A plea for literature: more especially the literature of free states. / By a member of the old Congress.

A plea for literature: more especially the literature of free states. / By a member of the old Congress.

Table of contents

Title page

ADVERTISEMENT.

A Plea for Literature, &c.

NOTES.

Note—(a) Page 7.

Note—(b) Page 8.

Note—(c) Page 12.

Note—(d) Page 21.

Note—(c) Page 24.

Note—(f) Page 25.

Note—(g) Page 28.

Note—(h) Page 54.

Note—(i) Page 56.

Note—(j) Page 69.

Note—(k) Page 70.

Note—(l) Page ••.

Note—〈…〉

Note—〈…〉

Note—〈…〉

Note—〈…〉

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A PLEA FOR LITERATURE; MORE ESPECIALLY THE LITERATURE OF FREE STATES.

BY A MEMBER OF THE OLD CONGRESS.

CHARLESTON, SOUTH-CAROLINA: PRINTED BY HARRISON & BOWEN, No. 38, BAY. M,DCC,XCIII.

ADVERTISEMENT.

[Page]

THE author thinks it expedient to premise, that he has undertaken to plead the cause of fine writers, from motives purely disinterested, because, having no pretensions to the honor of being classed with them himself, none of those advantages he wishes them could properly fall to his share; besides that no emolument which can result from any literary amusements in which he is, or means to be, engaged, will in any material degree affect his condition.

The notes have been placed at the end that they may not interrupt the reasoning; and they will be as well read at last by recurring to the passages they concern, to which there are marks of reference.

Charleston, July 7th, 1793.

A Plea for Literature, &c.

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IT has generally been received that republics cannot subsist but upon the basis of virtue. If by this it is meant that such governments cannot subsist without a certain portion of virtue it is true with respect to those and all others too, and all societies of men: when virtue shall expire on earth then must succeed that scene of horrors presented by the dramatic poet;

"Let order die,

"And let this world no longer be a stage

"To feed contention in a ling'ring act,

"But let one spirit of the first-born Cain

"Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set

"On bloody courses the rude scene may end,

"And darkness be the burier of the dead!"

