' PN 22 C67D7 DONNE A^ = <= A= Ui = (_ _ -r n^ ^^ m ^^ 30 —I ^ u = = 30 1 = o 9 — — — J> ^"^ 1 — 1 = n 8 = -<- .3 = ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE IVEMBERS OF THE COLCHESTER LITERARY INSHTUnON, MARCH THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES \ ADDRESS )EL1VERED TO THE MEMBERS OF THB COLCHESTER JTERARY INSTITUTION, MARCH 20, 1849, BY WILLIAM BODHAM DONNE, Esq., OF BURY ST. EDMUND'S ; ALSO A P.EPORT of the PROCEEDINGS AT THE OPENING, Ee-priiited from the " Essex Standard " nf Mnrrh 33, 1849. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST, FOR THE INSTITUTION. COLC HESTER: PRINTED BY JOHN TAYLOR, JUN., HIGH STREET. 18 4!). ADDRESS. Mb. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen, We are met this evening on an occasion and for a purpose which, for their immediate results, must he considered interesting, and for their probable conse- quences may be termed important, to all the inhabi- tants of this town, and to all concerned in its welfare and reputation. For we are assembled to celebrate the birth and introductory acts of an Institution intended to provide instruction and amusement for those whose opportunities of information and relaxation are limited, and for all its members a centre of friendly intercourse or social study — a neutral ground for individual or accidental discrepancies — and a society for mutual aid, encouragement, and improvement. If the members of the Colchester Literary Institution henceforward re- spond to the hopes and efforts of its projectors and founders, the 20th of March will be an anniversary to which the old will look back with honorable pride and with the sense of benefits received — which the youthful will welcome with honest emulation — and to which suc- cessive Committees will appeal with satisfaction at their past exertions, with confidence in future permanence and progress, and with gratitude to all and each of those under whose auspices, and by whose efforts, the foundation stone, so to speak, was laid in 1849. I am honoured by a request from your Committee to address a few words this evening to the Members of this Institution, explanatory or suggestive of its design, prospects, and present means of carrying out the inten- tions of its founders and supporters, in providing this town with an association similar to those possessed by other places superior neither in population nor intelli- gence to Colchester. It would ill-become me to ques- tion the Committee's nomination of myself. No one is more aware that " Sparta has many a better man than he " than the person on whom the Committee's choice has on this occasion fallen. But I am not, therefore, precluded soliciting from my audience such indulgence as they may accord to a perfect stranger to most of them, while, at the same time, I beg all who hear me to be assured that, although a stranger, and " not to the manner born and bred," I feel a warm and friendly interest in the cause which now brings us together, and of which I am the willing, although perhaps incompe- tent, advocate. I will, however, shelter myself with an injunction borrowed, with a slight change, from our great "Master of sentences "—" Use me after your own honour and dignity; the less I deserve (audience), the more merit is in your (attention)." I prefer addressing you on such an occasion in the form which I have adopted to perhaps the more usual method of an unpremeditated discourse. But for the fear that by adducing great names I might furnish ground for unfavorable comparisons, I could easily find precedents in similar inaugurations for preferring a written to a spoken address. Yet what has weighed even more with me than precedent is the consideration that I shall thus, at least, prove the remarks I may deem fitting to make to-night to be the fruit of mature reflection, and that I am not discharging the office en- trusted to me in a slight or perfunctory manner. I regard myself indeed, for the time, as the organ of your Committee, explaining their views, communicat- ing their arrangements, and promulgating their senti- merits. This address is their manifesto in all respects — except its imperfections. The resolutions already moved and seconded suffi- ciently acquaint you with the objects for which this Institution is established. It is my office, by showing what societies or individuals have in other cases effected in science or literature, to set before you what may reasonably be expected from yourselves. Their per- formances may, in some respects, be the measure of your capabilities. I shall indeed broach no Utopian or imaginary schemes of self-instruction, discipline, or acquirement. This Institution does not aspire to pro- duce learned men or literary works, although it would gladly hail such splendid exceptions and encouraging proofs of its own efficiency. It aspires to something higher — it aims at developing in each of you the native germs of intellect and refinement — at collecting and completing, or at least maturing, such elements of knowledge and thought as were implanted in you ere the business of life superseded the training of the school — at turning increased leisure to good account — at giving a new zest to laudable pleasures — at sup- plying fresh motives to mental energy—and at bring- ing you, through the medium of co-operation, into more immediate contact with the intellectual movements of the age. Of those movements I shall speak presently. But here, at the outset, I may re- mark that the present occasion is not the first in the history of your town on which it has been to its inhabitants and neighbourhood a source and channel of civilisation. Without mooting the question of your original name, the antiquities with which your site and vicinity abound, whether palpable in solid masonry, or disclosed by the plough-share and railway excavations, attest that at this moment, and on this place, we are A 2 standing on the ashes of eighteen centuries — on ground which successively became a camp, a fort, a munici- pium, and a cay, under tne most warlike and civiHsed people of the ancient world. Your High Street has probably echoed to the footsteps of the imperial wanderer Hadrian ; and Suetonius, Agricola, or Constantius, may have passed over St. John's Hill, preceded by the scarlet banner and the burnished eagle, and accompa- nied by the alalagmos and loud cheerings of the Roman maniples. W^herever the Roman conquered he inha- bited ; wherever he inhabited he introduced the speech and the laws of Latium, the manners and the arts of the more civilised south. In the dispensations of Provi- dence it was the Roman's mission to assimilate and make ductile the nations he subdued ; and by the out- ward resemblance he imposed upon races the most re- mote and dissimilar to prepare a broad and beaten way for the advance and triumph of the Christian faith, *' Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness." Rude may have been the disci- pline, and reluctantly imbibed the lesson ; but they contained germs stronger and more fruitful than any which the Keltic mind, without such extraneous graft- ing, has ever generated or developed spontaneously. The importance of Colchester as a military station implies its importance also as an instrument in civi- lising eastern England. Five centuries after the first centurion marked out the original camp on these hills the municipalities of Rome were absorbed in the new territorial arrangements of the Anglo-Saxon invaders. But the name of an adjoining village — Lex-den, ren- ders it probable that either this town or that hamlet were the site of a Saxon community, and that the governing, and in that age the civilising, power also still remained near its original centre. I need not remind you that iEthelbert, king of Kent, was an early convert of Augustine and the Boraan missionaries. Saebert, king of the East Saxons, or Essex, was the son of ^thelbert's sister, and the Christian preachers there- fore obtained an easy access to at least the court and royalty of this county.