Co-operation of some sort or other is the order of the day; and now a
good deal of attention is excited by the announcement of an 'Athenaeum
Institute for Authors and Artists,' something different from the Guild
of Literature and Art set afoot last winter, the object being to
endeavour to form an incorporated association of the two classes
mentioned--of course for their common benefit. The aid of the
possessors of rank and wealth is to be asked at starting, because, as
the promoters say, 'we think literature has a right to ask the
assistance of these other two great powers of society, because it so
materially assists them; and because, in many of its branches, it has
no other mode of being paid by society. The severely scientific, the
highly imaginative, the profoundly legislative authors, do not produce
promptly marketable, though they produce priceless, works. La Place,
Wordsworth, Bentham, could not have existed had they depended on the
first product of their works; they would have perished before an
acknowledging world could have given them bread.' They say, further,
that 'the humblest literary man works for something more than hire,
and produces something more effective than a mere piece of
merchandise. His book is not only sold to the profit of the
bookseller, but to the benefit of the public.
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