adily supplied by the taste and learning of Agostino; the
vigour of Annibale was deficient both in sensibility and correct
invention.]

[Footnote 274: Long after this article was composed, the _Royal Society
of Literature_ was projected. It was founded by King George IV., and is
said to have originated in a conversation between Dr. Burgess,
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and a member of the royal household, who
reported its substance to the king. The bishop was again sent for, and
the formation of the society commenced by the offer of premiums for an
essay on Homer, the prize being one hundred guineas; a poem on Dartmoor,
prize fifty guineas (awarded to Mrs. Hemans); and one of twenty-five
guineas, for an essay on the Ancient and Modern Languages of Greece. In
1823 the king granted the society a charter, and placed the annual sum
of eleven hundred guineas at its disposal, to be spent in endowing ten
associates for life, who were to receive one hundred guineas each yearly
(as a delicate mode of aiding needy literary men); the remaining one
hundred guineas to be expended on two gold medals, to be also awarded to
eminent men of letters. Coleridge, Dr. Jameson, Malthus, Roscoe, Todd,
and Sharon Turner received annuities among other well-known literary
characters; and Mitford, Southey, Scott, Crabbe, Hallam, and Washington
Irving received medals. On the death of George IV., the grant was
discontinued, and the society now exists by the subscriptions of its
members.]

[Footnote 275: See an article "On the ridiculous titles assumed by the
Italian Academies," in a future page of this volume.]

[Footnote 276: In J.T. Smith's "Historical and Literary Curiosities" is
engraved a fac-simile of a series of designs for the arms of the Royal
Society, drawn by Evelyn, but not used, because the king gave them the
choice of using the Royal Arms in a canton. The first of Evelyn's
designs exhibits a ship in full sail, with the motto _Et Augebitur
Scientia_. The other are as follows:--A hand issuing from the clouds
holding a plumb-line--motto, _Omnia probate_; two telescopes
saltier-wise, the earth and planets above--motto, _Quantum nescimus_;
the sun in splendour--motto, _Ad majorem lumen_; a terrestrial globe,
with the human eye above--motto, _Rerum cognoscere causas_.]

[Footnote 277: Evelyn notes in his Diary, August 20, 1662--"The king
gave us the armes of England, to be borne in a canton in our armes; and
sent us a mace of silver-g