Paxton has reached, and composedly place his form on the top.
This is a great age, when a man impressed with a useful idea can
carry out his project without being imprisoned, or thumb-screwed,
or persecuted in any form. I can well understand that you, to whom
the genius, the intelligence, the industry, and the achievements of
our friend are well known, should be anxious to do him honour by
placing him in the position he occupies to-night; and I assure you,
you have conferred great gratification on one of his friends, in
permitting him to have the opportunity of proposing his health,
which that friend now does most cordially and with all the honours.
SPEECH: THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER. LONDON, MAY 2, 1870.
[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy in
their new galleries in Piccadilly, the President, Sir F. Grant, and
the council gave their usual inaugurative banquet, and a very
distinguished company was present. The dinner took place in the
large central room, and covers were laid for 200 guests. The
Prince of Wales acknowledged the toast of his health and that of
the Princess, the Duke of Cambridge responded to the toast of the
army, Mr. Childers to the navy, Lord Elcho to the volunteers, Mr.
Motley to "The Prosperity of the United States," Mr. Gladstone to
"Her Majesty's Ministers," the Archbishop of York to, "The Guests,"
and Mr. Dickens to "Literature." The last toast having been
proposed in a highly eulogistic speech, Mr. Dickens responded.]
Mr. President, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen,--I
beg to acknowledge the toast with which you have done me the great
honour of associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf
of the brotherhood of literature, present and absent, not
forgetting an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy
return to it we all hail with delight, and who now sits--or lately
did sit--within a few chairs of or on your left hand. I hope I may
also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalf of the sisterhood of
literature also, although that "better half of human nature," to
which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful tribute, is unworthily
represented here, in the present state of its rights and wrongs, by
the devouring monster, man.
All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness that women,
even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as
great distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty names as men.
Their emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near,
there is no saying how soon they may "push us from our stools" at
these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing
in this place of mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind,
addressing another better half of human nature sitting in the
president's chair.
The literary visitors of the Royal Academy to-night desire me to
congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which
risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise
of a brilliant succession in time to come is not wanting. They
naturally see with especial interest the writings and persons of
great men--historians, philosophers, poets, and novelists, vividly
illustrated around them here.
