had given his reluctant consent. Madame Roland, in her 'Appel à l'impartiale Posterité,' contrasted Williams and Tom Paine.

'Dans le nombre des personnes que je recevois, et dont j'ai déjà signalé les plus marquantes, Paine doit être cité. Déclaré citoyen français, comme l'un de ces étrangers célèbres que la nation devoit s'empresser d'adopter, il étoit connu par des écrits qui avoient été utiles dans la révolution d'Amérique, et auroient pu concourir à en faire une en Angleterre. Je ne me permettrai pas de le juger absolument, parce qu'il entendoit le français sans le parler, que j'en étois à-peu-près de même à l'égard de l'anglais; que j'écoutois plûtôt sa conversation avec de plus habiles que moi, que je n'étois en état d'en former une avec lui.

'La hardiesse de ses pensées, l'originalité de son style, ces verités fortes, jetées audacieusement au milieu de ceux qu'elles offensent, ont dû produire une grande sensation; mais je le croirois plus propre à semer, pour ainsi dire, ces étincelles d'embrasement, qu'à discuter les bases ou préparer la formation d'un gouvernement. Paine éclaire mieux une révolution qu'il ne peut concourir à une constitution. II saisit, il établit ces grands principes dont l'exposé frappe tous les yeux, ravit un club et enthousiasme à la taverne; mais pour la froide discussion du comité, pour le travail suivi du législateur, je présume David Williams infiniment plus propre que lui. Williams, fait également citoyen français, n'avoit pas été nommè á la Convention, où il eût été plus utile; mais le gouvernement le fit inviter à se rendre à Paris, où il passa quelques mois et conféra souvent avec les députés travailleurs. Sage penseur, véritable ami des hommes, il m'a paru combiner leurs moyens de bonheur, aussi bien que Paine sent et décrit les abus qui font leur malheur.

'Je l'ai vu, dès les premières fois qu'il eut assisté aux séances de l'assemblée, s'inquiéter du peu d'ordre des discussions, s'affliger de l'influence que s'attribuoient les tribunes, et douter qu'il fût possible que de tels hommes, en telle situation, décrétassent jamais une constitution raisonnable. Je pense que la connoissance qu'il acquit alors de ce que nous étions déjà, l'attacha davantage à son propre pays, où il est retourné avec empressement. Comment peuvent discuter, me disoit-il, des hommes qui ne savent point écouter? Vous autres, Français, vous ne prenez pas non plus la peine de conserver cette décence extérieure qui a tant d'empire dans les assemblées; l'étourderie, l'insouciance et la saleté ne rendent point un législateur recommandable; rien n'est indifférent de

ce qui frappe tous les jours et se passe en public. Que diroitil, bon Dieu, s'il voyait les députés, depuis le 31 mai, vêtus comme les gens du port, en pantalon, veste et bonnet, la chemise ouverte sur la poitrine, jurant et gesticulant en sansculottes ivres! Il trouveroit tout simple que le peuple les traitât comme ses valets, et que tous ensemble, après s'être souillés d'excès, finissent par tomber sous la verge d'un despote qui saura les assujettir. Williams rempliroit également bien sa place au parlement ou au sénat, et porteroit partout la véritable dignité.'

The story of Williams' revolutionary experiences and adventures cannot be told here. His autobiographical fragment, in so far as it concerns France and his own share in certain negotiations, is full of interest and must some day be printed. It tells us also that Rousseau held our philosopher in very high esteem. Enough now to say that Williams found the French character in debate too excitable, and could not tolerate the extreme views of the Jacobins; so that it is not surprising that he left for England on the day of the execution of the King, Jan. 21, 1793. He was immediately to have set upon the task of completing a continuation of Hume, a work for which an expensive series of copper-plates had been made; but his French activities had procured him, quite unfairly, but not the less efficaciously, the wrong kind of reputation for such a piece of authorship, and he was therefore, much to his indignation, relieved of the task and given a solatium. He then turned again to his 'History of Monmouthshire,' which was published in 1796, and we may safely assume that he renewed all his interest in the workings of the Literary Fund.

So far this institution had carried on its restricted activities in private. But it was about to come out into the open. On July 11, 1801, the special committee of the Fund, consisting of Mr W. Boscawen, Mr Reeves, Mr Pye (the Laureate), Mr Fitzgerald, Dr Symmons and the Founder, decided that it would be a good thing to issue a public record of the Fund's first decade. A book was accordingly projected under the title: 'Claims of Literature: The Origin, Motives, Objects and Transactions of the Society for the Establishment of a Literary Fund'; and this work was issued in 1802,