[Page]But if the purport of the position be this, that of the pillars which support the fabric of government virtue is the chief, it seems to be far distant from the truth. The security of a form of government will be found in itself or no where. So powerfully is the heart of man disposed to its own gratifications, that though little virtue is to be found it would not have been surprising if passion had made that little less: and it happens fortunately that a moderate portion of virtue in the citizens is sufficient to the existence of a free government: but it is the business of legislation to render this portion of virtue as active as possible and as much as may be to place the common weal out of the grasp of vice by removing temptations to ill, and converting duty into interest. The prosperity of every state will doubtless ever be, caeteris paribus, proportionate to the stock of virtue within itself; it is therefore also the business of [...]gis [...]ation to increase the stock of virtue. To this object a well constructed republic is favourable in the extreme. The vices of some men and the miscries of others come usually from the wants of all: but freedom encourages industry and plenty, more especially in those happy regions wherein the necessaries and comforts of life are obtained with ease: and these causes put a check upon the devices of fraud and rapine: nor do partial instances to the contrary invalidate the principle, for were the wants greater so would be the crimes. The influence of one private virtue in generating another is well known to men of observation; the habit of doing well is formed, and in this, as in all other instances, habit induces facility. [Page]The private character being well established the public, where there is no contagion of example, assimilates without an effort. Such governments too prepare honors or rewards for faithful servants, and neglect if not infamy for the faithless. In republics men are linked together for their mutual support, for the advancement of the common interest, and not, as in monarchies and aristocracies, servilely employed in exalting haughty thankless despots upon their prostrate dignities. They are sometimes the framers, sometimes the administrators, sometimes the servants, but always the source of law. This intimate connexion with the government endears it to the people; all love what blesses all; and, as the histories of such states relate, they become willing, and sometimes eager, to exhaust property, health and life, in defence of what they love. The successive deputations of the favourites of the people for the transaction of public business, train up in the state, in a course of discipline generous and divine, a body of men devoted to the service and protection of the human race. These effects, so far as they regard the public, have already discovered themselves in the regenerate government of France, in unanimity, firmness and magnanimity, entirely without example. The changes in the private character, being unassisted by the fervour which inspires a public cause, must await a later hour; yet even these changes may be supposed to be at no great distance, since we have seen the thoughtless, frivolous, Parisian trifler, whom despotism had degraded, suddenly restored, as by Ithuriel's [Page]spear, to the nobler character of his nature, the manly, steady, prudent, citizen of France. The manners of this reformed nation may indeed be expected to lose something of that softness which is imposed on slaves; they will be less pliant and insinuating, but their new found independence will make them more honest and sincere. No longer can man trample on man with impunity: unreasonable, arrogant pretensions on the one part, base compliances and submissions on the other, will be banished for ever from among them. Fearless of the hand of power the men will become noble and the women chaste. They will feel a dignity in their pleasures and in their sufferings. Maecenas, at the right hand of a tyrant who might at pleasure lay him prostrate in the dust, felt not that noble pride of heart which is the glory of a French freeman whose joys no man presumes to interrupt, whose sorrows no man dares to insult. It was observed above that one virtue is the offspring of another; between vices there subsists the same relation; let a man be degraded in one particular, (and can ought degrade him more than loss of freedom?) from that