I have been reading with some morbid interest a series of contributions to the pages of a contemporary from several more or less distinguished literary men who have apparently been invited to express their opinions, favourable or the reverse, on the recently launched proposition to establish in our midst, after the French model, a "British Academy of Letters." Some ask, "What's the use?" Others want to know who is to elect the elected, and seem much exercised in their minds as to the status and qualifications of those who ought to be chosen for the purpose of discharging this all-important function. As to what would be the use of an institution of the kind, the answer is so obvious that I will not attempt to reply to it. But if it comes to naming a representative body capable of selecting the two or three thousand aspirants who have already, in imagination, seen their claims to the distinction recognised by the elective body to which has been entrusted the duty of weighing their respective merits--well then, to use a colloquial phrase, I may confidently say that "I am all there!" Of course. Royalty must head it, so I head the list of, say, twelve Academic Electors, with the name of H.R.H. the Prince of WALES. This should be followed up by that of some generally widely-known personage, who has the literary confidence of the public, and in this connection, I have no hesitation in supplying it by that of the Compiler of _Bradshaw's Railway Guide_. Several now should follow, of varied and even conflicting interests, so as to satisfy any over-captious criticism inclined to question the thoroughly cosmopolitan character of the elective body. And so I next add, Mr. Sheriff AUGUSTUS HARRIS, H.R.H. the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, the Proprietor of PEARS' Soap, and the Beadle of the Burlington Arcade.