text:  Nor is it quite clear to our apprehension that the prevalent system of providing for merely intellectual men by a State annuity or pension is the best that can be devised: it is hard that the pensioned aristocracy of talent should be exposed to the taunt of receiving the means of their subsistence from this or that minister upon suppositions of this or that ministerial assistance which whether true or false cannot fail to derogate from that independent dignity of mind which is never extinguished in the breast of the true aristocrat of talent save by unavailing struggles long-continued with the unkindness of fortune