hour his characteristics shall sink together. While a free government gives licence to the mind to range unfettered through the field of truth, to enjoy at will the feast of reason and of virtue, she will grasp eagerly at objects worthy of her nature, she will assert her divine original. But the head which bows beneath a master's yoke strives even to forget the purposes of its creation, and seeks in fictitious honor, tawdry gewgaws, unmanly occupations, [Page]or guilty joys, the poor substitutes for untasted happiness; the moral faculty of man thus suffers a temporary suspension, a cureless shock, or utter extinction. With what horror do the patriot freedmen of France look back upon those acts of valor which such gallant spirits, misguided by the demon of despotism, were ever ready to achieve against an unoffending people? How do these heroes, enoble as they are in the service of their country and humanity, shudder at the melancholy retrospect of youth, beauty, gaiety and innocence, immured in a loathsome cloister to furnish the trappings of aristocratic insolence? How many fathers restored as they are to the charities of nature, weep now with anguish over the ashes of daughters doomed in an evil hour, like the worst of criminals, to perpetual imprisonment? How willingly would they pay the wealth of worlds to recall them from their dreary graves, whither, perhaps, they had been untimely sent by moping melancholy, could they but purchase an opportunity to expiate the crime by a life of love and beneficence? Surely no government is to be approved which corrupts the morals of its citizens, even though it should promote their happiness, (which, however, cannot be its effect;) the government should be so formed as to render the citizens virtuous, or they do not deserve to be happy. The flattering encouragement given to loyalty, as the darling virtue of monarchies, induces the neglect, often the destruction, of many others, and an alacrity in obedience, indiscriminate, mean, flagitious. The immediate servants of the monarch are perpetually [Page]employed in rivetting faster the galling chain upon the hands of their fellow vassals; in tearing their scanty covering from their backs, and snatching the hardearned morsel from their mouths: And it surely is not matter of surprise, if these plundered desperate wretches prepare to make themselves amends by every artifice which want and fraud can suggest. Indeed such governments cannot act but by the most infamous principles and instruments; and let us not wonder when the body of the people is found to be influenced by the example of superiors. Republics, on the contrary, cannot transact their business with vigor without the agency of honest men; and the citizens cannot choose but love, in the persons of rulers appointed by themselves, that virtue which is their best security. These legislators in their turn will naturally applaud virtue as the most effectual mean by which to accomplish with facility the best designs. Thus does the very form of a good government place virtue under the immediate protection of the people, whether in command or in obedience. Even in England, the best contrived establishment on earth, excepting those of America and France, the power in the hands of the monarch and his means of seduction are so exorbitant, that the state machine is kept in motion entirely by corruption: And by no other means can it be made to move, until a revolution shall take place or a patriot king shall fill the throne and employ his influence over the other branches of the legislature, not to oppress the subjects but to reform the representation: [Page]for while a majority of the House of Commons shall continue to be appointed by five thousand men, it will be an easy task to bribe the electors; and this will be done by political prostitutes, who purchase seats in Parliament, to form the opposition which clogs the wheels of government, until they in their turn shall be bribed to acquiescence. How detestable a system of policy must that be which stands in need of corruption for its support! and how dangerous to the morals of the people to whom it is administered! what then must be the character and influence of other states which stand even far below this in the scale of despotism? Yet has the one enthusiastic admirers, and some of the rest, as the republic of Venice and the late French monarchy, at least warm advocates. (a)

