud to go (cheers)? Literature is a very precarious profession at best; from the early days of the earth's history, when blind old Homer, to get his bread, went singing scraps of the Iliad (under less comfortable circumstances than our friends have done to-night) under the walls of half a score of cities which afterwards fought for the honor of having given him birth, down to the garrets of Chatterton and honest Tom Steele (cheers), authors have been a marvelously hungry and destitute set of men (cheers and laughter). Now, it seems to me, that an Institution whose object is to compensate for the lack of that ordinary prudence which more calculating men abound in, is a Society which attempts in some humble manner to emulate the beneficence of Heaven, whose inspiring light goes softly and kindly stealing into every cornfield of Europe and jungle of India, that warms the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and visits with healing influence every broken heart (cheers). The delicacy with which you send your bread to feed the solitary scholar on the desert of life, like all true benevolence, is attended by no flourish of trumpets (cheers). The world knows not what you do; but the suffering scholar knows it, and his beneficent Father in heaven knows it,-and that is enough (loud cheers). It is very late, gentlemen, and I think we ought not to waste any of our AUTHORS NOBLES, AND NOBLES AUTHORS. 197 time in clapping (cheers). It don't disturb me, but it uses up the time, and this seems to me bad economy (cheers and laughter). Yes, I feel that in saying a few words in reply to the toast proposed, I am doing a wrong to the authors of all countries, but particularly of America, whom I honor and love, and who could more worthily represent that Republic to which I have the honor to belong in a very humble capacity. But there is another consideration which oppresses me still more. I was surprised in coming here this evening-I might have anticipated it all, but with the thoughtlessness that belongs to some authors, I forgot it -that I should be brought into the presence, not only of some of the most learned of the nobles of England, whom I honor for the great deeds of their fathers and for their devotion to letters, but into the presence of some of those writers whom I have worshipped from afar over the sea, as my fathers and teachers when I was a boy (cheers). For in college days I was, despite all present evidence to the contrary, carefully drilled through the Rhetoric and Logic of the Right Rev. Archbishop who sits opposite me (cheers and laughter); and had I then been told that at a future day I should have been admitted, even as a stranger, into his presence, it would have inspired me with an enthusiasm for his name over those dry pages-dry as I then thought them, but not since-which as a boy I learned by heart, only to discover their meaning too late to make me good at anything which requires either reason or cloquence (cheers). There was another name I learned to utter with that of Shakspere and Scott, and afterwards to love almost if not quite as well. Like others who have paid some attention to letters, I had groped blindly through the Mcdiæval age, till Hallam had shed over it the light of his genius (cheers). But with that great work in my hands, I went as confidently through the labyrinths of the Dark Ages, as I followed a fatherguide through the trackless forests of my native land. So did I cling to the skirts of Hallam (loud cheers); and while I have been attempting, for six years, to decipher on the spot the inscriptions engraven on the ruins of Italy, I have found him my best guide. He has written about them with the heart of a lover, and the head of a sage (cheers). And I now thank God in the earnestness of my heart-and this you will not call a trick of speaking, you would insult the genuineness of my feelings if you did that I am permitted to come and lay the tribute of my gratitude at the feet of my historical father (loud and long cheers). In rambling through the caves of Carrara, where Michael Angelo saw the statue of David in a rejected block of marble, it was evident that his mission lay in showing what genius could create out of stone. It seemed to me too, that the mission of the great historian, so beautifully illustrated in this case, was to show what genius could create out of darkness (cheers). 198 WHO WILL SAVE ENGLAND. For though the Dark Ages before that book was written, an Italian critic said, “A flood of light has streamed so broad and clear on our Mediæval history, from the pen of Hallam's genius, that ever after we may call that hitherto chaotic period the light ages." He has conducted the student of history through the dark ages, as Galileo led future astronomers through the untravelled passages of the skies, which the Almighty had never before opened to the telescope (cheers). But I have already spoken too long, although I have not yet said what I rose to uttter (Go on, go on). I will, and stop too as quick as I can well manage to do it, for the warm hospitality with which I have been received has quite put every idea of a speech out of my head, and left me nothing but my heart to give you (cheers). You must excuse me for talking as I would if I were at the banquet board of a company of old friends whom I had just rejoined after a long separation-for in no assembly and in no home of England have I ever been able to feel like a stranger (loud cheers). It has been with no little surprise that I have heard so many speakers this evening allude to that "10th of April" (laughter). No future historian will be likely to say much about it, I fancy. In the midst of the convulsions that are shaking other thrones to dust, England is safe! The world can never dispense with her agency in civilizing mankind; her commerce and her literature are instruments God himself has appointed for emancipating the world. All that is true, and just, and generous in these islands will live. Those appalling changes that have taken place on the continent were inevitable, for neither governments nor legislations marched with the progress of society. The wave that swept away the institutions of France, dashed against putrid masses of corruption-it found French human nature there; here it found AngloSaxon human nature-and I take it there is a considerable distinction