The company then adjourned to Dee's Hotel, where a banquet took place, at which about 220 persons were present, among whom were some of the most distinguished of the Royal Academicians.To the toast of "The Literature of England," Mr.Dickens responded as follows:-Mr.Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many labourers in that great field of literature to which you have pledged the toast, to thank you for the tribute you have paid to it.Such an honour, rendered by acclamation in such a place as this, seems to me, if Imay follow on the same side as the venerable Archdeacon (Sandford)who lately addressed you, and who has inspired me with a gratification I can never forget - such an honour, gentlemen, rendered here, seems to me a two-sided illustration of the position that literature holds in these latter and, of course, "degenerate"days.To the great compact phalanx of the people, by whose industry, perseverance, and intelligence, and their result in money-wealth, such places as Birmingham, and many others like it, have arisen - to that great centre of support, that comprehensive experience, and that beating heart, literature has turned happily from individual patrons - sometimes munificent, often sordid, always few - and has there found at once its highest purpose, its natural range of action, and its best reward.Therefore it is right also, as it seems to me, not only that literature should receive honour here, but that it should render honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly done good to Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it.From the shame of the purchased dedication, from the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub Street, from the dependent seat on sufferance at my Lord Duke's table to-day, and from the sponging-house or Marshalsea to-morrow -from that venality which, by a fine moral retribution, has degraded statesmen even to a greater extent than authors, because the statesman entertained a low belief in the universality of corruption, while the author yielded only to the dire necessity of his calling - from all such evils the people have set literature free.And my creed in the exercise of that profession is, that literature cannot be too faithful to the people in return - cannot too ardently advocate the cause of their advancement, happiness, and prosperity.I have heard it sometimes said - and what is worse, as expressing something more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it written - that literature has suffered by this change, that it has degenerated by being made cheaper.I have not found that to be the case: nor do I believe that you have made the discovery either.But let a good book in these "bad" times be made accessible, - even upon an abstruse and difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate interest to mankind, - and my life on it, it shall be extensively bought, read, and well considered.
Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at this moment many working men infinitely better versed in Shakespeare and in Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the days of bought-and-sold dedications and dear books.I ask anyone to consider for himself who, at this time, gives the greatest relative encouragement to the dissemination of such useful publications as "Macaulay's History," "Layard's Researches,""Tennyson's Poems," "The Duke of Wellington's published Despatches," or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called minute) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is with all these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a lecture upon art - if we had the good fortune to listen to one to-morrow - by my distinguished friend the President of the Royal Academy.However small the audience, however contracted the circle in the water, in the first instance, the people are nearer the wider range outside, and the Sister Arts, while they instruct them, derive a wholesome advantage and improvement from their ready sympathy and cordial response.I may instance the case of my friend Mr.Ward's magnificent picture; and the reception of that picture here is an example that it is not now the province of art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that it cannot hope to rest on a single foundation for its great temple, - on the mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery - but that it must be imbued with human passions and action, informed with human right and wrong, and, being so informed, it may fearlessly put itself upon its trial, like the criminal of old, to be judged by God and its country.