IT has been a matter of enquiry among some eminent and curious men, whether democracies or other governments have been found most favorable to the interests of literature; but it is not to my purpose to dwell upon the question of superiority in what has gone before, whether as it regards happiness, virtue or literature; because all governments upon record, prior to those of America and France, have been defective in essentials: even the boasted constitution of England, as finally established by the boasted revolution of 1689, contained in itself the principles of a rapid dissolution; or rather inadaquate representation was the cureless distemper, the cancer, which, though it should not dissolve the frame, [Page]could not fail to deprive it, as it has done, of the vital spirit; and it now remains the lifeless mummy of a government. (b) These pages will be read, if they be read at all, by men who feel that the constitution of their country is good because they are happy under it; because they have too much generous pride to be happy under any institution, the officers of which could oppress and plunder them with impunity; because the form of their's is favorable to virtue, the best preserver of the peace of society; and because they find themselves at liberty at all times to correct errors, to redress grievances, and to improve advantages. With all these benefits in possession, it would little affect such a people to tell them that less happy and less virtuous nations have been wiser; this would little disturb them in the enjoyment of blessings which are inestimable, and incline them not at all to barter them for qualities which have little comparative value without. But let them be persuaded that their government may easily be rendered essentially conducive to the prosperity of literature, a new attainment not only innocent but friendly to the rest; that thereby they shall become wiser, more virtuous, and more happy, and we cannot doubt that they will espouse the cause of wisdom, virtue, happiness—in short, their own.

AMERICA has long been an object of curiosity and wonder, to the enlightened characters of Europe, on account of the mighty work she boldly attempted, firmly labored, and ably accomplished. The great council of [Page]the greatest nation of the world, with a magnanimity which shewed them to be qualified for the noblest achievements, have acknowledged the legislators of this infant empire as their masters in the high business of civil policy. Even 'midst the clamors of civil commotion, 'midst the din of war, the voice of eloquence was heard, and the pen was employed as skilfully as the sword. It must therefore occasion surprise in such parts of the learned world as are unacquainted with the peculiar circumstances of this continent, that so few productions of merit, and indeed so few of any description, have issued from the American press since the time when the disappointment of the British arms seemed to leave the citizens at leisure for literary occupations. The service of the muses is in all countries, at this day, extremely uprofitable, and when a competency has been obtained therein, it was spoken of as an instance of extraordinary felicity. Yet where, as in the old countries, the departments of government are filled with men of family, those of law, physic and divinity crouded with professors, and the monopoly of property in most instances forbids any advancement by means of agriculture or commerce, literature must often become the last resort of indigent genius. But in America, the offices of government are open to merit; and property being more equally divided and much more easily obtained, those who possess it, apply themselves to its improvement, those who do not, to the attainment thereof; so that the whole community is too active to [Page]speculate, except it be immediately in aid of action: those who stand in need of gain can obtain little by writing books, and those who do not, are usually either engaged in the service of government, or some too indolent, others too ignorant to write. Moreover, the number of persons in America who can afford to pay the price of books, is not yet sufficiently large to reward the labors of writers who might prove eminently instructive and useful: for even if their object be reputation or the good of human nature, and they should be content to find the bulk of their readers in Europe, there are many subjects to which a man might wish to apply his studies, which local circumstances would render little interesting to foreigners; besides, that few writers can afford to slight the emoluments of literature, of which, if his book were printed in America he would be deprived by foreign booksellers who would re-print, or by American if printed abroad. Private patronage too, which has sometimes produced salutary effects, cannot at present be expected on this continent: this will rather be found, when found at all, in countries the governments and habits of which (contrarily to ours) encourage the monopoly of large estates, which occasionally prove fountains of liberality, and streams of Helicon too, to the learned. Besides, when a state by its arbitrary character forbids even its foremost citizens to struggle for authority, they are left at full leisure to admire and foster men of talents.— Under the old establishment of France, more patronage [Page]was enjoyed than in the free kingdom of Great-Britain. Even in Great-Britain, good writers have often found favor with the great and been promoted to important and lucrative employments, in consideration of their literary talents, as in the instances of Newton, Locke, Addison, Prior, Congreve, and others; and this too without any regard to the peculiar characters of their minds, an example which is not likely, and evidently ought not, to be imitated here. The rich ecclesiastical benefices of Europe too, though usually bestowed upon illustrious dunces, have sometimes excited, and rewarded, the ambition of eminent genius; and in like manner sinecures and pensions. Perhaps too, the characteristic modesty of the American nation, so often to be found in its most distinguished characters, forms another impediment to the efforts of the learned; and those who have been accustomed to the insolence of European greatness, must observe with wonder, that the most dignified is the most modest citizen of the United States. Add to all this, that our government has not yet been twenty years in existence; for I pass over the time when in its colonial capacity it felt the controlling hand of Britain, like a wayward child; knowing neither the occasions, nor the motives, nor the spirit of great designs. Since then all things ‘"Creep in a stealing pace"’ toward perfection, little even of that which has been effected where attempts were made, in war and legislation, could in so short a time have been reasonably expected.

