Art. XVIII. — Address at the Inauguration of the Litera- 

 ture and Art Section of the Royal Society. 



By Arthur S. Way, M.A. 



President of the Sectior. 



In his recently published "Letters on Literature," Mr. 

 Andrew Lang, with a touch of that fine superciliousness, 

 that fashionable air which your critic affects now, observes : 

 — " Can anything speak more clearly of the decadence of the 

 art of poetry than the birth of so many poetical ' societies ? ' 

 . . . They all demonstrate that people have not the 

 courage to study verse in solitude, and for their proper 

 pleasure ; men and women need confederates in this 

 adventure." " Demonstrate, " do they ? Because, forsooth, 

 it is inconceivable that they may be the outcome of real 

 earnest interest and devoted study, which bears fruit in 

 desire for communion with kindred minds, for the give and 

 take of thought and criticism, that so the golden sands of 

 the stream of song may yield up the more treasure. And 

 does the birth of a microscopical society " demonstrate " 

 that men will not investigate alone, or the birth of a 

 musical society that they cannot sing and play in the 

 privacy of home ? Is it too flattering to human nature to 

 imagine that people may wish to meet to interchange ideas 

 upon what interests them deeply ; that it is not mere 

 hypocrisy which brings strangers together, to be thenceforth 

 made friends by the strong bond of common intellectual 

 pursuits and tastes ? Is this feature of our time something 

 strange and wholly new ? Not so, but it is a genuine 

 rational endeavour to supply that which our fathers enjoyed, 

 but which altered social conditions have made unattainable, 

 under the same form, in these days. The nights at the 

 "Mermaid" are fled beyond recall; nor will men gather 

 any more, as once they gathered, round " glorious John " 

 enthroned at Will's ; nor will such discourse of gods be 

 again heard, as when the coffee houses knew Johnson and 



