(LIMITED).
Registered under the Companies Acts, 1862 and 1867.
President.
His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Vice-Presidents.
Granville Leveson Gower, Esq., High Sheriff of Surrey.
S. Birch, Esq., LL.D., etc., British Museum.
Rev. Dr. Moffat, late African Missionary.
The High Bailiff of the Borough of Southwark.
The Mayor of Reigate.
It is proposed to found at Croydon [86] an Institution to be called the
East Surrey Hall, Museum and Library. This Institution, to be placed in
the largest town of Surrey, is intended for the benefit and use of the
whole county.
The Hall will be adapted for public meetings of every description, and
it is hoped that it will also be an ornament to the town.
In the Museum it is intended to form a collection of objects of
historic, scientific, and artistic interest, particularly of such as
may be found in the County of Surrey. The Museum will be free.
The Library will consist of standard works of reference, arranged in
rooms suitably furnished for the purposes of reading and study. In
addition to works on general literature, it is intended to place in
this Library, Books, Maps, and everything of the like nature, tending
to elucidate the History, Topography, etc., of the County of Surrey,
and especially of the Parish of Croydon. In the Company’s Memorandum of
Association it is expressly stipulated that one department of this
Library shall be Free.
Other parts of the building will be so arranged as to be suitable for
occupation, or for letting as offices to Friendly Societies and other
Public Bodies.
The Capital required to found this Institution will be raised by means
of Donations and One Pound Shares.
The Donations will be applied to carrying out all or any of the above
objects, according as the Donor may desire.
The Articles of Association provide that “no dividend shall be declared
in any one year exceeding in amount £5 per cent. per annum upon the
amount of the Capital of the Company for the time being called up. If,
in any one year, the net earnings of the Company would allow of a
dividend exceeding in amount the said dividend of £5 per cent. per
annum being declared, the Directors shall employ the surplus earnings
in improving the buildings of the Company, or in the purchase of
additional stock or effects, or otherwise, for the benefit of the
Company, as the Directors for the time being shall from time to time
determine.”
Venice, 16th September, 1876.
I am weary, this morning, with vainly trying to draw the Madonna-herb
clustered on the capitals of St. Mark’s porch; and mingling its fresh
life with the marble acanthus leaves which saw Barbarossa receive the
foot of the Primate of Christendom on his neck;—wondering within myself
all the while, which did not further my painting, how far the existing
Primate of Canterbury, in modestly declining to set his foot upon the
lion and the adder, was bettering the temper of the third Alexander;
and wondering yet more whether the appointment—as vice-defender of the
Faith for Her Majesty—of Lord Lonsdale to be curator of Lancashire
souls, in the number implied by the catalogue of livings in his
patronage, given in our fourth article of Correspondence, gave to the
Lord of the Dales of Lune more of the character of the Pope, or the
Lion?
What may be the real value of the Lancashire souls as a property in
trust, we may, perhaps, as clearly gather from the following passage of
Plato as from any Christian political economist.
“And now, whosoever has been content to hear me speaking of the Gods,
and of our dear ancestors, let him yet hear me in this. For next to the
Gods, of all his possessions his soul is the mightiest, being the most
his own.
“And the nature of it is in all things twofold; the part that is
stronger and better, ruling, and the part that is weaker and worse,
serving; and the part of it that rules is always to be held in honour
before that that serves. I command, therefore, every man that he should
rightly honour his soul, calling it sacred, next to the Gods and the
higher Powers attendant on them.
“And indeed, to speak simply, none of us honours his soul rightly, but
thinks he does. For Honour is a divine good, nor can any evil thing
bring it, [87] or receive; and he who thinks to magnify his soul by any
gifts to it, or sayings, or submittings, which yet do not make it
better, from less good, seems indeed to himself to honour it, but does
so in nowise.
“For example, the boy just become man thinks himself able to judge of
all things; and thinks that he honours his own soul in praising it; and
eagerly commits to its doing whatsoever it chooses to do.
“But, according to what has been just said, in doing this he injures
and does not honour his soul, which, second to the Gods, he is bound to
honour.
“Neither when a man holds himself not guilty of his own errors, nor the
cause of the most and the greatest evils that befall him [88]; but
holds others to be guilty of them, and himself guiltless,
always;—honouring his own soul, as it seems; but far away is he from
doing this, for he injures it; neither when he indulges it with
delights beyond the word and the praise of the Lawgiver [89];—then he
in nowise honours it, but disgraces, filling it with weaknesses and
repentances; neither when he does not toil through, and endure
patiently, the contraries of these pleasures, the divinely praised
Pains, and Fears, and Griefs, and Mournings, but yields under them;
then he does not honour it in yielding; but, in doing all these things,
accomplishes his soul in dishonour; neither (even if living honourably)
[90] when he thinks that life is wholly good, does he honour it, but
shames it, then also weakly allowing his soul in the thought that all
things in the invisible world are evil; and not resisting it, nor
teaching it that it does not know but that, so far from being evil, the
things that belong to the Gods of that world may be for us the best of
all things. Neither when we esteem beauty of body more than beauty of
soul, for nothing born of the Earth is more honourable than what is
born of Heaven; and he who thinks so of his soul knows not that he is
despising his marvellous possession: neither when one desires to obtain
money in any dishonourable way, or having so obtained it, is not
indignant and unhappy therefore—does he honour his soul with gifts; far
otherwise; he has given away the glory and honour of it for a spangle
of gold; and all the gold that is on the earth, and under the earth, is
not a price for virtue.”
That is as much of Plato’s opinions concerning the Psyche as I can
write out for you to-day; in next Fors, I may find you some parallel
ones of Carpaccio’s: meantime I have to correct a mistake in Fors,
which it will be great delight to all Amorites to discover; namely,
that the Princess, whom I judged to be industrious because she went on
working while she talked to her father about her marriage, cannot, on
this ground, be praised beyond Princesses in general; for, indeed, the
little mischief, instead of working, as I thought,—while her father is
leaning his head on his hand in the greatest distress at the thought of
parting with her,—is trying on her marriage ring!