[Page] THESE are some of the causes, peculiar to America, which operate as discouragements from literary achievements; by these is she depressed in addition to the weight of others common to other countries, which will incidentally come under observation as we proceed.

GREAT as the impediments in the way of genius appear, the most zealous friend to literature need not be dismayed at the prospect, when he reflects that the power to remove them and to put allurements in their place, is lodged in the hands of those, whose honor and interests must prompt them to their duty. (c) To the respect and support rendered to learned men in the courts of Augustus and queen Ann, may perhaps be ascribed the lustre of those literary constellations which throw a glory round them; and it is remarkable that the prizes offered to dramatic writers by the Athenians, were contended for by Oeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides at the same time. A constellation is more admired and gazed at than a single star; the general blaze graces the peculiar splendor. This is known to men of uncommon talents, and they are tempted forth to share the honors confered by the fashion of the time. Rewards, as well lucrative as honorary cannot surely be too soon, nor more worthily, bestowed than upon distinguished genius, employed in the instruction and embellishment of the human mind; in the service of human nature. Even in this early stage of her advancement, America possesses resources capable [Page]of furnishing, without empoverishment, no contemptible emolument to the learned; more especially as her advancement will be accelerated by the expence. But as soon as the debt of the nation shall have been discharged, then will the simple frugal plan of polity which secures its interests at home, and its distance from every formidable power which supercedes the necessity of expensive military establishments for the repulsion of an invader, concur to amass treasures inexhaustible. So small a number as forty-eight ecclesiastical drones in England and Ireland, annually consume no less than one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling, in feasting for the good of the souls of the laity, a sum which bears a considerable proportion to the whole of the American civil list: and the public debt of America amounts not in its principal to so much as the interest of that of Great Britain; even this may perhaps be extinguished in a moderate space of time by the sale of vacant lands. From abroad no dangers seem to threaten; a rupture with the Spaniards would but involve them in difficulties; despots have learnt to tremble at the frown of liberty, and the spirit of disobedience has animated even the blood-hounds which were wont at their command to bathe themselves in human gore. The resentment of a nation possessed of all the materials of naval armaments, being once incurred, the interception of the treasures of South America, the sinews of the Spanish power, might probably ensue; which losses would more-debilitate the parent state than the dismemberment of the colonies did Great Britain. Spain, with her mines, [Page]is feeble; without her mines and without industry, she must perish. It appears then, that we, less than any other nation stand in need of armies, which are at all times expensive, and sometimes dangerous to the state; in which particular we shall perhaps prove more fortunate than the gallant French, surrounded as they are by martial neighbours, the rivalship among whom has brought into the field in modern times, under the command of a king of France, a stronger force than was employed by a Roman emperor to keep the subject world in awe; yet was this France but a Province of the empire. America can better do without an army even than Great-Britain, notwithstanding her insular situation and her powerful navy. Extensive naval establishments will also be found, in general, unnecessary to the protection of her trade, since the perils of her sea coast will forbid the frequent hazard of large fleets of the most enterprising enemy. Even should the United States for their mutual accommodation separate themselves into several distinct republics, it is to be expected that the olive branch would, in this age of reform, be preferred to the sanguinary laurel. All these with many additional causes, which will occur to the reader, will pour into the [...]p of America unbounded wealth, to be employed in promoting the felicity, the dignity, the glory, of human nature; and to the causes here specified, will she [...]e indebted for the advantage to which Mr. Hume ascribes the progress of learning in the twelfth century, soon after the discovery of the laws of Justinian, in the [Page]Island of Great-Britain; which, standing less in need than the European continent of military bodies, engaged a greater proportion of her citizens in Eterary pursuits: and the evils resulting from the intrusion of arms into academic groves, is still severely felt by many who were driven thence during the revolution war.

