“I have resolved to apply the miserable pittance at the disposal of the Crown, on the Civil List Pension Fund, altogether to the reward and encouragement of literary exertions. I do this on public grounds; and much more with the view of establishing a principle, than in the hope, with such limited means, of being enabled to confer any benefit upon those whom I shall name to the Crown—worthy of the Crown, or commensurate with their claims.
“I have just had the satisfaction of attaching my name to a warrant which will add 300l. annually to the amount of your existing pension. You will see in the position of public affairs a sufficient reason for my having done this without delay, and without previous communication with you.
“I trust you can have no difficulty in sanctioning what I have done with your consent, as I have acted on your own suggestion, and granted the pensions on a public principle—the recognition of literary and scientific eminence as a public claim. The other persons to whom I have addressed myself on this subject are—Professor Airey of Cambridge, the first of living mathematicians and astronomers,—the first of this country at least, Mrs. Somerville, Sharon Turner, and James Montgomery of Sheffield.
