22 ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE. 
** And yet, the Royal Society of Litera- 
ture,” said Mrs. Aston, “is an ambitious 
society, I believe, and has distinguished 
members ?” 
“Yes; but those things have nothing ne- 
cessarily to do with real knowledge, and es- 
pecially with pure English! The plans and 
other documents of the Society contain many 
terms and phrases as illiterate as its denomi- 
nation. But the source of the capital blunder 
is, that the whole scheme (pitiable in all its 
parts!) was originally conceived upon the 
model of the french Academy; and that the 
borrowed plume is not known how to be put 
on! A ‘Royal Academy of Literature’ (how- 
ever detestable in itself) would bear an in- 
telligible title, like that of the ‘ Royal Aca- 
demy of Painting and Sculpture,’ of which 
the apartments are at Somerset Place; but . 
the phrase, ‘a Royal Society of Literature,’ 
is sheer nonsense, as must be obvious; and so 
contemptibly illiterate also, that it would have 
disgraced a parish meeting, either in Cum- 
berland or Cornwall !” 
“Our best scholars, I think,” said Miss 
