(Vol. iv., p. 337.)
There is the more pressing need, in our day, of an _Order of Victoria_,
or _of Civil Merit_--such as you justly and feelingly contend for and
describe in the "NOTES AND QUERIES"--from the great and increasing
numbers of our literary and scientific men, who are acutely sensible of
the undeserved stigma and ban under which they lie, by being often
excluded from the intellectual society so congenial to them, owing to
their not possessing some recognised badge of honour and passport in
life, equivalent to the degrees or distinctions so justly conferred upon
those who have studied at our Universities, or are awarded to men who
have won eminence in the Naval, Military, or Civil Service of the Crown.
An honourable title, proceeding from the Sovereign herself, and bestowed
alike on _both sexes_ (for who would think--certainly not our beloved
Queen--of wounding the delicate female mind by excluding a Somerville, a
Hannah More, a Joanna Baillie, or a Felicia Hemans--the three latter not
needing now our poor applause--from the cheering honours due to their
genius, their talents, and their virtues?) would be a fitting tribute
from a British, a Christian Monarch to that intellectual superiority and
moral worth which are the immortal distinctions of our race. At present
many individuals who have raised themselves by their native force of
mind and acquirements to a position of honour and respectability as
literary and scientific men, are yet looked upon and treated as pariahs
by those who are the bestowers and guardians of national distinctions.
The just pride and self-respect of such men will forbid their courting,
by any unworthy advances, an introduction to society, from which, by
their position, they stand excluded; and it would be a truly royal
exercise of her sovereign rights, for Queen Victoria to extend, beyond
the present line of demarcation, the barriers that now prevent those
from meeting together, who, if they were better acquainted, would learn
to value and esteem each other: while society at large would be an
immense gainer in all its relations--scientific, literary, and
artistic--by the honours and distinctions thus conferred upon a most
worthy, but most contemned and neglected portion of the educated
community.