Critical and Miscellaneous Essays
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217196475
Paperback|9780217196475
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE. (june 1823.) This is the age of Societies. There is scarcely one Englishman in ten who has not belonged to some association for distributing books or for prosecuting them; for sending invalids to the hospital, or beggars to the treadmill; for giving plate to the rich or blankets to the poor. To be the most absurd institution among so many institutions is no small distinction; it seems, however, to belong indisputably to the Royal Society of Literature. At the first establishment of that ridiculous academy, every sensible man predicted that, in spite of regal patronage and episcopal management, it would do nothing, or do harm. And it will scarcely be denied that those expectations have hitherto been fulfilled. I do not attack the founders of the association. Their characters are respectable; their motives, I am willing to believe, were laudable. But I feel, and it is the duty of every literary man to feel, a strong jealousy of their proceedings. Their society can be innocent only while it continues to be despicable. Should they ever possess the power to encourage merit, they must also possess the power to depress it. Which power will be more frequently exercised, let every one who has studied literary history, let every one who has studied human nature, declare. Envy and faction insinuate themselves into all communities. They often disturb the peace, and pervert the decisions, of benevolent and scientific associations. Butit is in literary academies that they exert the most extensive and pernicious influence. In the first place, the principles of literary criticism, though equally fixed with those on which the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equally recognized. Men are rarely able to assign a reason for their appro...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217196475 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217196470 |
| Weight | 0.87 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.60 In |
| List Price | $20.31 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 266 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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