THE plan of proposing specific theses to be discussed by the learned, which has been adopted by some private societies, would certainly, as a national concern, and under proper modifications as such, be rendered productive of the most important benefits to the community. Many excellent and useful works would come directly from the institution; and the cause of truth would indirectly prosper by the general principle of literary emulation, which would animate the wisdom of the nation; all could not be successful, but immediate efforts, or preparatory studies in those who should not succeed or who should ultimately decline such contests, would doubtless, in many instances, light genius into a flame which otherwise, like sparks in flint, had lain for ever dormant. The wise, the magnanimous, French nation, while engaged in rearing the pillars of their government, which to half the surrounding world, seemed to totter to their fall, even then they slighted not the hallowed rites of literature, but sacrificed to the divinity, undaunted by the menaces of kings and demons in confederacy. Even monarchs we find so sensible of the necessity of literature, to the aggrandizement and glory of empire that they have often braved the dangers which accompany the light [Page]of reason s [...]i [...]ing on their dark and evil ways: and despotisms have usually risen to eminence in degrees proportionate to the wisdom of the monarch, not merely as the instrument of skilful government, but as the fountain of national information. So flourished Rome under the administration of Augustus and the Antonines, and France under the administration of Lewis XIVth, the patron, though but the ape, of wisdom. But monarchs while they gave countenance to literary men, have ever striven to point their attention as wide as possible of those objects which most immediately concerned the felicity of the people; to them has been usually allowed just, light enough to discern the means of exalting the empire and the tyrant, but seldom so much as might be sufficient to exalt the empire and the nation. It has ever been the purpose of princes to keep their subjects below the dignity of human nature; wise they might esteem, noble they might aspire at, freedom: so that kings and kingdoms were made illustrious by the labour and valour of those hands which still remained in chains. Sometimes the accursed oppressors of the human race, under the guidance, as it might seem, of some good angel who had assumed a devil's shape, have deviated into good. Deeming rashly of the baseness of humanity, they have ventured, to set at large, in their dominions the Voltaires, the Rousscaus, the Montesquieus, the champions of their kind, like avenging deities, to fright or blast them on their thrones. How different is the condition, how different the interests of the ruler in a government established [Page]in the rights and erected for the use of the citizens? Legislation becomes in this instance the tender office of a parent providing for the welfare of his children; when instruction has been given, the instructor feels himself exalted by the honors which his pupil gains; the shines with reflected light; and the legislator, when he shall return into the class of ordinary citizens, will glow with honest pride in contemplating in his successor the faculties improved, the wisdom created, by himself, which shall then have become necessary to his own security and contentment in his humbler sphere. In such a government, the greatness of the state, the glory of the rulers, and the happiness of the people, are all inseparably blended. The influence of learning in the preservation of liberty is a secret to nobody, so that it is not only conducive to the prosperity of a well constructed government, but even essential to its existence; and it must be strange indeed when such a government shall not in turn advance the interests of learning. Though, for the reasons mentioned before, I shall not enter upon the question whethey free republics have been more favorable to the cause of literature than absolute monarchies; and shall content myself with knowing that it is their interest, their duty, and entirely at their option to be so, yet it may be remarked by the way, that the immense dominions of Rome produced, during one whole age, even under the milder administrations of Hadrian and the Antonines, only one great writer; and it is not to be supposed, that either of those emperors would have been content than wisdom [Page]should roam at will through those fields of science which yield nutritious fruits and furnish antidotes to the poison of the great: for monarchs ‘Who bear their faculties so meek,’ are seldom less disposed for that to grasp them in their hands and to make head against reformers. A few indeed have abdicated thrones from disgust, vanity, affected patriotism, or the apprehension of the punishment of usurpation, and left them to be scuffled for by other tyrants; this Scylla did: others have retired in a fit of religious frenzy, like Charles Vth, of Germany: but how small is the number of those who have been content to resign a portion of that authority, which however safely it might be supposed to be lodged in their own hands, must descend with extreme hazard to their successors; as the Roman diadem from Augustus to Tiberius, and from Antonine to the execrable Commodus. The restraints which the lust of dominion does usually throw upon the efforts of the learned, have accordingly often benumbed or sophisticated, the intellects of man in a manner unknown in the histories of free civilized governments, though defective in their form; and, when the intellects escape this influence, the moral faculty, as observed above, suffers the rudest shocks. Much of the court favor obtained by the Augustan wits, may fairly be ascribed to the flatteries which degrade their writings; and accordingly they stand upon record as ‘The wisest, brightest, meanest of Mankind.’ It is the business of a republic on the other hand, to call [Page]action, for its own purposes, for the best purposes the good and glory of the nation, the choisest and most powerful faculties of mind. While in monarchical states the subjects are instructed in all the mysteries of sin and hell, for the desolation of the earth and the injury of their fellow creatures by a Frederick or a Machiavel. In republics every incentive of interest and virtue disposes the rulers and the ruled to promote the common good by wise and moral exercises of the soul.

