Trollope at the Royal Literary Fund

Abstract

LORD PALMERSTON, Trollope tells us, while out of office in 1858, took the chair at the Royal Literary Fund dinner, and there, as elsewhere, he made a speech serviceable to the occasion. To make a speech at the Literary Fund dinner seems to be a duty expected from an ex-Prime Minister.' As so often also in his novels, Trollope is slyly drawing attention to one of his own interests. The Royal Literary Fund is a remarkable institution. Started in the late eighteenth century and chartered in May of 1818, it exists to offer temporary relief to persons of genius and learning, or their families, who shall be in want, and who apply to it for assistance, indicating the nature of the present need, supporting their case with testimonials, and submitting specimens of their published work. The assistance in the mid-nineteenth century was relatively small -from about ten pounds to a maximum of a hundred pounds -and in no sense constituted a pension, though the application might be repeated when further need occurred. What might have