“My dear Sir,—An anonymous member of our committee has sent me the accompanying correction of our memorandum. The wording of such a paper is devilishly difficult and delicate. On reconsidering, I sincerely hope whether you have made the printer throw off copies or not, to have the following for the standing list of our five paragraphs.”
(Here they follow, and are now immaterial. The object which the poet had in view, and which was not carried out, for the club became in the end an ordinary London West End club of seven or eight hundred members—that object was developed, additionally, in the latter part of the letter, and is somewhat novel in idea).
“The members of this society having increased with a
rapidity exceeding the most sanguine expectations of its first proposers, their
committee now think it time to develope certain characteristic objects by which
they conceive that the Literary Union might be advantageously distinguished
from ordinary clubs, but which it might have been premature to have propounded
until it had been ascertained to what numerical strength the society was likely
to attain, and how many individuals of decidedly literary and scientific
acquirements it might have to reckon
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 263 |
“The committee are further of opinion that as such
contributions are to be perfectly spontaneous, and as many literary and
scientific men who might otherwise be competent and willing to afford them,
may, nevertheless, be unable to do so from their occupations, the supply of
such papers cannot be expected to be constant and numerous. The committee
therefore think, as intelligence has been received of many intelligent and
public-spirited individuals in the provincial towns of the empire being
disposed to organise societies in
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“The committee are also of opinion that the London
Literary Union should make an agreement with the other societies, which shall
be thus established, to admit a certain small number—the future
regulations to be subsequently considered—of the members of the branch
clubs to be free of the London Literary Club during their residence in London.
The number of such admissible honorary members (or delegate, if it should seem
proper so to denominate them) the committee think ought not to exceed five per
cent, of each provincial club to which they belong, so that, supposing ten
provincial literary unions to exist over Britain and Ireland, the rooms of the
London club would only be crowded by fifty additional visitants. A power of
rejecting any objectionable individual from coming in this re-
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 265 |
“It is evident that every precaution adopted by the London L. Union for keeping out improper visitants from connected clubs must be left to the adoption of the provincial societies, and that the privileges of every portion of the projected confederation must be made perfectly reciprocal, and as equal as regulations can make them.
“A place for general conference in the centre of
England might be fixed upon for the meeting of delegates from all the L. Unions
if their harmony could not be organised by correspondence. But whether such a
central meeting of delegates from the unions might be necessary or not for
general management, yet still the committee think that the assembly of
representatives from so many literary and scientific bodies in the centre of
the kingdom, and the distribution of prizes for essays of preeminent merit,
would be an inspiring spec-
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