* Now not merely convenience, but habit also, would direct these missionaries — natives of a land where all the life and strength of the nation were collected into cities and towns — to the towns in each district ; and, both from its ancient renown and its conspicuous site, the town and fortress on the banks of the Colne would attract their earliest notice, and be the centre of their first operations. Ere another cen- tury elapsed the winds were unchained, and the vials of desolation were poured forth upon the expiring civili- sation of the ancient world. The Church was the ark which wafted the surviving and dismembered elements of learning and the arts over the deluge of barbarism, and over the tumultuous subsidence of the northern tribes in their new conquests. Dwindled to a span, and strug- gling for bare existence, learning and science hid them- selves in cloisters ; and the massive ruins of your ecclt- siastical and conventual buildings prove, not merely the piety or the penitence of their founders, and the wealth and longevity of the foundations, but also the efficient shelter they yielded to the scholar and the saint. The dark ages closed at length in a milder dawn, and the middle ages merged gradually into the epoch at which the history of modern Europe begins — the epoch of reviving learning, concerted enterprise, geographical discovery, and purer faith. In these successive phases of social and intellectual advancement your town has borne its relative part : it shared in the religious move- ments of the sixteenth century, in the partly religious, *Lappenberg's Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, vol. i., p. 142, — The Gos pel was first preached in Essex, i.e. to the East Saxons, a.d. 604. Lingard's Hist, and Antiq. of the 4. S. Church, i., p. 26. partly political agitations of the seventeenth. Its streets or churches have echoed to the preaching of more than one Protestant martyr — its soil has been reddened with the blood of loyal and devoted cavaliers. Let it not then be said that in the nineteenth century Colchester stands still linimpressed by, unsympathising with, the intellectual activity which in literature and science, in thought and action, marks the era in which we are living. Rather let this Institution, by its imme- diate exertions and by its permanent results, be di proof that Colchester does not forget its early history — be a pledge that it aspires also to transmit a record of the present to the future, to add a link to the continuous annals of eighteen centuries. By zealous co-operation, by unabating industry, by oblivion of minor differences, by emulation of nobler ends, by that local ambition which is to a district what patriotism is to a country, let it come to pass that the 20th of March be marked henceforward as an epoch in your history, as a red- letter-day of commencing and progressing improve- ment in your municipal calendar. Many circumstances distinguish the middle of the nineteenth century from preceding periods in the his- tory of the world. The associating principle which leads men to combine for ends of practical conveni- ence and utility was never before so strong or so well organised. The mechanism of society was never before at once so diversified, so efficient, and so generally rapid and easy in its movements. No impenetrable gulfs of ancestry — no impervious barriers of wealth or station, sever, as heretofore, man from man. There is no con- fusion, at the same time there is no mutual interdic- tion, between the grades of society. The heir of many quarterings and the self-raised author of his own wealth and name are frequently met with on the same platform, and embarked in the same cause. A similar change is apparent in literature. Men write no longer for the learned, or the patron, but for the mass ; the costly quarto is shrunk into the commodious volume that may be borne in the hand or the pocket ; the well-informed student is not banished from the cloister, but he is as frequently to be found in the railway car- riage or the coftee and club room. Periods like that of the Eeligious Reformation in the sixteenth century, like the reign of Elizabeth, or the Revolution of 1640, may in their collision and fervour have produced greater — at least more conspicuous, men than any among our contemporaries. The heat of the furnace tries the temper of the gold ; yet we are all more or less prone to estimate the past liberally, the present grudgingly and with suspicion. Be this as it may, it is not the less certain that, in general anxiety for the improve- ment and instruction of the masses, no age has ad- vanced so far as the present. The man who should now gravely affirm that reading and writing ought to be restricted to the middle and upper classes — that know- ledge is fraught with peril and ignorance with safety, would not be listened to, and most probably be deemed an out-patient of St. Luke's. We have not only arrived at the consciousness of the fact, but we have begun to embody it in action, that social evils derive their root and succulence, their barb and venom, from igno- rance : their antidotes and preventives from know- ledge. Knowledge indeed cannot do all things: he that imagines it can is possessed only of the know- ledge that pufFeth up. For perfect health of intellect a nobler and purer medicine is needed ; but ignorance can mar all things : and, in nothing does it mar them more than by obstructing our healthier and better desires and instincts — by the dullness of mind which it fosters — by the insensibility to the true, the beauti- 10 ful, and the good, which it engenders and entails. In the old allegory by which our forefathers delighted to symbolize the strife between " old and nem lore, or truth'' — that is, between the light of the Gospel and the traditions of men, Ignorance was arraigned as a culprit, and visited with condign punishment. Igno- rance is still at the bar, arrested on the same charge and awaiting a similar doom. It concerns you, my- self, and every man, to testify against him, to break his yoke from our necks, and to cast his cords from our hands. But as the ancients represented their fate or destiny as one form under many names, so is igno- rance really no single form, but a composition and amalgam of many evils, like the fiends that haunt poor Tom, in Lear — some external, some inward and proper to its victims. Some men are kept ignorant by cir- cumstances. Of this we have recently had ample and saddening proof in the evidence collected by Lord Ashley at his interview with the outcasts of society at the Ragged School. On their examination, the depo- nents said, with bitter retrospect and yet more bitter prospective conviction, that they had become such, for the most part, because they had none to care for, none to teach them ; and therefore they retaliated upon society, which discarded them, violence, and wrong, and corruption — " Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Eich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; ChiU penury represt their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul." Upon these, and upon such as these, ignorance press- es with a weight heavier than ever ^tna pressed upon its fabled giants, and plunges them in abysses deeper than ever plummet sounded. But of such is not now the question : we must compassionate them and pass on. Ignorance afflicts others — it may be 11 ourselves, individually and internally in our tempera- ments, characters, and understandings. It woos us to self-indulgence — it soothes with vanity — it reconciles us to imperfect performances, neglected opportunities, and slighted duties — it palliates procrastination — it enervates by caprice and variety of pursuit — it promises that some uncertain to-morrow will make up for the deficiencies of to-day — its whispers lull like distant billows and relax like noon-day heat — it preaches peace where there is no peace, and counsels to folding of the hands and to slumber. For wisest purposes the Crea- tor has distributed wealth and power and station in unequal degrees. But to every man in every rank of life he has given a Mind capable of cultivation, expan- sion, and elevation ; has imposed it as a duty on every man to embrace every occasion of self-improvement ; and on all who have means, talents, and leisure, the further duty of lifting the load of circumstances from those who have them not or have them scantily, and of aiding them to awaken and cherish those intellec- tual powers which accident — not birth, has repressed in them. Our age is, with every succeeding year, acknowledging those duties