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William Wallace Currie, Esq., then read an unpublished essay on the advan¬ 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