As nothing but learning can ensure the possession of liberty, so also can liberty be defended from the mischiefs of licentiousness, as a pretended friend the most dangerous of enemies, by nothing but learning. The true enlightened republican or lover of the public weal, is equally friendly to liberty and abhorrent to licentiousness: in an ignorant multitude, the feeling differs; the evils which come from the intemperate use of the greatest good, are overlooked by these, or when foreseen, are too often disregarded. In arbitrary governments, the slightest instance of licentiousness incurs infamy or punishment, and these are usually proportionate to the barbarism of the people; but in free states it is treated with indulgence, as "an excrescence on the eye of liberty, which should be touched with a gentle, with a trembling hand, lest we injure the eye, lest we injure the body upon which it is apt to appear." The envy which follows wealth, is in some instances an incitement to jealousy, hate, and disorder; in others, it is a slavish [Page]opiate of still more baneful operation: both these influences of wealth, may in some degree be controlled by the exhibition of a worthier object of desire and admiration. If a certain respect for wealth, be supposed a needful check upon the turbulence of poverty, yet it should be remembered, that when education shall have become general, and a certain portion of improvement shall have advanced the pretensions of ordinary men, it may become as difficult, as in a state of the most sordid lawless ignorance, to preserve order in a multitude of proud discerning freemen, glorying in their independence and their might; unless the distinction obtained through eminent intellectual accomplishments, by some of those whom fortune has neglected, shall sooth and comfort the rest, and reconcile them to the sense of inferiority. Nothing can so well promote the equality of rank, so much talked of and applauded yet so little known in republics, as the universality and the estimation of literature. The dignity of wisdom rendered Cincinn [...]tus venerable at his plough, but an untaught rustic, must seek in vain for such respect. The more learning shall be encouraged, the more will it be honored; the more will it be coveted and attempted, the poor will become learned that they may be exalted, the rich that they may not be degraded, and that they may escape the ridicule of being distinguished blockheads. The ordinary race of men, forms the strength of every country; and that strength is greater, which is animated by freedom; but what will be the strength of that country, [Page]the ordinary inhabitants of which are free, well instructed and enamoured of a government which respects their condition and honours their improvements. Wealth, on the contrary, mere unqualified wealth, but helps to sap the basis of government by promoting luxury, and, where it is practicable, by inviting invasion. In the revolution war, the British arms suffered the most formidable cheecks from the citizens of the states which were least wealthy, and, perhaps, best informed: they were accordingly distinguished in England, as the nest of hornets; she learnt indeed to rue their stings, and to her did Boston become a term of dismay, as Carthage formerly to Rome. Freedom, the best treasure of the brave, was their's, and that being lost, they had been poor. (d) It were much to be desired, by the warmest literary zealot, that the first place in the esteem of mankind should be given to virtue itself; for an abundant portion of moral, with a much smaller of intellectual excellence, would provide more ample funds of human felicity, than a conv [...]rse proportion of these advantages; but a complete transmutation of the nature of man being impracticable, and the love of wealth and fame being predominant passions therein, he must be acted upon as he is; wherefore, literature should be made to lead to these objects, that virtue may flourish under its influence. By means of literature and virtue, will the blessings of order and good government, among others, be best understood, valued, and preserved. In despotic states, the same power which bends the neck to the yoke, can, by its dependent [Page]chain, restrain the rage of passion and mollify the manners of the people. But in free societies, wherein each man is the carver of his own fortunes and needs small aid from others, the citizens are much in danger of passing from independence to ferocity in public concerns, and from sincerity to rudeness in private. In such societies, therefore, the arts which sweeten and embellish life, the influence which ‘emollit mores nec sinit esse feros,’ cannot be too highly rated. How large a portion of the tranquillity of the freest community depends, even upon the manners and customs by which its social intercourse is ruled? Liberty, like wealth, may be possessed without enjoyment in Spartan severity, or puritanic gloom; and, by the alteration of a word, to either blessing might be applied the compliment of Horace, ‘Di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi.’ To the advantages possessed, in these particulars, by the French nation, were they indebted for such pleasures as they were enabled to glean under the pressure of the ancient dynasty; and the absence of these advantages, depreciates in a remarkable manner, others held by the freer English. In the English government, there is oppression enough to excite indignation, and liberty enough to admit of complaint and other consequences of ill humour; two causes, which may very well be supposed to forbid softness and suavity of deportment, and to mar the quality of literary accomplishments which they possess. Learning, not enfeebled by such disabilities, furnishes the materials [Page]of refined discourse, and throws a very happy influence upon the commerce of men. In defect of this attainment, the Turkish grandee is constrained to fill the sad vacuity of ignorance with opium, coffee, and tobacco; the American savage with intoxicating liquors. Similar consolations must be the wretched resort of every man, whose attention is not guided to liberal enjoyments in a government which leaves him to the choice of all, and wherein the worst are ever at his command. Who has not seen the toast and circulating bottle made the substitutes of wit? Who daily sees not drunkenness the occupation of unlettered solitude? Now to a literary character, intemperance is both unnecessary, and in a more than ordinary measure, inconvenient—because, it induces an incapacity of its favorite enjoyments; so that pleasures which are hurtless and perpetual, are received in exchange for others which are neither. How often too, do the reputations of the innocent become the victims of dulness and colloquial barrenness, when erroneously supposed to be sacrificed to malignity?