and responsibilities more and more. The existence of this Institution, and the steps already taken to ensure its growth and perma- nence, show that your Committee and its supporters recognise them. It remains for you, for whose sakes especially this Institution is henceforth established, to manifest that you also are prepared to move with the age, and to second the exertions of your founders ; to appropriate to yourselves and to transmit to others the opportunities and advantages which commence from this evening under such favourable auspices and with such show of promise. I would, however, by no means imply that this In- stitution is intended or applicable for such persons only as, from imperfect opportunities, or engrossing daily avocations, are experiencing the evils of an inefficient or interrupted education. Such an object would indeed be most timely and useful ; but your Committee has in view a much wider range of utility and operation. It contemplates the benefit of all its members ; it would deal with the many as well as with the few ; and, for my own part, I unhesitatingly avow my belief that Institu- tions like the present impart to the most instructed mem- bers little less profit than to the comparatively ignorant and illiterate. I believe, on grounds both of reason and experience, that he who can teach others does, by the very act of teaching, analyze, probe, strengthen, and steady his own previous knowledge ; and, by being thus brought in contact with many men and many minds, deepens his own insight and widens his horizon in the first of sciences — Self-knowledge. St. Augustin tells a story of a man who, when asked "What is time ?" replied, " I thought I knew till you asked me ;" and if we examine much of what we think we know, and talk about as known, we shall often find ourselves in the like case. But when a man undertakes to instruct another he discovers either his own knowledge or his own igno- rance. In the one case he can define, explain, and illustrate : his thoughts are coherent, his language is ready and clear. Even in this instance, however, the teacher may have taken only a partial or conventional view of the question ; and his pupil for the time, by an abrupt query, an original remark, or a novel compari- son, may prove to him that he kiiew only in part. On the other hand, if the knowledge of the informant be inaccurate and superficial, his attempt to teach demon- strates bis need to learn : his ideas are vague ; his analo- gies inapposite; his language vacillating. In both these cases of partial or superficial knowledge a society 13 of this kind is of infinite value. By conversation, dis- cussion, or writing, it affords the means of completing the defect and supplying the void ; it has some of the recommendations of scholastic discipline, without the irksomeness of scholastic restraint. Again, without supposing ignorance or prejudice in either case, we have a second direct motive for re-unions of men of various callings and pursuits. Our social system is at once complicate in its operations, and simple in its ele- ments. Enterprise produces wealth ; wealth stimulates refinement and luxury : these, in turn, lead to varieties of occupation, and introduce innumerable details into the field of invention and industry ; but with this com- plexity is combined a principle of union. No trade is wholly independent of any other, or rather of several other, trades ; no profession can say to another profes- sion " I have no need of you." Rather do all recipro- cally stand in need one of another, and draw from common, or at least cognate, sources of knowledge. I would not adduce what is so obvious were it not for the application ; for, inasmuch as each artisan, each mem- ber of a profession, has some peculiar process, some technical forms and symbols, whereby his art and mys- tery is distinguished and kept apart from other arts and mysteries, and yet at the same time has something in common with many, or with all, of them ; so, by reason of his severalty, he is enabled to communicate special instruction, and by reason of his commonalty he is able to receive special instruction ; and the Institution is the neutral ground on which his knowledge and his ignorance may meet and be reconciled. I am persuaded that many of the differences that keep man apart from man in the world arise from the imperfect relations and correspondences of the grades of society. We sit still and imagine unfitness and disharmony ; we are shy or supercilious because we are unacquainted. Even in B 14 the short time allotted me this evening I may, perhaps, inform one or more of you of a fact, an idea, or an opinion, for the first time, or place in a new point of view some truth or circumstance of which, from its seeming obviousness, you have hitherto taken imperfect heed. Much more am I assured that there is not a per- son in this room who, if our acquaintance were im- proved, could not tell me something of which 1 am now ignorant, and for lack of such intercourse may always remain so. It was a maxim of the late Sir Walter Scott that every man was worth talking with, since from every man something might be learned ; and he once reproved one of his family for travelling many miles in a stage- coach without attempting to converse with his single fellow-passenger. " Why," was the reply, " the man was only a glover, and what could I learn from him?" "Much," said Sir Walter; "you know nothing of glove-making, and he could have taught you how to cut out the fingers and supple the leather ; and even had you not learned that you would have made the man feel friendly to you ere you parted." It is recorded of Burke that he was mistaken on the same day, and by regular professors of the several arts, for a chemist, a grazier, and a veterinary surgeon, and complimented for his proficiency in each of these departments. Without recommending you to aspire to such universal know- ledge, I would yet impress upon you all the opportunity which this Institution aflfords for enlarging and con- firming your acquaintance with a variety of subjects scientific and literary, practical and theoretical. Such exercise of the memory and the understanding is really less burdensome, and infinitely more profitable to both, than dissipating the forces of each with unconnected details or listless vacuity. Such an exercise not only redeems the present hour, but lays up materials for re- flection, and perhaps for practical utility, hereafter. ir, I have spoken of the external differences of men as respects station and occupation, as differences which, by means of this and similar Institutions, may be recon- ciled and brought to act beneficially on one another. I hesitate in proceeding to touch upon their differences of opinion. Not that I am under any temptation to in- fringe upon the Canon Law of your Society, which so wisely excludes religious and political discussion — I am always too glad to shun those inclement and tempes- tuous regions. But a man's circumstances are seldom of his own seeking, or under his own control entirely ; and so he the less regards allusion to them ; whereas his opinions are, or at least seem to be, his own choice ; and we are all sufficiently jealous of questionings of our judgment. I tread, however, upon this debateable ground merely for the purpose of showing how bene- ficial in this respect also Literary Institutions may be rendered. Nothing is less conducive to the discovery of truth, or indeed to healthy discipline of the mind, than a habit of accepting opinions because of the per- sons who hold them, or of idolizing persons because of the opinions which they hold. Now, such a habit may be insensibly acquired, without wilfully nurturing pre- judice or clinging to error, by daily hearing opinions discussed or facts stated by the same persons in the same circles. Coleridge, describing a review which he saw at Naples, where a Russian and an English regiment were drawn up together in the same square, remarks that in the Russian regiment there was but one face, while in the English every soldier had a face of his own.