TO THE READER.

I should deem some apology necessary for writing on a subject which has already been so thoroughly studied and discussed by Disraeli the elder, Wilmott, Craik, Reid, &c. and have hesitated before sending my little book into the world; but I beg to remark in explanation of its appearance, that this paper originally formed the subject of an address delivered by me before the Liverpool Chatham Society, and as such addresses become part of the printed "transactions" of the Society, it is for this reason that my few thoughts and remarks on Literature are allowed to see the light.

I can lay but little claim to originality-the observations I have made being in great measure a series of extracts and quotations-but I may state that the research necessary in order to compose and arrange, even so brief and incomplete a paper as the present one, has not been slight. I have consulted not only several of the Classical authors, but also Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Addison, Swift, Johnson, Gibbon, C. Lamb, Disraeli the elder, Herschel, Macaulay, Wilmott, Wilkinson, Prescott, Chambers, Knight, Craik, &c. My list of authorities may suggest the idea that I have been at "a great feast of the authors, and stolen the scraps;" perhaps it is true, but they are "scraps" which need no garnishing, and hence I have said little on several points, when I could avail myself of the thoughts of some "Thinker."

For

"Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”

To Disraeli the elder I would specially refer as a writer to whom I am greatly indebted, and with whom (in his writings) I have enjoyed many pleasant and instructive hours. His books on Literature almost exhaust the subject, and contain more informationthan the whole library of authors who have written before or since on this theme.

In conclusion, if, as has been already remarked to me, the reader may feel inclined to allude to an odour of the midnight oil, I would reply to him, with humble apologies if I should be in error, by an extract from the life of Demosthenes, by Plutarch, in which it is stated that, "Pytheas, once scoffing at him, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp;" to which Demosthenes gave the sharp answer-"It is true, Pytheas, that your lamp and mine would tell very different stories."

Liverpool, 5th February, 1863.

CHARLES SPENCE.

ADDRESS

DELIVERED BY THE RETIRING PRESIDENT (MR. CHARLES SPENCE) AT THE OPENING OF SESSION 1861-62.

GENTLEMEN,

Being aware that it would be my duty to-night, as

your late President, to open the session with some few remarks, I had long deliberated with regard to the subject I should select. The Chatham Society, its rise, progress and objects, would have formed a suitable theme for this occasion, if such a subject had not been thoroughly and admirably treated by my predecessors, who have made you so fully acquainted with the origin and growth of our Society, and have pointed out so clearly its aims and aspirations, that any attempt of a similar nature by me, would be only taking you over ground already completely and ably surveyed.

Oratory next suggested itself as a subject which might be discussed with interest and advantage, and I had almost determined to read to you some few of the thoughts of Demosthenes, Cicero and Quintilian on this art, when I reflected that I should be more happily employed and engaged in a greater labour of love, if I selected literature, and made some observations on its rise, its progress, its fortunes and its objects; and I think members of the Chatham will agree with me that, in a society debating so many questions of a literary character, it is but fit and proper that we should open our Session with a loving and sacred pilgrimage to the great source of so much mental happiness, of so many innocent intellectual delights-Literature. Our first knowledge of literature is derived from the classic ages, represented specially by Greece. Greece has been termed the cradle

of the arts, and I think she might also be called the mother of letters. Our investigations must begin with her-for we have few records of an earlier literature. The learning of the Egyptians and Assyrians is concealed in a series of hieroglyphics and cuneiform writings, which contain in their mysterious characters the history, not the literature of nations. To Phoenicia, Greece appears to have been indebted for part of her alphabet, Cadmus having introduced the sixteen simple alphabetical characters about the time that Moses was writing the Pentateuch. Letters found in Greece a genial soil, and they grew in healthy vigour in this classic realm of thought and intellect, coming down to us as a legacy from the past, a joy in the present, and an inheritance to the future.

The literature of Egypt is almost unknown to us; that it must have been profound and strongly imbued with a sacerdotal character, we glean from Scripture and from Grecian writers; but it seems to me, that literature sprang into life and beauty, became, in fact, a living reality from the time that Hesiod wrote the "Works and Days," and Homer sang of Ilium and of " Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring of woes unnumbered," and, perhaps, the perfect development of literature in Greece may be explained by the absence of religious influence. The Iliad was the first great text book; and if it be true, as stated by Herodotus, that Homer was a schoolmaster, the Iliad may be termed his first "Greek-book." The writings of Homer are after the Pentateuch, "the earliest written records of human thought and feeling;" and the influence of his works upon the character and literature of Greece can scarcely be exaggerated. He created not only a moral code but a religion; "hence the zeal with which he was attacked by Plato, who excluded him from his Republic, not because he was a bad poet, but because he was a very equivocal theologian; not because he did not sing a grand song, but because his admiring countrymen insisted on using that song as a decalogue and a bible," and, as his poem stands out as the great masterpiece in epic poetry, all the phases of literary thought and fancy, which were created by it and out of it, became like Grecian sculpture and Grecian art, conceptions to be studied, loved and revered through all time,