For these brave, but often disheartened, toilers that noble institution,
the Royal Literary Fund, has accomplished great things. During a period of
more than a century it has carried on its beneficent work, relieving poor
struggling authors when poverty and sickness have laid them low; and it
has proved itself to be a "nursing mother" to the wives and children of
literary martyrs who have been quite unable to provide for the wants of
their distressed families. We have already alluded to the foundation of
the Royal Literary Fund, which arose from the feelings of pity and regret
excited by the death of Floyer Sydenham in a debtors' prison. It is
unnecessary to record its history, its noble career of unobtrusive
usefulness in saving from ruin and ministering consolation to those
unhappy authors who have been wounded in the world's warfare, and who, but
for the Literary Fund, would have been left to perish on the hard
battlefield of life. Since its foundation L115,677 has been spent in 4,332
grants to distressed authors. All book-lovers will, we doubt not, seek to
help forward this noble work, and will endeavour to prevent, as far as
possible, any more distressing cases of literary martyrdom, which have so
often stained the sad pages of our literary history.
In order to diminish the woes of authors and to help the maimed and
wounded warriors in the service of Literature, we should like to rear a
large Literary College, where those who have borne the burden and heat of
the day may rest secure from all anxieties and worldly worries when the
evening shadows of life fall around.
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