* A society broken up into sets, and moving in separate and not concentric circles, is very apt to ac- quire this Russian physiognomy of mind. For this inconvenience your Society offers the readiest and most effectual cure. I would rather see it anything almost * The Friend. Vol. iii., p. 2Qi, Wi tdition. Ifi than merely a Debating Society ; but free and general discussion need not be precluded because of a possible danger — a danger which it is always in the power of your Committee to obviate. And a general and free discussion of literary, moral, or practical subjects has these results. It presupposes research, reflection, accu- racy ; by involving comparison with others it sug- gests a just confidence, or, it may be, a juster humility, in ourselves ; it enables the well-informed member, at little cost of time or trouble — or rather I should say with the alacrity of a refined and ingenuous nature, to impart intellectual boons to his younger or less-favoured colleagues. Many a docile and inquiring spirit, which would shrink from asking information of strangers, may, within these walls, by the indirect process of con- versation or the medium of classes and lectures, gain, without a blush or scruple, the knowledge which he seeks. Many a prejudice will vanish, when confronted by better reasons and sounder information ; many a tie may be formed between parties who, but for this Insti- tution, might have continued strangers to each other ; and talents, which for want of opportunity and encou- ragement, were unknown to his co-mates and unsus- pected even by the owner, may, by its means and me- chanism, be genially developed and discreetly directed. A Literary Institution, in short, combines the two polar forces of social action — localisation and centralisation. The individual character is not discouraged or repressed by any harsh or unseasonable discipline ; the generic types and qualities of mind are attracted to common intellectual centres ; the complacency which in the one is misplaced is justifiable and honourable m the many ; it is no longer a selfish egotism, but a laudable pride — an esprit de corps — in the reputation, growth, and pros- perity of their Society. 17 These general advantages then may be expected from the Institution founded this evening — mutual improve- ment, well-regulated pursuits, harmless relaxation, the cultivation of kindly feelings and reciprocal respect, increased interest in the intellectual movements of the age, and a natural and laudable pride in the welfare and reputation of your institution. And here, perhaps, I might most properly close the remarks which I have been called upon to make this evening, since I have now, however imperfectly, set before you what the Institution proposes to effect for its members. Yet I would willingly, if it may be done without weariness to my audience, address a few words to those who may be called the pupils of this Society ; to ail indeed — and I trust I am speaking to a large majority — who purpose to avail themselves of the op- portunities henceforth afforded them for acquiring use- ful knowledge. I will suppose myself to be addressing a variety of persons of different ages, dispositions, and acquirements, but all of whom are agreed in a common object — the improvement of whatever has been left incomplete in their earlier education. You are not going to school again ; but, with a manly and resolved will, intend to follow certain literary or scientific pursuits during the increased leisure which either early closing or other cir- cumstances may afford. In the first place I would impress upon you the infi- nite worth and divisibility of time — time, the estate to which every man is born, and which few cultivate to the highest profit ; and likewise how much really valu- able knowledge may be acquired in the intervals re- deemed from indolence, and from what are often called B 2 m << spare moments." Great deeds, both in the intellec- tual and practical world, have, for the most part, been achieved by men of many and engrossing occupations, not by men with time on their hands and leisure at command, I think it is Cecil who thus illustrates the importance of economy to charity. A lady of his con- gregation, whose means were known to be very limited, was, notwithstanding, among the foremost and most liberal contributors on all occasions of private or pub- lic benevolence. It puzzled Cecil to account for her restricted resources and her large donations. The mys- tery was thus explained — " Whenever," said the lady, *' I am tempted to lay out money on my personal wants or wishes, I am apt to say at first, ' ' Tis but so much, and * ' Tvi but for this once ' But generally on second thoughts I find I can dispense with, or at least defer, the need or the wish ; and the sums thus immediately saved I put into a box for charitable uses. I call this my ^'Tisbut box.'" "Madam," rejoined Cecil, "you invest your money more advantageously than any one I ever heard of." This good lady's practice may, with nearly equal ease, be applied to the management of time. We may postponeordispense with an amusement oran indul- gence, and invest them in some useful study. The sterner duties of profession or business absorb the hours of most of us ; yet even the busiest man has some in- tervals of leisure, which may be by all, because they have been by many, turned to account. There are few employments for which unremitting attention is more needful than that of a banker's clerk. Perhaps the most laborious student of modern times, and one of the most voluminous writers, was during many of his best years a banker's clerk: and, although selected by the firm he served to perform the most complex calcula- tions, he yet found time to master nearly the whole circle of ancient philosophy. I am speaking of Thomas 19 Taylor, who, for his rare and profound acquirements, was surnamed the Platonist. Subsequently he ex- changed these labours for others little less engrossing, although more congenial to his studies and inclinations. He became a schoolmaster, and also filled, for many years, the office of assistant secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Com- merce. The number of works which Taylor composed, translated, annotated, or edited, amounts to 50 volumes of various sizes ; and to these should be added his con- tributions to scientific and classical journals. I do not insist upon the abstruse and difficult nature of their contents; I will merely direct your attention to the mere amount of manual labour required to produce and pubhsh 25 volumes in4to., 20 in 8vo., and 5 in 12mo.; and to the husbandry of time and systematic assiduity which they imply. For these works, embracing the most subtle problems in mathematics and metaphysics, were composed, not "in the shelter of academic bowers," but in the midst of occupations needful for his daily bread. Another example of the compatibility of ex- tensive learning and engrossing employment — of the possibility of "the diligent hand to make rich" both mind and body, is seen in the career of James Watt, who, above all his contemporaries, contributed to raise England to her present station in practical science. James Watt (whose improvement upon the steam engine, for its effects upon civilization, has no rival except the invention of printing) was originally a mathematical in- strument maker. So far his work was in unison with his genius. But although Watt had not the prelimi- nary difficulties of Taylor to struggle with, he bad a peculiar, and to most men an invincible, obstacle to exertion. Much of his time was passed in sickness. I need not advert to Watt's scientific labours. Our railways, factories, printing-offices and breweries, the ■20 most arduous efTorts and the most delicate processes of art, attest their worth and their variety. Of Watt's steam-engine — for his improvements are tantamount to invention — it has been finely and truly said that "the trunk of an elephant, which can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. The steam-engine can en- grave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before it; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bubble in the air. It can embroider muslin and forge anchors ; cut steel into ribbands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves." Watt, the most actively inventive, perhaps the most incessantly occupied, man of his time, was also one of the best informed in literature, languages, and philosophy. I will read a character of him, drawn by one who was well qualified to