STATE OF OUR LEARNED SOCIETIES. 299 



work; and no man, because he has contributed 

 largely to a charitable institution, or is one of those 

 who presides as director or trustee over its affairs, 

 ever dreams of signifying that honour to the world, 

 by affixing some of the letters of the alphabet after 

 his name. 



(207.) But in our literary and scientific insti- 

 tutions the case is different. These, with few ex- 

 ceptions, have too much of an aristocratic character. 

 We speak now of the leading societies of the metro- 

 polis ; those from which, as chartered associations, 

 we may gather the prevalent feeling. That love 

 and respect for wealth, in the abstract, which forms 

 so striking and so humiliating a blot on the national 

 character, is no where more conspicuous than in 

 one or two circumstances connected with these in- 

 stitutions. This is the more remarkable, because 

 the blame attaches to those who, from a superior 

 taste for intellectual pursuits, might be supposed 

 exempt from the national idolatry of the vulgar. 

 It is customary, indeed, to call the world of science 

 a republic, — meaning thereby, as we presume, that all 

 adventitious superiority resulting alone from wealth 

 or rank, gives place to mental acquirements. But 

 is such really the case ? or, at least, is the principle 

 itself really acted upon ? No one can maintain that 

 it is, when the fact is considered, that, with one 

 solitary exception, all who wish to join these societies 

 must contribute an annual payment. We can dis- 

 pense with science in a candidate, but we must have 

 his money. This is the plain, but the undeniable, fact. 

 The exception above alluded to reflects the highest 

 honour upon the oldest and the best of our societies, 



