called in the charter a supreme governing
body, which had nothing to take counsel
about, and was believed to have no right
to meet; and which never did meet, and
never could meet—this being the solemn
interpretation of its usefulness on which
this Fund proceeds.  It was proposed,
therefore, that, the charter should be looked
into and reported upon by a sub-committee.
That was conceded; and, to an adjourned
meeting held on the sixteenth of the
succeeding June, this special committee
submitted a report, of which all the provisions
were, at first, formally rejected.  Its
recommendations were a simple scheme for the
restoration of the functions of the council
—a suggestion that, instead of calling upon
some afflicted men of genius to make
confession of their poverty to the committee,
annuities should in some cases be granted,
revocable when they ceased to be required.
It was suggested as fit also, that many
who were not in need of gifts should
receive aid by friendly loans, not bearing
interest.  If the means of repayment did not
afterwards arise, the worst that could result
would be the conversion of such loans into
gifts.  Finally, as a secondary matter, it was
also suggested, that, since there was to be a
large house paid for by the fund, use
of it might be allowed to those members
who chose to collect books at their
own expense in one of its rooms, and to
meet each other now and then—still paying
the cost themselves—at quiet social
conversazioni.

The idea of re-establishing the council was
put aside almost without a word.  Members
of the committee told the meeting that, as to
loans, there was a difficulty about recovery in
county courts; and that, if money were not lent
on security, the committee might calculate on
losing their capital.  As to the idea of literary
men meeting, at their own cost, in a room or
two of the house maintained for the Fund to
no purpose but that of expense, a Bishop,
(one of their condescending patrons) said he
knew them better than to believe that
anything less than a good dinner would bring
authors into harmony.  As for a club, if they
wanted it, there was the Athenæum; let
them wait their seven years for a ballot,
and then pay their thirty pounds.  "Yes,"
said a noble lord, another of their condescending
patrons; "and if they cannot afford
that, there is the Whittington."  So the
matter was left, only with a pledge on the
part of the general committee, that it would
before the next meeting, seriously look into
the question of granting, occasionally,
revocable annuities and loans.

There are persons now living who think
that the honour of literature is best to be
maintained by its own professors; that the
press of England can afford to be contented
with its own nobility; and that, if its charitable
fund is to be managed by strangers to
its body, it might at least be managed better
than it is.  These persons will, we are told,
be present to say their say at the annual
meeting on the twelfth of this month.  It
may afterwards be well for the public to ask
themselves whether, while the expenses of
managing the Literary Fund continue to
be unreasonable and enormous, and while no
distinct plan for reducing them shall be
adopted, any further appeal to the public, by
anniversary dinner or otherwise, on its behalf
is to be accounted justifiable?

We have confined ourselves to the facts of
this case, and have abstained from anything
like declamation or illustration—though GOD
knows this institution to be such a Satire as
it stands, that it is a tempting theme.  We do
not write anonymously in reference to it, but
place the responsibility of our remonstrance
upon the name that appears at the head of
every alternate page of this journal.  We
entreat the Public to consider what this
institution is; what it spends; and what it
does.  We ask all readers of books—whether
as painful students, or in the cultivation of
the graces of life, or in search of wholesome
relief from care, sickness, or monotony—to be
careful how they are deluded into the belief
that they can possibly show their gratitude
to those who instruct them, or beguile them
of their miseries, by sanctioning these misuses
of a large certain annual income, and
these perversions of the project of a working
literary man.  We have little need to call
upon those who follow Literature as a
profession and object to lay it under the feet of
any knot of great men or small men, to keep
aloof from the Royal Literary Fund until it
reforms itself; for (as we have shown) they
are a mere exceptional drop or two in the
stagnant water of its mismanagement, and
are as a class, the last class supposed to be
comprehended under the title, "The Royal
Literary Fund incorporated by Royal
Charter."

ENGLISH HOTELS.

I HAVE already striven to set down the
chief characteristics, outward and inward
of foreign hotels.*  When we are told that
we have so much to learn from them, and
that no more praiseworthy models could
be offered for our guidance, it is meet at
least that we should know what they are
really like ;  where lie their exemplary
excellences, where their most notable
defects.  There are more Poll Parrots in the
world than are to be found in brass wire-
work cages.  We are but too glad to save
ourselves the trouble of thinking for our
selves, by appropriating and repeating the
thoughts and dieta of other people.  No
doubt there were many things much better
managed in France than in England when
the Sentimental Traveller gave to the

* In pages 97, 141, and 148 of the present Volume.