estimate him : — * " Independently of his great attainments in mechanics, Mr. Watt was an extraordinary, and in many respects a wonderful, man. Perhaps no individual in his age possessed so much and such varied and exact information — had read so much, or remem- bered what he had read so accurately aud well. His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense, and yet less astonishing than the command he had at all times over them. Nor was this promptitude and compass of knowledge confined in any degree to the studies connected with his ordinary pursuits. That he should have been minutely and extensively skilled in chemistry and the arts, and in most of the branches of physical science, might perhaps have been conjectured ; but it could not have been inferred, from his usual occupations, and probably is not generally known, that he was curiously learned in many branches of antiquity, metaphysics, medicine, and etymology, and perfectly at home in all the details of architectmre, music, and law. He was well acquainted, too, with most of the modem languages, and familiar with their most recent literature. Nor was it at all extraordinary to hear the great mechanician and engineer detailing and expounding, for hours together, the metaphysical theories of the German logicians, or criticising the measures or the matter of the German poetry." * Lord Jeffrey. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, iii. p. 693. 21 The genius of Watt was his own — his mark and to- ken by which Providence distinguished him from other men. But his example is ours, if we will apply it; and it is only from observing and emulating the prac- tice of those who have risen by their own exertions, and employed their talents to the best uses, that we can measure the results of well-directed industry. The genius, indeed, of men like Taylor and Watt renders them, for the many, exceptional cases. But the energy, the self-denial, and the sense of duty, which enabled them to rescue even the pauses of labour from the grasp of indolence or frivolity are of general applica- tion, and demand not genius, but earnestness of prin- ciple and purpose. I have taken some pains in making a list of men who, engaged in manual occupations, or in professions not immediately connected with litera- ture, have, by means of their acquirements, left some inemory of themselves with posterity. I will mention a few of them. I shall select for the present purpose those rather who have borne up against adverse cir- cumstances, and cultivated knowledge under discou- ragement, than such as have immortalized themselves by brilliant achievements of mind, or by enduring triumphs over matter — examples, in short, which we may apply, not exceptions which we must admire from afar. 1. The trade of shoe-making has been singularly fertile in learned and literary men : Hans Sachs, of Nuremberg, a contemporary of Luther, and who pub- lished five folio volumes of verse, and left in manu- script nearly as many more, and who, notwithstanding, boasted that he never made a shoe the less, but reared up virtuously a numerous family by the labour of his hands ; Jacob Boehme, whose writings extend to six quarto volumes, and whose metaphysical genius bb- tained the praise of Coleridge ; Holcroft, whose coniedj of the Road to Ruin still retains possession of the stage, while his political writings are forgotten ; Ro- bert Bloomfield, author of the Fanner's Boy ; and Gifford, who established and long conducted the Quar- terly Review, and whose excellence as a Latin and Eng- lish scholar is attested by his translation of Juvenal, and his editions of the English Dramatic Poets, were all of this craft. 2. Learned or literary tailors have been even more numerous. Of this fraternity were Stow and Speed, the antiquaries ; Hill and Wild, who, in the midst of penury and privation, attained to emi- nence as classical and oriental scholars ; Ballard, a dis- tinguished Anglo-Saxon scholar of the 17th century ; Jean Henri Lambert, a celebrated French mathemati- cian ; Gelli, President of the Florentine Academy; and Winkelman, one of the most distinguished writers on classical antiquity and art. Thos. Simpson, one of the most lucid of modern geometricians, was born a weaver, and died a Fellow of the Royal Society ; Edmund Stone, another self-educated mathematician, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a gardener. One re- mark of his is so well worth remembering, and so apt to our present purpose, that I cannot pass it over in silence : when asked how he came by his mathematical knowledge. Stone replied — " A servant taught me, ten years since, to read. Does one need to know anything more than the twenty-four letters in order to learn every- thing that one wishes ?" Isaac Walton was a linen- draper ; Opie, the painter, a carpenter ; Ben Jonson, a bricklayer; Arkwright, who first raised the cotton manufacture to its present position, was a barber ; Linnaeus, the founder of the science of Botany, was originally a shoemaker's apprentice ; Ferguson, the as- tronomer and mechanist, and Alexander Murray, the linguist, were shepherd's boys ; John Hunter, the great 33 surgeon, began life with cabinet-making ; Franklin with printing ; and I need not tell you that Elihu Burritt was, and I believe is, when he is at home, a blacksmith. It were easy to proceed with this catalogue — it were easy to show you that neither circumstances, as in the above examples, nor physical disqualifications, such as the blindness of Milton, the lameness of Flaxman, or the deafness of Beethoven, have deterred the earnest student from self-cultivation, or debarred him from eminence. But your patience would be exhausted ere I were half through my list : enough has been cited to prove that whoso will does generally vanquish circumstances ; that poverty, business, imperfect opportunities, whether as respects teachers or whether as respects books, are no invincible barriers to knowledge. The members of lite- rary institutions have, however, these preliminary obsta- cles, for the most part, removed for them. Your classes, your library, your occasional lectures, your customary intercourse with each other, would have been welcomed by the above-mentioned students as boons beyond price — as all sufficient for teaching them whatever they desir- ed to know. Shall they, then, with all their drawbacks, have reared so many trophies on the field of know- ledge, and will you, with all your facilities, erect none ? Next to zeal for the acquisition of knowledge, allow me to impress upon you the value of mental discipline, of method in reading and observation ; in a word, of well-regulated habits of mind. There is intellectual as well as sensual dissipation, and both equally unstring and enervate the moral being and the sinews of manly character. A man of few books is proverbially a for- midable antagonist in all cases wherein accuracy of statement and strength of argument are required. His literary means are not " in supposition ;" his intel- lectual " ventures are not squandered abroad." One 24. might read through whole circulating libraries without advancing a step in real knowledge. The human un- derstanding has been compared to a blank sheet of paper, ready to receive, but originally void of, impres- sions. The comparison would perhaps be more accu- rate if applied to the memory. Now, if a sheet of pa- per be covered with geometrical figures, or a map, or a poem, it will convey a clear conception to the reader of one or other of these objects respectively. But if all these be scrawled indiscriminately on the same sheet, they perplex and probably obliterate each other. The mind of a desultory unmethodical reader resembles the scrawled paper : it imbibes partially, it retains inaccu- rately, it represents erroneously, whatever is committed to its care. When the Kaleidoscope was first invented, it was thought likely to prove a useful auxiliary to the art of design in suggesting, by accidental collocations of form and colour, more ingenious and happy de- vices than study and rules supplied. But the patterns of the Kaleidoscope proved too arbitrary for the order and harmony which grace and even usefulness demand, and, accordingly , the tube, with its shifting incoherencies, has continued to be a child's toy. The wandering mind is