THE GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART,

AND ITS PROJECTORS.

It is now, we believe, nearly two years since it began to be whispered about that a new institution was on the point of being founded in the interests of literary men and artists: a class of persons who contribute more than any others to the instruction and delight of society, and are commonly among its very worst and most precariously-paid members. Such a project, emanating, as it was said to do, from some of the most distinguished writers of the day, could not fail to be cordially received. Few people were ignorant that while literary men-in particular those we mean who live by literature as a vocation-were to be numbered in the present day by hundreds, and while cases of the deepest distress were of a lamentably frequent occurrence among them, other means of assisting them than those resulting from private friendship or humiliating appeals to public sympathy, rested exactly where they were upwards of half a century ago. The age of patrons and printing by subscription was at an end, never more, it is to be hoped, to return; and booksellers, though by no means on the whole either an illiberal or indiscriminating race of men, were still traders only-looking at everything in a commercial point of view, bargaining for the greatest advantages at the smallest possible expense, and very little disposed to have anything to do with authors whose reputation was not already in some degree established. Many a man of talent and learning had been driven to think seriously of Cave's advice to Johnson, about the porter's knot, while he was seeking a publisher for a work which subsequently brought him credit and emolument. Many

a clever contributor to the periodicals had seen his means of subsistence suddenly cut short by the stoppage of the review or magazine with which he was connected. One suicide, at the least, and far more than one deathbed attended with circumstances scarcely less melancholy than those which embittered the last moments of " "poor Nahum Tate" and Otway—of Savage, Boyce, Dermody, and Macdonald-were fresh in the recollection of the public. In exigencies and distresses like these, and in the many and most painful instances where sickness, age, or decaying faculties had paralysed pens once popular and successful, relief had been sometimes obtained from the Literary Fund Society, in Great Russell Street. But the means of that institution, whatever they might have sufficed for at

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the time of its first establishment in 1790, were now altogether inadequate to the numerous and increasing demands made upon them. Its plan too was narrow and arbitrary, complaints of partiality and injustice had been raised against its management; its officials slumbered at their posts, and for years past no active exertions had been used to obtain support from quarters where, probably, nothing else had been required but solicitation, or even a statement of facts, to have made it forthcoming. While the claims of other charities were being constantly brought before the notice of the public, the Literary Fund Society had been principally known by the not ungraceful opportunity which its annual dinner afforded to some ambitious man of rank to deliver a speech, which was sure to be reported, on the advantages of literature and the merits of its professors, at the cheap cost of a small donation or still smaller yearly subscription.

The names of the projectors of the new institution, when they came to be known, were sadly inferior, both in number and social position, to what might have been expected. Still they were not such or so few as to inspire inevitable misgivings of its success. Mr. Dickens-a host in himself, and of whom we should much better love to speak in connexion with almost any other subject than our present one, except, perhaps, Capital Punishments and the History of England-was at the head of them. The personal popularity of Sir Lytton Bulwer, another of their number, bore very little proportion to his popularity as a writer; but he was a man of considerable fortune, and it might be hoped that a vanity which was constantly reminding people of Narcissus, or Percival, or Stockdale, would stimulate him to a display of liberality worthy of the occasion and his ample means. With them were joined, among others, a small wit, Mr. Mark Lemon-a sort of Mallet or Paul Whitehead of the day—and the splenetic temper and acute vulgarity of Mr. Douglas Jerrold.

The favourable disposition of the public was of no long continuance. In due time the details of the project were announced. To the surprise of everybody, and the disgust, we fear we must add, of most people, it was found to consist partly of a sort of commission agency to a newly-established Assurance Office, and partly in the erection, at some future period, of a number of literary alms-houses, to which were to be attached small endowments. This strange combination of trading philanthropy and humiliating patronage was to be called by the appropriately commercial name of a Guild.

How men of undeniable cleverness, and, in one instance at least, of warm and generous feelings, could possibly delude themselves with the notion that they were promoting the interest and the dignity of literature and art, by a scheme thus mean and paltry, it is not very easy to say; but it is a perfect enigma how they could have been blind or indifferent

to the reception which it experienced at the hands of the public. While disappointment, mingled with no small share of contempt, was abundantly expressed, we cannot call to mind a single independent newspaper or periodical which entertained even a moderately favourable opinion of the project. The Times, quick as usual to detect the nature of public feeling, alluded to it in a chilling article, and passed on its way without further notice. People who had really the welfare of literary men and artists at heart were loud in the utterance of their wishes that the thing should drop to the ground and be heard of no more. They could not but see that, while it was useless as a means of carrying out the objects which it professed to have in view, the ridicule that thickly descended upon it would do more than anything else to prevent the formation, at another time, of any judicious and comprehensive institution for the same purposes-just as a foolish Demagogue is about the very worst enemy with which the cause of liberty can possibly be cursed.

For nearly two years it has really appeared as if this was likely to be the case. After fluttering for several weeks in the newspapers, with the vain hope, diminishing daily, of attracting notice and support, the Guild ceased to be talked about or almost remembered. Occasionally, indeed, a paragraph might be read to the effect that a very indifferent comedy-which, together with a rood or two of land, was the inexpensive benefaction of Sir Lytton Bulwer-had been represented before an audience where a high and delicate sense of duty constrained a show of attention to any project ostensibly for the benefit of literature and art. But this was looked upon by most people as a sort of convulsive prelude to decease like the last flap of the tail of a dying fish aground. The Guild, it was commonly believed, was being let down by gentle stages as we gradually drop an acquaintance which we have no desire to continue, and are unwilling to bring abruptly to an end.

