insure his life, but cannot find acceptance at
any Life Office, by reason of impaired health,
or of advanced age, at the date of this
prospectus.

"Each Member will be required to give,
either personally or by a proxy selected from
the Associates, with the approval of the
Warden, three lectures in each year—- one in London, the others at the Mechanics' Institutes,
or some public building suited for the
purpose, in the principal provincial towns.
Considering the many duties exacting time
and attention that will devolve on the Warden,
he will not be required to give more than one
lecture annually (which, if delivered by a
proxy, he will, health permitting, be expected
to compose himself), and that in the
Metropolis.

"These lectures will be subject to the
direction and control of the managing body
of the Endowment. They will usually relate
to Letters or Art, and will invariably avoid
all debateable ground of Politics or Theology.
It will be the endeavour of the Committee
to address them to points on which the public
may be presumed to be interested, and to
require dispassionate and reliable information
to make them, in short, an educational
and improving feature of the time.

"The duties of Associates will be defined
and fixed by the Council (consisting of the
Warden, the Members, and a certain number
of the Associates themselves), according to
the previous studies and peculiar talent of
each whether in gratuitous assistance to any
learned bodies, societies for the diffusion of
knowledge, &c., or, as funds increase, and the
utilities of the Institution develope
themselves, in co-operating towards works of
national interest and importance, but on
subjects of a nature more popular, and at a price
more accessible, than those which usually
emanate from professed academies. It is well
to add, that while, on every account, it is
deemed desirable to annex to the receipt of a
salary the performance of a duty, it is not
intended that such duty should make so
great a demand upon the time and labour,
either of Member or Associate, as to deprive
the public of their services in those departments
in which they have gained distinction,
or to divert their own efforts for independence
from their accustomed professional pursuits.

"The design of the Institution proposed, is,
to select for the appointment of Members
(who will be elected for life ) those Writers
and Artists of established reputation, and
generally of mature years (or, if young, in
tailing health), to whom the income attached
to the appointment may be an object of honorable
desire; while the office of Associate is
intended partly for those whose toils or merits
are less known to the general public than
their professional brethren, and partly for
those, in earlier life, who give promise of
future eminence, and to whom a temporary
income of one hundred pounds a year may be
of essential and permanent service. There
are few men professionally engaged in Art or
Letters, even though their labours may have
raised them into comparative wealth, who
cannot look back to some period of struggle
in which an income so humble would have
saved them from many a pang, and, perhaps,
from the necessity of stooping their ambition
to occupations at variance with the higher
aims of their career.

"An Associate may, therefore, be chosen
for life, or for one or more years, according to
the nature of his claims, and the discretion of
the Electors."

With the view of bringing this project into
general notice, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
(besides a gift of land) has written a new
comedy, and presented it to the friends
associated with him in the origination of the
scheme. They will act it, first, before Her
Majesty at Devonshire House, and afterwards
publicly. Over and above the profits that
may arise from these dramatic representations,
the copyright of the comedy, both for acting
and publishing, being unconditionally given
to the Association, has already enabled it to
realise a handsome sum of money.

Many of our readers are aware that this
company of amateur actors has been for some
time in existence. Its public existence was
accidental. It was originally formed for the
private amusement of a leisure hour. Yielding
to urgent entreaty, it then had the good
fortune to render service to the Sanatorium,
one of the most useful and most necessary
Institutions ever founded in this country. It
was subsequently enabled to yield timely
assistance to three distinguished literary men,
all of whom Her Majesty has since placed on
the Pension List, and entirely to support one
of them for nearly three years. It is now
about to renew its exertions for the cause we
have set forth. To say that its members do
not merely seek their own entertainment and
display (easily attainable by far less troublesome
and responsible means) is to award them
the not very exalted praise of being neither
fools nor impostors.

The Guild of Literature and Art may be a
good name or a bad name; the details of this
endowment—- mere suggestions at present, and
not to be proceeded with, until much work
shall have been patiently done—- may be
perfect or most imperfect; the retirement
proposed, may be taken for granted to be
everything that it is not intended to be; and still
we conceive the real question to remain
untouched. It is, whether Literature shall
continue to be an exception from all other
professions and pursuits, in having no resource
for its distressed and divided followers but in
eleemosynary aid; or, whether it is good that
they should be provident, united, helpful of
one another, and independent.

No child can suppose that the profits of the
comedy alone will be sufficient for such an
Endowment as is sought to be established. It