The history of the Fund and its inception was told by Williams in a rambling and somewhat too controversial narrative. He covered a vast deal of ground. Beginning with a general survey of learning and literature and the position of writers in various civilisations, he passed on to the arguments for the formation of his Fund and an enquiry into charity, finally reaching the Fund itself. Ill-health had come upon him, and his pen had lost much of its trenchancy, but now and again, particularly in his attack on the defects of education, he displays some vigour. And this comparison is ingenious: I would not be mistaken on the subject of style. When I sit down to Locke, it is to plain food; when to Montesquieu, it is to an elegant banquet; when to Rousseau or to Burke, it is to a bottle of wine or of ardent spirits. Locke and Montesquieu express thoughts; Rousseau and Burke express passions.' Williams' share of the volume got him into trouble, for, at the first committee meeting after its publication, Sir James Bland Burges (17521824), a politician and amateur playwright, rose to censure it as containing principles subversive of religion, government and morality. A proposal to appoint a subcommittee to examine the book was lost, and the incident closed. Williams himself said nothing, having learnt in his not too placid career that, whereas the spirit and language of accusation are familiar and easily rendered amusing to the public, those of defence, especially where the accused is obliged to enumerate his own good actions, have difficulties which are not always surmountable.'

The second half of this work was poetical. For the early anniversary dinners of the Fund, at the Shakespeare Tavern and elsewhere, Odes and Addresses were specially composed, and, when the meal was over, were read by the poets themselves. Whatever of oratory there may also have been has disappeared, but the effusions remain, some twenty-seven of them being collected at the end of Claims of Literature,' prefaced by Mr William Boscawen (1752-1811), a commissioner in bankruptcy, who was one of the most diligent of the bards, and a member of the Committee. According to the notice of Boscawen in the Dictionary of National Biography,' he considered the Fund almost as one of his children.' His introduction ends thus:

'With regard to the Poems themselves, it is hoped the candid reader will not require in compositions, all of which relate to one subject, that variety which a multiplicity of topics and occasions might be expected to produce. The writer of this Introduction is well aware how many defects may be justly imputed, and how few merits can be ascribed, to his own contributions. But he trusts that other parts of the Collection, which on the respective recitations were warmly applauded, will be found worthy of being preserved; and that his own attempts, if they obtain no credit to his talents, will, at least, secure indulgence to his motives.'

Praise is exhilarating, and though sufficient liveliness to keep somnolence at bay may have been wanting in these productions, the continued insistence on the greatness and goodness of the company perhaps had that effect. Mr Pye thus extolled the gathering in 1793:

'But lo! a Band appears in happier hour,
To rescue Genius from Oppression's power;
Ne'er drawn by party-prejudice aside,
By partial favour, or repulsive pride,
But judging merit by its sterling price,
And only foes to dulness and to vice.'

In 1795, at the London Tavern, the elder Captain Morris began his recitation with the line, 'From this loved board, unsullied with excess,' and went on to describe a vision in which the most illustrious of the needy men of genius, including 'the love-sick Otway' and 'famished Spenser,' sang to him of the Millennium:

"The reign of British cruelty is o'er,

And starving authors curse the land no more.'

Few of the poets failed to mention Otway, whose 'energic lyre,' as Mr W. T. Fitzgerald had it, at the Freemasons' Hall in 1797, 'yields but to Shakespeare's never-equalled fire.' A year later, returning to the theme of unrecognised merit, the same gentleman generalised in these terms:

To trace the mournful catalogue would show
The Sons of Genius are the heirs of Woe,
And that superior talents often doom
Their proud possessors to an early tomb.'

In 1798 the poet of the evening was Lamb's ‘G. D.,' who, however, hardly played the game, for by employing blank verse he deprived the diners of that hitherto punctual realisation of expectation which alone makes post-prandial poetry tolerable. In 1799, a glee for four voices was prepared by Mr Busby. In 1801 Isaac Disraeli, whose illustrious son was to take the chair on three separate occasions at the Fund's dinners, brought his address to a close with the couplet:

'Long, long endure, by generous spirits graced,
This Festival of Charity and Taste!'

The financial report at the end of the volume showed that by Oct. 15, 1801, the Fund had expended 22401. 5s. 4d. in relief and expenses; that it owned 14391. 15s. Od. in three per cent. consolidated bank annuities, and had a balance in hand of 218. 14s. 2d. The growth of its usefulness had been steady. In 1790, its first year, as we have seen, it relieved one case; in 1791, it dealt with five cases and disbursed in charity 637.; in 1792 there were twelve cases, costing 1067. 1s. Od. During its first twelve years it gave away 1680l. 8s. Od. among one hundred and five persons, including a son of William Julius Mickle (1735-1788), author of 'Cumnor Hall' and translator of the 'Lusiad,' and the widow and children of Robert Burns.

And here it should be said that the secret of the recipients of the Fund's bounty is a very carefully guarded one, and, since the publication in 1802 of the names already mentioned, has always been so. There was, however, one exception, and we believe one only. The Rev. Dr Russell, Treasurer of the Fund, speaking at the annual dinner in 1846, said:

'I cannot forget the first time I met this Society in this room. In the place where I now stand was Mr Canning, and opposite to me was Viscount Chateaubriand, who was then the Ambassador from France to this country. In the course of the evening, Chateaubriand got up and said that he himself had received benefit from this Society; that when he first came over to this country he came as a poor exile, and in his utmost need the Society helped him and gave him most acceptable relief. If Chateaubriand, with a magnanimity