between them (cheers and laughter). There is one conservative principle which lies at the bottom of Anglo-Saxon character, which has always saved England-it is still able to do it--it is reverence for law and order, because nothing but law and order can prove any effectual safeguard to liberty of person and liberty of conscience. This principle has animated her literature in every age. Here the Press is not only free, but, for the most part, it is under the control of scholars-of men who believe in progress - who fix no limits to future civilization, and whose hearts are with the coming age. They will guide England through the future as they have led her through the past (cheers):—yes, in their hands England is safe (loud cheers). His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin intimated-and I will not try to quote his words, for fear I might dim their lustre-that such was the spirit of the British nation, that even the long-descended nobles of Eng ENGLISH AMERICANS. 199 land were not content to repose on the laurels of their ancestors. It was a great satisfaction for me to feel its truth, and to know that nothing commands so much veneration in England as genius and virtue, in whatever rank they may be found. A nobility that enters the common field of achievement, and deserves the thanks of its country-that leads the way in all that contributes to the glory and prosperity of a great people, has something to repose on that can withstand any shock-such men are “the natural nobility of earth" (loud cheers). Something of that kind I seem to see here, where nobles are authors and authors are nobles (loud cheers). But before I sit down I have a request to make of your Grace. It should be your Grace's pardon for having so long abused your courtesy in listening to my desultory remarks. But hoping this may be granted without a formal petition (cheers), I beg to be allowed to do something that may bring the authors of America nearer home to your hearts and your sympathies-to forward on my return-for I am on this island only as a bird of passage flying over it-an offering-I will not say how large it will be, but it shall be a hearty one-from some of the literary men of America for this Institution (loud cheers). I trust your Grace shall be satisfied that, however I may have misrepresented the eloquence of American authors (cheers), I have done but feeble justice to their feelings when I assure you that they feel, that in anything that is great and noble and good in England, they have a right to share as brethren (cheers). And after all, who was Shakspere? Our ancestors were all living together then, and together they went to see his plays (cheers). Until our history begins in America, it belongs to England, and England's to us, as well as you (cheers). And no man worthy of being born in either country will ever clap the torch to that beautiful temple of harmony between the two countries that God intended to raise, and that man ought never to defile (cheers). What British or American writer would ape the Ephesian wretch who made himself immortal by laying such a holy fabric in ashes? (Loud cheering). Threadbare pennya-liners, reduced ladies of quality, needy adventurers, and id genus omne, have long enough been supposed to represent the feelings of the mother and the child (laughter). Let us represent ourselves (hear, hear). Let us know each other better, and who can say we may not some day come to like each other better than we expected (laughter and applause). Nothing sanctifies all our better feelings so much as doing good together (cheers). What humble agency I have, will be heartily extended towards such a consummation; and with the permission of your Grace, and those you are proud to call your friends around this festive board, I pledge myself, with the blessing of God, to forward from some of the friends of literature in America, during the year, an offering-such as it may be 200 ACCOUNT OF ALMACK'S. to show that in everything England does, that's above reproach and above praise, we do feel that we have a claim to be admitted as your younger brothers (great applause). XI. OTE BOOK.-During one of my many visits to London, ΝΤ A few evenings since, after being present at a musical soirée at Lord -'s, as I was passing through King street, St. James, I heard two gentlemen conversing about the last ball at Almack's. I had often heard of Almack's, but I knew very little about it. Since then I have, from various sources, gathered the following information concerning this "Temple of Fashion:" It is a place where "the very soul of enlightened society centres;" where the most splendid and noble of the noblest aristocracy of the noblest and most enlightened nation of the earth assemble; where the spirituelle and ineffable quintessence of the sublimate of fashion, refined from the clarified essence of wealth and rank, "is collected in one hot and luminous focus." It is, in fact, to London what London is to England, what England is to the civilized world: a place, in short, to which the most ancient and honorable nobility look with reverence; nobility whose ancestry can be traced back in one bright chain of fox-hunters to the Norman Conquest, or the times of the Saxon Heptarchy; for this is an establishment to which age and old time must do honor; the very temple, and, as it were, the most holy place of fashion. How many robes of passing splendor have swept over the threshold of this sacred tabernacle, none but the recording angel can tell. For nearly a century now its halls have been illustrated year after year, and month after month, with all that England could crowd together of brilliancy and rank. Nothing low or vulgar has ever approached the hallowed verge of its consecrated precincts: Procul, 0 procul este profani! There are mysteries here not to be gazed on by common eyes: a few starred Sibyls (looking marvelously like English females with the yellow hair of Saxony yet on their brows) have established certain unearthly rites and ceremonies in King street, St. James, to the full understanding of which none but the titled elect are admitted; and who are required to live sublimely apart from the rest of the world, from which they are separated by a barrier as broad and impassable as the Sahara Desert. The happy few, the priestesses of the temple, exercise an absolute au |