124 SOIREES AT THE LIVERPOOL ROYAL INSTITUTION. 



and the neighbourhood opportunities of meeting and enjoying conversational dis- 

 cussion of such subjects, whereby information may be afforded to the lovers of 

 those pursuits, without the formality of professional displays of science, and which 

 may lead to deeper research into more perfect sources of scientific information, 

 and to the cultivation of a purer taste ; and they request that every subscriber 

 possessing any articles of interest or curiosity, calculated to illustrate or to have 

 reference to such a subject, will suffer them to be placed in the Institution for 

 that evening, for the purpose of adding to the amusement and gratification of the 

 company. 



The first Soiree was held -on the 29th of November last, and the number of 

 tickets issued was 277 for gentlemen, 214 for ladies, and 27 for strangers, it 

 being the intention of the sub-committees not to exceed 500. 



The rooms and museum were thrown open at seven o'clock, and at eight such 

 of the company as were desirous adjourned to the lecture-room. J. B. Yates, 

 Esq., president for the evening, in a very able address, explained to the meeting 

 the object of the Soirees, and expressed his sincere wishes for their success. 

 William Wallace Currie, Esq., then read an unpublished essay on the advan- 

 tages of a cultivation of the polite arts, by the late William Roscoe, a very able 

 and eloquent paper, written at an early age, and containing the germ of that 

 immortal essay which was delivered (exactly twenty years from that period) at 

 the opening of the Institution. It negatived the usual opinion that Man can 

 only reach perfection in one science, and its author was indeed a proof to the 

 contrary, as he excelled in Poetry, Painting, Botany, and general Literature. 

 After the discussion to which the paper gave rise, the company adjourned to the 

 rooms of the museum, tea and coffee were supplied, and the remainder of the 

 evening was passed in conversation and in the inspection of the museum and 

 galleries of the Institution. 



The Institution was originally erected at an expense of £23,000. It remained 

 for some time in a state of suspended animation, exciting no interest in the 

 .public mind, and from the want of arrangement, the difficulty of access, and the 

 incompleteness of its collections, deserving to excite none. All these faults, 

 however, have lately been amended ; it has been popularized, and rendered easy 

 of access, its collections have been greatly enlarged, and arranged with taste and 

 correctness. A detailed account of the objects would only prove tedious to your 

 readers, but an outline of them may, perhaps, not be altogether uninteresting. I 

 will therefore state that they consist of— 



Numerous specimens of Natural History in its different branches. 



A selection of valuable philosophical instruments. 



Specimens of the rude ingenuity and illustrations of the habits and customs of 

 distant countries. 



