THE VALUE OF LITERATURE TO MEN OF BUSINESS. ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MANCHESTER ATHENEUM, October 23, 1844. [This visit to Manchester was during Mr. Disraeli's tour through the manufacturing districts, in company with Lord John Manners and Mr. B. Cochrane the results of which he reproduced in 'Sybil.'] Ꮮ ADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-When I last had the honour of addressing the members of the Manchester Athenæum, they were struggling for the existence of their institution. It was a critical moment in their fortunes. They had incurred a considerable debt in its establishment: the number of its members had gradually, and even for some years, considerably decreased; and in appealing to the sympathies of the community they were, unfortunately, appealing to those who were themselves but slowly recovering from a period of severe and lengthened suffering. A year has elapsed, and the efforts that you thus made to extricate yourselves from these difficulties may now be fairly examined. That considerable debt has been liquidated: the number of your members has been trebled-I believe quadrupled; and I am happy to say that your fortunes have rallied, while that suffering and surrounding community once more meet together in prosperity and success. I think it not inopportune at this moment of security and serene fortune, that we should clearly understand the object for which this great struggle has been made. Under circumstances which, if not desperate, filled you with the darkest gloom, you resolved like men to exert your utmost energies: you applied yourselves to those difficulties with manly energy-with manly discretion. Not too confident in yourselves, you appealed, and appealed successfully, to the softer sex, who you thought would sympathise with an institution intended to humanise and refine. Dux fæmina facti might, indeed, be the motto of your institution, for it was mainly by such influence that you obtained the result which we now celebrate. But if the object which you had at stake was of so great importance, if it justified exertions so remarkable, made too at a moment when energy was doubly valuable, because you were dispirited, it, I think, would not be unwise for us now to inquire what was the object for which we then exerted ourselves, whether it were one which justified that great sacrifice, and if it were, to ascertain why it was ever imperilled. Tonight we are honoured by many who, like myself, are strangers except in feeling, to your community. We are honoured, too, by the presence of deputies from many societies in this county and the North of England, who acknowledge a sympathy and an analogy of purpose with the Athenæum of Manchester. It will be well then to place before them briefly for their instruction, and perhaps it may not be without profit to remind you, what that institution was that you have struggled to uphold, but the existence of which was once endangered. I think it is seven or eight years ago that some of the leading members of your community, remembering perhaps that there was a time when they regretted that for them such advantages did not exist, thought they would establish in this great city some institution that might offer to the youth of Manchester relaxation which might elevate, and a distraction which would save them from a senseless dissipation. They thought that the time had arrived when a duty devolved on those who took a leading part in communities, that they should sympathise with the wants of the rising race, and therefore they resolved to establish an institution where those advantages that I have referred to might be supplied. With these views they resolved, in the first instance, that some place should be supplied where the youth of Manchester might become perfectly acquainted with the passing mind, and passions, and feelings, and intelligence of the age. They rightly understood that the newspaper was the most effective arm of the press. It may, indeed, be considered as the infantry of the press. It is not a complete battalion-you require also ordnance and artillery, a brilliant cavalry above all, you require the staff of the commander-inchief, that without absolutely or actively interfering in the fray surveys all that occurs, and is ready at all times to apply itself to the quarter which requires counsel; but still you may consider the journal as the most efficient arm of the press. With these views they furnished a chamber in which the members of the Athenæum might perfectly be acquainted, in the perusal of the chief journals of the empire, with all that was passing in the country, all that was agitating and interesting the public mind-which might supply them with that information, and guide them in forming those opinions which it is the duty of every citizen of a free community to be acquainted with and to entertain. But, conscious that, however qualified the journal is to stimulate curiosity, to assist investigation, to guide opinion, the knowledge of that individual that is limited only by the daily press is in danger of becoming superficial, you thought that the members of the institution should have some means of consulting the more mature opinions, the more accurate researches, of the literary mind of this and other countries, and wisely you made the chamber in which they might read the newspaper an anteroom only to the library. You formed a collection which is now not contemptible in numbers, for you may count it by thousands. What, however, is not so great as many of you must desire-which, in passing, I may be permitted to say, is no disgrace to it, because it is a deficiency which is shared by every great collection in this country, and I believe in Europe, but which I should be glad and you would be proud to be supplied in Manchester-I mean, is that department which may be described as a commercial library. Manchester that was once merely an assemblage of manufacturers, is now a great mercantile emporium, and at slight expense and with no great difficulty, if there were sufficient zeal, you might make a collection of all those interesting and isolated tracts on commerce which at various times during the last century have appeared in England, which now with difficulty you can refer to, but which would form in a collection a peculiar and interesting body |