Unfortunately, vanity, like a polecat or an eel, takes a great deal of knocking on the head. The expectation that no more would be heard about it-an expectation quite as much in the interests of the projectors of the Guild themselves as in those of its professed objects-has turned out to be fallacious. Like the indefatigable ghost in Hamlet, they have been working away all the time under-ground, bidding people swear, "from the cellarage." Parliament, the many-teated nurse of so much folly and imposture, has been quietly applied to, and an Act of Incorporation obtained-not only without discussion but, we have authority for saying, without the very knowledge of one man out of fifty in the House. Armed with this formidable instrument, like Mistress Margaret Dods with the kitchen tongs, or Bafllie Nichol Jarvie with his red-hot poker, the Society

has come boldly forward again, after its long eclipse, and appears to be setting vigorously to work. Chambers have been taken, a prospectus issued, candidates invited to present themselves for admission, and money, we are informed, will be received from anybody who will be good enough to offer it. Sir Lytton Bulwer is appointed president; Mr. Dickens vicepresident; Mr. W. Henry Wills, a subaltern of Mr. Dickens's in the conduct of “Household Words," is honoured with the office of secretary; and the management of the finances of the Institution entrusted to Mr. Charles Knight, a gentleman not too distinguished for the prosperous administration of his own.

We have no apprehension that the originally and, as it appears to us, unavoidably unfavourable opinion of the public will undergo any change. We think far too highly not only of the self-respect but of the intelligence of men of letters and artists, to suppose they will countenance such a scheme. But the founders of the Guild are in earnest; and we consider ourselves to be quite justified in calling the notice of our readers, not so much to its alleged ends as to the means by which it is proposed to carry them out. We shall do so, we hope, with perfect fairness-taking every statement we may have occasion to make from the Guild's own prospectus ; but we should be sad hypocrites were we to make any secret as to the nature of our feelings on the subject. They are such, we are convinced, as will be entertained by everybody who will favour us with a few minutes' attention.

We will say a few words, to begin, as to the finances of the Guild; from the state of which its prospects of success, and, in a great measure, the estimation it is held in, may be judged. Sir Lytton Bulwer, as we have already mentioned, evinced the extent of his paternal interest in the undertaking by the gift of a comedy, which, as Johnson said of Congreve's novel, we had much rather praise than read. Mr. Dickens, with a more substantial generosity, as was to be expected from him, added a sum of fifty guineas to the very suitable offering of a farce. The representation of this comedy and farce, at Windsor and elsewhere, has produced, in round numbers, about £3,600. But the independent benefactions to the funds, from the period of the first announcement of the Guild up to the issuing of the prospectus, a month back, amount to a sum which it is really painful to have to mention, when one reflects on what would probably have been collected had the public, even moderately, approved the plan. They fall short of three hundred pounds-somewhere, we should suppose, about the capital with which the ingenious Mr. Tigg Montague and the respectable Mr. David Crumple established the celebrated AngloBengalee Assurance Company, in Wellington Street East; while the annual subscriptions-upon which source, more than any other, a Society

of this kind must depend-have reached what the first of those distinguished individuals would, probably, have designated "the ridiculously insignificant total" of thirty-three pounds ten shillings! In truth, the tadpole or gurnet look of the list, after the first two items-the fruits of royal and courtly benevolence, not very decently to have been avoided— brings forcibly to our recollection another memorable document of the same kind, which appeared in the columns of the Yorkshire Stingo, towards effecting the liberation of the incarcerated patriots Mr. Smirk Mudflint and Mr. Barnabus Bloodsuck, and which terminated, if we remember right, with "Brutus and Cassius-four-pence halfpenny," and "miscellaneous sums-five farthings." One of the last of the yearly subscribers to the Guild, "H. T. Roberts, Esq., of Manchester," bestows a shilling and a penny!

This is significant enough; but there is another circumstance which we cannot but consider tolerably decisive of the fate of the Guild. It is certainly quite decisive of the opinion generally entertained about it. With the exception of Mr. Hallam and Mr. Rogers-each of whom contributes five pounds, accompanied, we have heard, in both cases, with a peremptory refusal to take any share in its official proceedings-there is an absence, both from the council and subscription list, of every name to which the public is accustomed to look when it is a question of honouring the memory of deceased or alleviating the distress of living genius. The wealthy and benevolent Marquis of Lansdowne takes no part in it. Lord Ellesmere, for the first time in his life, closes his purse to an appeal made in behalf of literature and art. The philanthropic Earl of Carlisle passes like a Levite on the other side. The princely generosity of Mr. Savage Landor,* a man unluckily as acute to detect charlatanry as he is munificent to aid unfortunate talent, cannot be enlisted in such a cause. Even Lord John Russell, himself after a fashion a literary man, and assuredly not the coyest of statesmen in availing himself of opportunities of coming before the eyes of the public, has not a guinea or a good word to bestow. So it is with Mr. Macaulay, one of the first of living writers; with his brother Privy-Councillors, Mr. Croker and Mr. Disraeli; with Mr. Thackeray, so enthusiastic an admirer of Dickens; with Tennyson and Carlyle, Warren, Lever, Ainsworth, Lewes-in short, with every patron of literature, and, excepting its founders, with every literary man of the day. From such a fact what is the inference? It can admit of one only :-they do not consider the Guild to be worthy of their support.

* The merited expression of Mr. Lockhart, in his Life of Scott. See Southey's letter to Scott, 1808.