To persons accustomed to expect nothing but fair dealing from respectable public bodies, the silence respecting the Society's two prizes, and the manner in which the King's premium was spoken of, as exchanged for two gold medals, of fifty guineas' value each, formed an inexplicable riddle. They never, for a moment, supposed, that the alteration of the scheme was to have any other than a prospective bearing: but they could not comprehend how it were possible for the Society so to trifle with the feelings of the candidates, as not to accompany proposals for such a radical change in its system with some explanation concerning the state of their claims, and the probable period of their adjustment. The only portion of the new plan, which it could enter into my head to conceive, as, by any possibility, liable to operate retrospectively, was that respecting the two gold medals. I was seriously interested in the business, and therefore wrote to the Society to say, that I trusted it would act up to its engagement, and not put off with two medals the successful Homeric candidate, whoever he might be, since he would have consumed his time and thought, in the hopes of a far more substantial reward, viz.. "The King's hundred guineas." Had any one, at the moment of my despatching the letter, suggested the possibility of the Society's withdrawing the premiums, I should have exclaimed, that it was monstrous to cast so foul an imputation on so respectable a body. The public, therefore, may imagine my surprise, when, after the lapse of another month, I encountered the following notice in the "New Times," of the 26th of July: "Royal Society of Literature. - The Candidates for the Prizes, proposed by the Society, may receive their Papers, upon applying at Mr. Low's, Bookseller, Lamb's Conduit Street. "RICHARD CATTERMOLE, Sec." Thus, then, the Society did withdraw the premiums; it did snatch up the stakes that were the property of others, in as much as they were fairly won; and it did do so, too, under circumstances of the most aggravated insult, and the most cold-blooded cruelty. It would have been justly branded as an infamous disregard of the state of anxiety in which the candidates were held, to have delayed awarding the prizes for no longer a term than three months: but what must be thought of men, who could keep others on the rack of expectation for the space of four months, the latter half of which time, at least, they had it in their power to release them from their sufferings, since, as their regenerated plan evinces, they had made up their minds how they should treat their victims: they had long, coolly, resolved to break their word with them; to forfeit their own honour, and to crown the severe labours they had entailed, and high hopes they had excited, with utter disappointment! 'I have asserted that the Royal Society of Literature, in withdrawing the premiums, appropriated the property of other persons, and I will now proceed to prove this very serious charge, Hitherto, the ideas of a covenant, compact, or bargain, were those, those, of something that binds consenting parties to fulfil reciprocal, and well-defined engagements. The notion of either party's retaining the power of an appeal to its own caprice, or discretion, a power, in fact, of evasion, dissolves every idea of a covenant, compact, or bargain. The Royal Society of Literature, as the advertisement set forth in the commencement of my preface, and many others of a similar description, will unequivocally show,' held out strong inducements to the literary public, to enter into a covenant with it. The Society was desirous of being provided with a Dissertation upon Homer; an Essay on the Greek Language; and a Poem on the Fall of Constantinople. In order, therefore, to command perfection, and exalt our literary fame, it made proclamation, that, to the authors of the best. Dissertation upon Homer; the best Essay on the Greek Language; and the best Poem on the Fall of Constantinople; it would award, in exchange, certain valuable considerations. Now, the moment compositions, on these specified subjects, were furnished by the literary world, the covenant was entered into; the compact was ratified; the bargain was struck. Nothing, then, either more or less, remained for the Society to perform, than to make, with the best grace of which it was capable, the stipulated awards. Had all the productions been execrable, still, it could not, justly, have escaped from the self-imposed obligation of distinguishing with its prizes the flowers of the flock; the master-thistles; the best of an exécrable collection! The question, whether a certain degree of goodness was not a condition, of course, must be answered in the negative, for it is so answered, and in the superlative degree too, in the unreserved and definite proposals of the Society itself. Bad as the best compositions might be, the best compositions were, without qualification, promised the prizes. Whoever might hope to defend the conduct of the Society, by arguing, that it would have been disgraceful in it, to have rewarded bad productions, should be admonished, to his discomfiture, that the disgrace pre-attaches to the miserable contriving which ultimately reduced the Society to a choice between the evils, of forfeiting its good faith, or bestowing rewards on unworthy objects. The best productions, "of such and such a quality," should have been advertised for, to justify the pocketing of the stakes, which, after the compact was ratified, after the contest was commenced, were simply held in trust for the victors. All