little better than a Kaleidoscope : shadows of thought pass over it, glimpses of meaning flash upon it ; but the shadow and the glimpse are as unsubstantial and fleet- ing as the clouds upon a hill side, or the bubbles on a running stream. The perception of this truth has led all founders of systematic education, from the colleges of " Babylon and great Al-Cairo " downwards, to insist upon method as the key of knowledge. The classes of your Institution, the shelves of your library, and the visits of your lecturers, will afford you opportunities of acquiring a variety of information. The cheapness of books in our day will conduce greatly to the same end. But beware of yielding to a sickly appetite for variety : 25 it is but indolence in disguise. Apply to study the counsel which Shakspeare gives for the choice of friends — " The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel : But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatcht, unfledged comrade." Ponder well in choosing the subject to which you will specially apply ; but, having once made your election, abide by it, even if its results disappoint you at first. The difficulties of knowledge are at the beginning of the ascent. Bathe who turns back from one set of diffi- culties, in the vain hope that the adjoining path will be greener and smoother, not only loses his previous la- bour, but in a measure unfits himself for future exer- tion. He fares like the Pilgrims in Bunyan's Allegory, who, because the way from the river was rough, and their feet tender by reason of travel, were much discou- raged, and went over the stile/ir^ '"'■ Bye-path Meadow ;" t and at first " they found it easy for their feet," but, after a while, they " were caught trespassing on Giant Despair's grounds," and had much ado to get out of them again.* I have now laid before you, to the best of my ability, although far beneath my wishes, the objects for which this Institution is established, and some of the means by which you may best avail yourselves of its advantages. I should, however, discharge my duty to the Com- mittee very iraperfeclly were I to omit the reminding you that knowledge and mental discipline are, even in their best and highest forms, but instruments to higher and better ends. Learning is not, by itself, knowledge ; neither is knowledge wisdom. They are sometimes • Piltiripi's Prnijrcs!:. Part i, p. 14r», Southey's EdUion. C . 26 even at variance with one another. It has heen well said that " Many books are wearisome ; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself." + And, on the other hand, there is " a knowledge which puffeth up," without edifying, that is, without build- ing up and instructing the inner man. Learning and knowledge, indeed, resemble the ingredients in an al- chemist's crucible. There may be the pure carbon — the diamond ; and there may be silver three-times re- fined : but another process. is needed to convert even these precious elements into the final gold. The secret which the alchemist could not attain, religious princi- ple supplies. It purges ofi" the dross of earthy and selfish desires ; it clarifies and corroborates our purer and nobler aspirations ; it recasts knowledge into its primal moulds, and reproduces it with the mintage and superscription of Wisdom. Well says " the Divine Du Bartas " in the version of smooth and sonorous Joshua Sylvester — " Wisdom — — ^^ Is God's own mirror ; she's a light whose glance Springs from the lightening of his countenance. She's mildest Heaven's most sacred influence ; Never decays her beauties' excellence, Aye, like herself; and she doth always trace, Not only the same path, but the same pace. Without her, honour, health, and wealth, would prove Three poisons to me. Wisdom from above Is the only moderatrix, spring, and guide, Organ and honour, of all gifts beside." And now, Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentle- + Paradise Regained. B. iv. S7 men, by your sufferance, and in compliance with the request of your Committee, I have discharged the task which I undertook ; and it only remains for me to thank you for this patient hearing, which I attribute to your approval of the important and interesting object which hcis brought us together this evening. 28 OPENING OF THE COLCHESTER LITERARY INSTITUTION C Re-printed from the " Essex Standard" of March 23, 1849.) The above important Institution, projected during the past year and taken up with considerable spirit by a large number of the inhabitants of Colchester, was opened on Tuesday evening, March 20th, by a public meeting on the Society's premises, St. John's Street. The spacious lecture -I'oom. which was crowded in every part, was admirably fitted up for the occasion. Two hand- some bronze chandeliers, each having foiir burners, afforded a most brilliant light ; the arch above the platform was tastefully wreathed with foliage ; and every available niche or projection round the apartment was occupied by beautiful hot-house plants, kindly furnished by Mr. B. E. Cant, florist, of the same street. The comijany included a large number of ladies. Charles Gray Eound, Esq., occupied the chair; and among his supporters on the platform we noticed Sir. G. H. Smyth, Bart., M.P. ; C. H, Hawkins, Esq., Mayor; Geo. Bound, Esq. ; John Bawtree, Esq.; T.J.Turner, Esq.; S. G. Cooke, Esq. ; Eev. S. Carr, Bev. J. Papillon, Rev. J. W. Morgan, Rev. W. M. Tucker, Bev. L. W. Owen, Bev. F. Curtis, Eev. G. E. Medley, Bev. W. Y. Smythies, Bev. J. B. Storry, (Gt. Tey), Eev. W. Wilson, (Elmstead), Bev. C. W. Green, (Nayiand), Rev. H. Herring, (Ford- ham), Eev. J. H. Dewhurst, (Layer), Eev. J. J. Holroyd, (Abberton), Bev. Barton Lodge, J. P. Osborne, Esq. ; F. Smythies, Esq.; W.Bolton Smith, Esq.; J. Bawtree, jun., Esq. ; Dr. Williams ; Dr. Duncan ; H. G. Deane, Esq.; Sayers Turner, Esq.; A. L. Laing, Esq.; E. S. Nunn, Esq. ; L. Brock, Esq. ; J. Brown, Esq. (Stanway); T. H. Fenn, Esq. (Nayiand); Joseph Cooke, Esq., &c. 29 The CHAIRMAN, in opening tbe proceedings, said he must in the very first instance express his thanks and ac- knowledgements to those gentlemen who had formed and or- ganized this institution, and who had with the greatest pains settled and matured its rules. He tendered them also his most respectful, sincere, and cordial congratulations upon the success of then- labours, and upon being at length enabled to say that the institution was open for the benefit of those for whom it was intended. (Applause.) He thought the gentlemen of the committee must be much pleased with the spectacle at that moment before them, presenting so many appearances of what was most bright and fair; and he trusted they might accept it as a happy augury of the future success and prosperity of the institution. (Applause.) Of this he was quite confident — that in the diffusion of sound knowledge — in the exercise and cul tivation of good taste — in all that tended to soften and adorn humanity — " To raise the genius and mend the heart," none took a greater delight, or had a deeper interest than the ladies. (Applause.) He was persuaded the committee must long have been of opinion that such an institution was needed in the town; the Castle Society, with its collection of ancient books, improved by additions of modern literature, very judici- ously made, although the basis of its foundation might be somewhat enlarged, yet could by no possibility be so extended as to include allthose objects and persons whom it was now desir- ed to embrace. In the year 1820 a society was formed in Colches- ter for the promotion of literary and scientific pursuits; and its professed primary objects were the acquisition and com- munication of knowledge. There still existed in the town, at no very great distance from the place in which they were as- sembled, another institution, highly flourishing, and respect- ably supported, the objects of which professed to be " the instruction of its members in the various branches of science and useful knowledge ; moral improvement, by combining use- ful knowledge with enjoyment; rational amusement, and culti vaiion of taste." There were none he was quite sure who would not readily admit that these were in themselves pleasing and commendable objects — most unobjectionable and useful as far as they went ; but he was also very much deceived if there