J. Hampden Jackson, occupied the chair. Rev. W. E. Sims, A.K.C.L., read a paper entitled "Thomas Carlyle: Historian, Philosopher, Man of Letters."

VIII. 25th February, 1907. The Vice-President, Mr. J. Hampden Jackson, occupied the chair. Mr. Harold Rathbone read a paper entitled "Pre-Raphaelism; touching on the relations between Holman Hunt, D. G. Rosetti, Sir E. Burne-Jones, Wm. Morris, Sir John E. Millais and Ford Madox Brown." Mr. Rathbone illustrated his paper by many drawings, photographs, tiles and fabrics.

IX. 11th March, 1907. The Vice-President, Mr. J. Hampden Jackson, occupied the chair. Dr. A. E. Hawkes read a paper entitled "Sir Christopher Hatton." The paper was illustrated by lantern pictures.

X. 18th March, 1907. The Vice-President, Mr. J. Hampden Jackson, occupied the chair. Rev. E. A. Wesley, M.A., read a paper entitled "The Black Death of 1348."

XI. 26th March, 1907. The Vice-President, Mr. J. Hampden Jackson, occupied the chair. In accordance with the Laws of the Society, the special business of the meeting being the election of the President for the next session, Mr. J. Hampden Jackson, F.R.G.S., F.C.I.S., Vice-President, was unanimously elected. Richard Caton, M.D., F.R.C.P., J.P., read a paper entitled "Recent Excavations on the Holy Island of Delos," illustrated by lantern pictures.

MEMBERS ELECTED DURING THE SESSION.
Rev. E. Hicks, D.D., Mr. W. S. Pepper.

ASSOCIATES ELECTED DURING THE SESSION.

Mrs. Crawford (re-elected), Mr. Samuel Brookfield.

The attendances during the session were as follows:Annual Meeting, 32; Ordinary Meetings, 26, 36, 33, 36, 43, 33, 42, 25, 42.

WILLIAM ROSCOE AS THE

FOSTER-FATHER

AND FOUNDER OF LITERATURE AND THE
ARTS IN LIVERPOOL.

In this building, under this roof, and occupying the chair once filled by the most distinguished citizen that Liverpool, to my views of allegiance, has produced, it would perhaps not be unbecoming to explain the purport of the title I have adopted.

In issuing the first works of literary importance that the town had up to his day produced, in the dedication of his life, and, I might also almost add, that of his family to beneficent literary pursuits, I look upon him and revere his memory as that of the founder (conditor) of such claims as this society can honourably tender on its own behalf to homage and respect, in a word, to our allegiance, and as thus entitled to our unchallengeable honour and regard.

It may be at once asked, Why do I suggest so preposterous a claim for so trivial a service? The true touchstone of all modern excellence being the one sovereign test, the money value, Why do I attach so much importance to what is at best a poverty stricken pursuit, its unprofitableness being in the precise ratio of its excellence, or claim for my hero, more than his proper guerdon of the laurel crown? Addison pointed out long ago that:

A liberal education is the only service which a polite nation makes unprofitable, and that mental culture is from the pecuniary, and therefore practical point of view, almost valueless, and is thus from its inadequacy of result to be avoided.

And I do not propose to contest his conclusion, but to rely on the words of Coleridge:

That literature is to me its own exceeding great reward: it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

In other words, that for these benefits conferred, these advantages bestowed, this regal gouvernance and aid — allegiance is due. And I freely proffer it, in the sense which Shakespere with strict legal accuracy acclaims it, as the highest duty which the ordinary citizen owes to his sovereign lord or king, the most inviolable, as well as the noblest obligation that it becomes him to perform. That this service comprehends fealty and homage, in other words, the admission of indebtedness, and the oath of fidelity, and this I at once unhesitatingly proffer to Roscoe, the Crusader, who first unfolded his flag on the shores of the Mersey, and who by that one act attempted to link up the career of his native town with the greatness of all the ages, with the revival of learning in Italy, and with its primitive association with its fountain head in Athens.

In the discourse delivered by Roscoe in November, 1817, at the opening of this very institution whose hospitality we now enjoy, he took as his theme: "The origin and vicissitudes of literature, science and art, and their influence on the present state of society," and with inevitable variations and shortcomings, the influences and beneficence of literature as the parent art, is my theme to-night. When Roscoe addressed his audience, Adam Smith and Bentham were in the ascendant. Utility was then in fashion, as amusement is to-day. It was then, as the latter theme is now, the most absorbing of all gospels.

The lecturer therefore devoted himself to justify the indispensable utility of the fine arts, and to the vindication of the claims of literature, on the same grounds of beneficent usefulness: as well as of those arts with which his name and fame are so closely identified, and which he worked so hard all his life to introduce and foster in our English home. In so hopeless a task I do not propose to follow him. What would be the use of attempting to inform men who could make more money in an hour on the stock exchange, than by the literature of a life time, of the utility of literature. Candidly, from the worldly point of view, I think it has none. But in consonance with the fashion of the hour, of which the euthanasia is in its own slang "to have had a good time," and "to have done one self well," enjoyment being the only end and aim I jettison utility absolutely, and found some of my claims for literature as an amusement, and tender it as almost as high and noble as golf as a recreation.

Dismissing, however, for a moment this modern and altogether utopian aspect of placing literature in competition with golf as a recreation, and adopting Hume the historian's view:

That the pursuits of literature possess such a superiority over other occupations, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits a pre-eminence above all those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

I wish to point out what is, and why I believe in, this pre-eminence: (1) As the only royal road to genuine immortality; (2) As the most beneficent instructor in manners and morals; (3) As the basis of all perfection in all the other arts, and eminently in those of architecture, sculpture, painting and design; (4) As the patron, father and friend of all human and divine learning; (5) As the source and resource of all elevating influences in the

domain of intellectual exercise; (6) As the one perpetual bond and pacificator among all the peoples; (7) As the sole perennial elevating solace and recreation. From and by books-the motor cars of progress-we have direct communication with the greatest minds of all the ages. We hold possession of the best thoughts of the best thinkers of all time, the golden fruit of their wisdom, that had long ripened on the bough before it was gathered. We are made free of the best society that the most ideal imagination can conceive. We listen as in a megaphone to the orations which Demosthenes hurled against Aeschines, or his denunciation of Philocrates. We are brought into personal companionship, as listeners, with the great heroes, of the 85th Olympiad, with Plato and Socrates, Alcibiades, Pheidias and Praxiteles, and without a syllable lost, with the semi-divine rhapsodies of Homer himself. Their immortality is what we would aspire to, though we cannot attain it. Who can fail to see that in this intercommunion of souls is our only chance of that exaltation of mind which fits us to enjoy for ever the sovereign boon of our own indestructibility?

But why should I tender you my unworthy words, when a greater voice has expressed himself on the point? It is one of the fashions of the day to attribute to Lord Bacon not merely what he wrote, but whatever was excellent that he did not write, or think of, in the age in which he lived. Perhaps I may be forgiven therefore for citing what he really did utter-slightly paraphrased—on one of the phases of literature, poetry, and its merits as a source of pleasure:

For seeing this sensible or material world is in dignity inferior to the soul of man, poetry seems to endow human nature with that which history denies, and to give satisfaction to the mind, with at least the shadow of things where the substance cannot be had.