universal capabilities, “ring up.” When he was discovered to the
audience, he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was very
favourably received, and gave every sign of going on well, until,
through some mental confusion as to his instructions, he opened the
business of the act by stating in pathetic terms, that he had been
confined in that dungeon seventeen years, during which time he had
not tasted a morsel of food, to which circumstance he was inclined
to attribute the fact of his being at that moment very much out of
condition. The audience, thinking this statement exceedingly
improbable, declined to receive it, and the weight of that speech
hung round him until the end of his performance.
Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I have the
honour of performing before you, and it behoves both you and me to
profit by the terrible warning I have detailed, while I endeavour
to make the part I have undertaken as plain and intelligible as I
possibly can.
As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to connect
the business with the pleasure of the evening, by drinking
prosperity to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, it becomes important
that we should know what that fund is. It is an Association
supported by the voluntary gifts of those who entertain a critical
and admiring estimation of art, and has for its object the granting
of annuities to the widows and children of deceased artists – of
artists who have been unable in their lives to make any provision
for those dear objects of their love surviving themselves. Now it
is extremely important to observe that this institution of an
Artists’ Benevolent Fund, which I now call on you to pledge, has
connected with it, and has arisen out of another artists’
association, which does not ask you for a health, which never did,
and never will ask you for a health, which is self-supporting, and
which is entirely maintained by the prudence and providence of its
three hundred artist members. That fund, which is called the
Artists’ Annuity Fund, is, so to speak, a joint and mutual
Assurance Company against infirmity, sickness, and age. To the
benefits it affords every one of its members has an absolute right,
a right, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift and selfdenial,
and not assisted by appeals to the charity or compassion of
any human being. On that fund there are, if I remember a right,
some seventeen annuitants who are in the receipt of eleven hundred
a-year, the proceeds of their own self-supporting Institution. In
recommending to you this benevolent fund, which is not selfsupporting,
they address you, in effect, in these words:- “We ask
you to help these widows and orphans, because we show you we have
first helped ourselves. These widows and orphans may be ours or
they may not be ours; but in any case we will prove to you to a
certainty that we are not so many wagoners calling upon Jupiter to
do our work, because we do our own work; each has his shoulder to
the wheel; each, from year to year, has had his shoulder set to the
wheel, and the prayer we make to Jupiter and all the gods is simply
this – that this fact may be remembered when the wagon has stopped
for ever, and the spent and worn-out wagoner lies lifeless by the
roadside.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to impress on you
the strength of this appeal. I am a painter, a sculptor, or an
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Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
engraver, of average success. I study and work here for no immense
return, while life and health, while hand and eye are mine. I
prudently belong to the Annuity Fund, which in sickness, old age,
and infirmity, preserves me from want. I do my duty to those who
are depending on me while life remains; but when the grass grows
above my grave there is no provision for them any longer.”
This is the case with the Artists’ Benevolent Fund, and in stating
this I am only the mouthpiece of three hundred of the trade, who in