goodness is comparative, so that there must be a better and a best among different things, each of which is, per se, bad. How, in the name of common sense, dare the Society, after pledging itself to reward the best compositions on such and such subjects, presume to declare, that the best were not good enough? The mode by which it was to ascertain the superiority it sought was expressly agreed upon; it was to place the productions submitted to it in comparison with each other!' We must protest, in the few observations which we feel it our duty to make on the subject of this complaint, against 1. the inference that we approve of the principle of any such institutions as the Royal Society of Literature. On the contrary, we deem them injurious to the literature which they are intended to promote. Yet we think that Mr. Jones has forgotten several considerations which he ought not to have overlooked in a question of this nature. In the first place, we dissent from the position that the Society could not have withheld their premium, even if all the productions had been execrable; for this would have been a nudum pactum, from which, according to law and common sense, no obligation could arise. Of ten or twelve execrable compositions,' it is obvious there could not have been a best; for the word best implies gradations of goodness, but how can there be gradations of goodness in things that are execrable? They might be more or less execrable, but it could not be logically argued that one was better than another. Here then is the defect of Mr. Jones's reasoning. Had the Society advertized their premiums for those poems or dissertations which should be the least faulty, compared with others, they would then have been bound by something amounting to a compact: but, by undertaking to reward the best, a certain degree of goodness was ex vi termini a part of the contract. If none of the rivalcompositions, then, were good, it follows that the Society are released from their contract. To what absurdity a contrary position would lead us, the following analogies will illustrate. A contractor for a public institution advertizes to give a certain price for the best flour, per sack, that shall be produced. Suppose that ten sacks are delivered, all execrable, and unfit for use, but distinguished only by different degrees of badness, would the contractor be bound by any thing that can be equitably deemed a contract? In matters of literature, the case is still stronger. Mediocrity and dulness are a base and spurious coin, which cannot constitute any valuable consideration in literary commerce. The Society, in proposing their rewards, did not mean to evoke the spirit of "Grub-street or the Mint:" it was of the very essence of their contract that a certain degree of talent should have been employed on the articles, to the best of which they promised the premium; and any production, therefore, which was actually destitute of talent, could not be intitled to it. These general reasonings are applicable, we think, to a question of this kind, but we are far from prejudging the merit of Mr. Jones's compositions. We must be allowed, however, to remark that, if the beams of royal patronage so pompously announced in the proposals of this Society could. not bring into life a better poem on the Fall of Constantinople than than that which is before us, it is an additional proof of the inefficacy of this and all similar institutions. The truth is that literature, in the present state of society, requires no forcing process, but vegetates and flourishes the more for being left to itself. Happily, we are not obliged to say with the poet, "Et t spes et ratio studiorum in Cæsare tantum." Much may be urged in favor of this Society, when it had to judge of the merits of a poem of which the lines that we are about to extract are some of the best. Hark to those shouts ! - What myriads line the coasts; Each adverse shore its anxious gazers boasts : E'en the fair city breathless seems to wait, Lo! marble roofs, in dazzling white array'd, In crescent-form the navy rides the straits, Shout as ye may, your clamours nought avail, - High raise thy voice: 'tis drown'd amid the roar ! Enough! no more th' exhorting cheers excite, Such was their strength: but e'er the day was done, Of Of the minor poems published in this volume we cannot speak much in commendation: but one specimen, on the Comet of 1819, will not be unfavorable. • Ethereal splendor! thy erratic wing, Into the depths of space again recall'd, To walk th' unbounded heav'ns, 'mid other spheres, Which regulates all space, oh! hear our pray❜rs, We fear that some of the remarks, which have been extorted from us by a rigid sense of our critical duty, will not be pleasing to Mr. Jones: but our misfortune is the ordinary fate of those who speak their opinion; and, as Mr. Jones is a scholar, he will probably recollect the following lines quoted in Athenæus, which forcibly describe how ungrateful an office it is, on some occasions, to utter honestly what we think. Εἰ μεν φράσω τάληθες εκ σ' ευφρανω. Εἰ δε ευφρανω τε σ' εκ τάληθες φράσω. ART. XIII. Journal of a Tour in France, in the Years 1816 and 1817. By Frances Jane Carey. 8vo. pp. 520. 14s. Boards. Taylor and Hessey. 1823.1 N OTHING new can be expected from a new journal of a tour in France: but it may be occasionally useful to revive old impressions; and, as something is generally contributed by one traveller which another has omitted, we are not inclined to discourage publications, even on this stale and exhausted subject. Mrs. Carey, moreover, writes with good |