were not many of the opinion that there was something still wanting — something that might be supplied, and that ought to be sup- plied ; it might seem to them that the superstructure was c 2 ^0 goodly, but tbat ii solid foundiitiou was not to be found. (Hear, and applause.) He was persuaded tbey were all of opinion that useful learning ought not be disunited fiom true religion ; and that an opportunity ought to be afforded to the young men of Colchester of acquiring scientific and other useful informa- tion on various subjects, under the sanction of religion. (Hear, hear ) Tlie founders of this institution had studiously courted the co-operiition and the support of the clergy ; and be thought there could be no question that they had done right in so doing, and that this circumstance afforded the best proof of the re- spectability of the institution and the best guarantee for its stability. (Applause.) That co-operation, be conceived, had not been invited merely on account of the station and character of the Clergy— their learned education and their acquiremeiJts in knowledge — but because they wished to afford the best proof they could to themselves and to their neighbours that they would suffer nothing here to be read or taught which should derogate in any way from the authority of that Book of books from which they took their rule in life and their hope in death, and which formed the ground-work and the text book of all religious teaching. (Much applause.) Now, by doing this, was any obstacle thrown in the way of scientific enquiry or lite- rary speculation ? he conceived none whatever ; on the contrary, they merely introduced a wholesome and legitimate check on what was wrong. ( Hear.hear.) This opinion was so clearly and eloquently stated by a living writer, for whose works and cha- racter be bad the greatest esteem— it was so simply put, and so eloquently argued, that he was sure the meeting would forgive him if he brought a short passage under their notice ; — "The human intf fleet is still a sort of paradise. Its extent is wirle as the created universe : within its grasp is everything tbat is pleasant to the sight and good for wbolesuuie food. The sun and the moon sliining in tlieir courses; tlie partii in all its beauty; the sea with all its wonders ; every art and every science that can adorn or benefit life ; every detailed branch of morals or of politics; every lofty flight of poetry; everything, in short, tliat imagination can devise, or research into treasures inexhaustible discover— all are open to its power. From all tliese sources flows a stream to water the garden, parting itself not into four, but into innumerable heads. But there is still a tree of which it may not taste; there is someone spiritnal temptation to be resisted or overcome; there is one restriction. We say to him who is entrusted as the lord of this extensive sovereignty — 'All these things are thine; but only take heed that thou be not wise against thy Mater. When thou comest to suspect concerning Him, be sure that thou art fallen into thy 31 time of trial. Be not thou rebellious, lilie to tliut rebeilious house, which fell from heaven. There is but one thing here demanded of thee. Take that when thou slialt find it, in humility; digest it in faith; and it shall turn within thy taste as honey for sweetness.'"— Miller's Bampton Lectures, p 8/. This passage was no donbt familiar to many of his revereiul frifiuls aroniul him, aiicl he had quoted it as an ilhtstratiou of one of the fundamental principles of the institution. (Ap- plause.) He confessed he had always been of opinion that among the many blessings showered down upon this country the Dureness of its literature and its freedom from the stis- picion of infidelity was one of its highest honours and greatest blessings. (Hear, hear.) He was afraid it must be admitted that their historical literature was rather an exception to this rule: he made the admission with reluctanoe, but he was afraid it was truly made; still he ihonglit they had, as a people, much to be thankful for in this respect: the country- men of Bacon, Milton, Newton, Locke, and Butler, tnight well be tliankful that they were able to point to that constellation of master Spirits, as proving how the highest powers of mind may well consist with the deepest reverence for the revealed Word ; and that here at least the weight of intellectual authority was arrayed on the side of Christianity. (Applause.) One more observation and he had done : he was glad to see it would be part of the duty of the committee to engage competent lec- turers to bring before them subjects for discussion. That was a most agreeable way of communicating information; he was afraid the present was a fastidious and luxurious, rather than a laborious age, and it was a most agreeable thing to have infor- mation communicated by lectures. They were very useful in giving the history of a subject, by showing glimpses, by refer- ring to authorities and sources of information, and bringing in juxta-position old and new opinions; but they must not be relied on beyond a certain point, for whoever would thoroughly master a subject must dig and explore for himself. (Hear, hear.) He had no doubt that in tlie selection of lecturers the committee would have sometimes a difficult duty to exercise : points would be pressed upon them and subjects brought for ward, to the importance of which he had no doubt they were fully alive; and he would take the liberty of suggesting that if among other branches of useful information they could intro- duce a short course of lectures on agricultural chemistry, he thought the institution would summon a large audience from 32 the surrounding neighbonrliood, and would receive the support of many intelligent ouUivators of the soil, who were desirous of receiving information upon a subject so closely connected with their pursuits. (Hear, hear.) He was sure the com- mittee would forgive him for brmging forward this suggestion, which he thought might be the means of procuring many friends to the institution; and without detaining them by fur- ther observations, he would at once call upon the Secretary to present his report. (Applause ) Mr. SAYERS TURNER, in behalf of the Secretary, here read the Committee's report as follows : — "Your Committee, in presenting areport of their proceedings since the last general mealing, be)d on the 9th of June, 1848, have reason to congratulate the members on the present position and prospects of the Institution. At that meeting the Committee were authorized to take the necessary steps for carrying out the proposals contained in their report of the 22nd June, having had for their object the pur- chase of the building then known as Jenkin's Rooms. By the kind and liberal assistance in the shape of loans from numerous friends of the Institution, the purchase has since been completed; and your Committee have the pleasure of stating that the present commodious building, with a garden and dwelling-house adjoining, are now the property of the Institution on very advantageous terms. The pro perty has been conveyed to seven gentlemen, namely— Charles Gray Round, John Bawtree, Jun., William Warwick Hawkins, William Bolton Smith, Sayers Turner, John Taylor, Jun., and Josias Hovel Bryant, who have kindly consented to act as trustees for the Institu- tion. The Committee have thought it advisable to depart from their instructions by making the number of trustees seven instead of six, which they hope will receive the sanction of the members. "Your Committee have since been occupied in making various alterations and improvements in the premises. They regret that in the courseof their various proceedings they have encountered unex- pected delays, which have prevented them from placing the rooms at the disposal of the members so soon as they had hoped; they trust, however, that the arrangements now made will be found to provide ample accommodation for all the objects of the Institution. The building contains, in addition to the spacious lecture-room, a reading-room, a library, and two other rooms, available for com- mittees, classes, and other purposes. The lighting of the rooms has received especial attention ; and the Committee and the Members are greatly indebted to one of their number (Mr. Sparling) for raising by subscription i;i2 towards the expense of the gas chandelier in the lecture-room, and for his general exertions in this department of the labours of the Committee. 33 "The rules for the government of the Institution have been care- fully revised, and means have been taken to give the members at large every opportunity of considering tbeni ; and your Committee recommend that as soon as the rules are passed they should be sub- mitted to the Barrister appointed to certify the rules of Friendly Societies, for tiie purpose of obtaining his certificate, in order to the exemption of the building from local rates. "The number of members reported in May, 1848, was 55, and of associates five. Notwithstanding the imperfect and provisional con- dition of the society up to even the present time, your Committet) have the satisfaction of reporting that the present list of members contains considerably more than double the former numbers— there are now, iucluling honorary subscribers, 140, and 10 associates. Your Committee confidently hope that the advantages which the Institu- tion will henceforth offer, increasing as its plans are brought fully into operation, will speedily cause a larger accession of members. They wish, however, to impress upon the members that the efficiency of the Institution, and the advantages it will afford, will in a great degree depend upon the increased means given by a large body of subscribers; and they strongly urge upon the members the import- ance to them of their own exertions individually in obtaining au increase of their numbers. "The library already contains nearly 600 volumes, of which 300 have at different times beeu presented by friends of the Institution. " Further donations of books, maps, and scientific apparatus are invited from the members and their friends ; and any person who may be disposed to make such contributions are rerjuested to com- municate with the Committee through the honorary secretary, Mr. Benhara ; and, as it is intended shortly to prepare a csitalogue of the library, the Committee venture to suggest that the kind intentions of donors should be carried into efifect as early as convenient. "Two classes, assembling weekly, have been already formed, and have been some time in operation; and the members have also certain privileges in attending Mr. Gladwell's singing class. Other classes are contemplated ; the formation of a class for any particular study resting principally with the members themselves. " Your Committee intend to provide for the occasional delivery of lectures on suitable subjects by persons of known reputation; and they have already received several promises of assistance from gentlemen well known in this neighbourhood. " Upon the sulijeot of financial matters, the Committee have to state thai the cost of purchasing the buildine, the alterations since made, and the requisite furniture and fittings, will more than exhaust the funds placed at their disposal. The amount of the loan already 34 referred to is £G5i), and the donations to the present time amount only to about X48. In completing the contemplated arrangements of the Institution, your Committee estimate a deficiency of not more than j6'100; and they trust that the claims of the Instituiion to general support will be acknowledged by many who may not yet have contributed to its funds, in such a manner as to prevent any encroach- ment upon the current income of the year, for purposes of a perma- nent kind. The ordinary expenditure of the Institution is estimated at a sum which its present income will not be sufficient to meet ; but with due exertion on the part of the members, especially in obtain- ing honorary and other subscribers, your Committee have no doubt of receiving such liberal and extended assistance as will enable them to conduct the affairs of the Institution with that efficiency which its importance would seem to demand. "The names of the President, Vice-Presidents, and other officers of the Institution, will be submitted to the meeting. The Committee have the pleasure of stating that all the gentlemen referred to have consented to take upon them the offices to which they will be respec- tively named. " The Committee recommend the postponement of the election of the Librarian for the present, the arrangements connected with the library not being completed. "The Committee have constantly received the most encouraging assistance and support from a large body of Clergymen and gentlemen of the neighbourhood ; and they feel the high value of the counte- nance thus given, and to the interest felt in the undertaking. "The Colchester Literary Institution is now in a condition to commence its career with a fair prospect of success ; and, anxious for its permanent prosperity, your Committee would strongly impress upon the members generally, and particularly upon the younger por- tion of them, the great importance of a strict observance of the rules and regulations of the Institution, and the indispensable necessity of observing the utmost propriety of conduct at all times within its walls, that it may command that confidence and respect which your Committee feel to be esential in order to carry out and secure the object of their labours. "Arthur L. Laing, Chairman of the Committee." Sir HENRY SMYTH moved the adoption of the report. He wished to identify himself completely with the society, feel- ing it his bounden duty to do all he could for the advantage of beloved Colchester; and he saw nothing but good that could result from this institution. (Applause.) Besides its moral effect, it would give to young men of intelligent and inquiring 35 minds the means of improving their capacities, and perliaps of thereby advancing their position in Hfe. He had no doubt very many of this class would become members; and he hoped those who possessed the means would come forward and sup- port the institution in an efficient state. An undertaking of this kind required something of patronage and something also of that important article — money. (Hear, hear.) He was not quite satisfied with the statement of its affairs read by Mr. Turner; and hoped in a short time to see it not only out of debt but with a surplus of funds at command. (Applause.) He rejoiced to have the countenance of the ladies on this oc- casion, because he knew that wherever their exertions were ap- plied they were always most useful and important; and he hoped they would not let the subject go out of their mmds. (Applause.) It had hitherto been perhaps a slur upon the town that it had not a Literary Institution ; he hardly knew what his friend the Chairman meant by saying that there was already something of the sort in the town, because, without wishing to enter upon a controversy or anything unpleasant, he was inclined to suspect that the society alluded to was almost a farce. (Hear and laughter.) He was sorry to appear invidious, but at all events he hoped this institution would be infinitely superior to that; and certainly it would be no great difficulty to be so. (Laughter.) As regarded his own feelings towards it, though he had not the power of expressing them as he could wish, the lack of warm-heartedness was never his fault, and as far as his poor means wauld allow his aid was always at their service. (Applause.) The MAYOR seconded the resolution with feelings of great pleasure, because he considered this institution had been formed for the benefit of society in the town at large, and not forone class in particular. For his own part, he hoped to derive great bene- fit from it : there were a vast variety of subjects, the knowledge of which could not be acquired by every man, since each had his pe- culiar occupation of thought ; but here they would be presented in an attractive form, so as to enable them to increase their general stock of information, while they might be, at the same time, following up any favourite study or pursuit. (Applause.) Again, he considered that this society was formed ou the best of principles ; for intellect and intelligence were of little value unless based upon religion. (Hear, hear.) Aided by an active committee, and supported, as he was sure it would be, by the 36 purses of those in a higher station, lie felt convinced that it must flourish. (Applause.) He wished to impress upon all that it was their boumlen