IN the encouragement of learning, the preference, beyond question, is due to those branches thereof, which minister most immediately to the public good; but so precious is human wit, that no species is without its value; and of those which are in least esteem for utility, I shall first speak. Genius will extract something valuable from what might be deemed worthless by another; as the bee, honey from a thistle. Knowledge of every [Page]kind, has upon some former occasion, been applied to good purpose, and may in some future event be applied to better. Such is the affinity which subsists between the various departments of science, that no one can be pronounced incapable of succouring another. Many modern improvements in anatomy have been derived from the optician; by him also, has the astronomer been furnished with instruments; and the astronomer, in his turn, gives help to navigators. It may be in the power of a chymist to throw such lights upon the art of husbandry, as may double the revenues of a state. Botany may afford aids to the practice of physic, which may rescue millions from the grave, the salvation of only one of whom would have won the Roman civic crown: the blessings which have been showered upon the human race by the discovery of the Peruvian bark alone do indeed stand beyond the reach of calculation. To the study of botany will many ingenious men be incited by the magic of poetic numbers in the Botanic Garden, and the poem itself is the offspring of the botanic art. A general passion for literature, perhaps, formed in Dr. Franklin that habit of enquiry which led him to the study of politics; and his literary powers may have procured him that favor among the great in France which he possessed in an eminent degree, and may have qualified him for the negociation which freed his country. (e) Polite literature, possesses no direct powers which can devise a scheme of state, yet can prosper what has been devised, and save a sinking land. The late lord Chatham was [Page]a great statesman, a great designer in political business; but it is well known, that he was indebted for the efficicient co-operation of party to his resistless eloquence; the good applauded, and the guilty trembled; the flimsy sophistry of prostitution, disolved before his power like a spider's web. (f) Unfortunately, vice in the human character, is a natural weed of the soil; virtue a tender exotic, which must be reared with the most careful culture. Virtue must not only be known, but recommended; and the distinction between the charms of truth, attired in homely vestments, or graced in all the ornaments of rhetoric and poetry, fails not to strike the eye of an ordinary beholder; but to a man of taste, is interesting in the extreme. In the performances of the blacksmith and the steel worker, the house painter and the history painter, the metal and the paint are the materials in either case; but the skill with which they are handled, determines the character of the labourer or the artist. When Vulcan had completed the temple of the sun, ‘Materiam s [...]perabat opus.’ It is easy to convince a man that certain modes of conduct are commendable, but to go further and persuade him to adopt them, this is the achievement of a master. The Athenians needed no instructor to acquaint them it was their duty, instead of wasting their time at public shews, to rush forth in defence of the liberty of their country, against the encroachments of Philip; this they had known before; but it demanded the powers of Demosthenes to impel them to the field. This instance [Page]of the use of elocution, is the more remarkable, as the orator incited others to acts of valor, to which he was proved himself unequal: the Athenian army obtained the honors of the field, while the man of eloquence precipitately fled. In the art of persuasion there is this advantage too, that while it can extinguish vice and confirm virtue, it possesses no injurious influence over the actions of the good. When human nature is found in a state of innocence and felicity, as in the instance of the amiable inhabitants of Pelew, and if, in a state of ignorance, any security in these advantages could be possessed, it might perhaps afflict the warmest friend of learning to see arts intruded upon peace, creating wants faster than they can be gratified, and kindling passions which will need new arts to mitigate their rage. But in an advanced stage of society, when the objects of pride, avarice, envy, jealousy, and voluptuousness, have been already introduced, it becomes necessary to administer suitable remedies to these inveterate maladies. The polite essays of Addison and Steele, are supposed to have been happily instrumental in meliorating, at least the manners, or what are called by the French, la petit morale, of the people of England: and when we reflect on the salutary influences of gentle amiable demeanor in social intercourse, this will be admitted as no inconsiderable instance of the benefit of fine writing. If to that nation, as has been hinted above, the aids of literary accomplishments be peculiarly requisite on account of the personal freedom it possesses, and if there be also an indispensible necessity [Page]for these aids in our freer and more popular government, wherein the citizens are so much at liberty to indulge those licentious asperities which mar their mutual peace; so also will the success of the application bear a proportion to the character of the literature administered. Philosophy will strengthen, but wit, eloquence, poetry, must refine; as the highest polish comes from the smoothest or the softest substances. Even the philosopher or politician, therefore, if he be the father of the people and make provision for the security of their happiness, will not hesitate to become the patron of the fine arts. But even to the designs of the philosopher and politician, as we see, does eloquence afford her aid. Poetry too, in her turn assists the orator, ‘And gives the tongue a helpful ornament.’ Who that has the gift of speech, tunes not his breath with the wild warblings of Shakespeare, or Milton's lofty melody? Corneille's muse gave birth to Gallic elocution, which now pleads the cause of man. Hear how fondly, and how sweetly too, Tully sounds the praises of the art which raised his own, in his oration for Archias: Hun [...] ego non diligam? non admirer? non omni ratione defendendum putem? atqui sic a summis hominibus eruditissimisque acceptimus, ceterarum rerum studia & doctrina, & praeceptis, & arte constare; poetam natura ipsa valere, & mentis viribus excitari, & quasi divino quodam spiritu inflari. Quare suo jure noster ille Ennius sanctos appellat poetas, quod quasi deorum aliquo dono atque munere commendati nobis esse videantur. Sit, igitur, [Page]judices, sanctum apud vos humanissimos homines, hoc poetae nomen, quod nulla unquam barbaris violavit. Saxa & solitudines voci respondent, bestiae saepe immanes cantu reflectuntur, atque consistunt: nos institutirebus optimis non poetarum voce moveamur? And thus rapturously does a poet speak of others of his tribe;

Pectus inaniter angit,

Irritat, mulcet; falsis terroribus implet

Ut magus.

The efficacy of such magic in preserving a manly national character so essential to the security of freedom, was so well known to a king of England, the invader of the gallant Welsh, that the royal savage ordered all their bards to be put to death, to facilitate the conquest of the country. Among the ancient Germans too, the influence of poetic transports, in generating a martial spirit, was often employed; and there are specific victories on record, supposed to have been won by poetry. A modern politican has ascribed very powerful effects to the popular songs of later times: Perhaps the English have been indebted to the military song of Hearts of Oak, for some of their naval victories, and we know the ça ira of the French to be their Io Poean. The national songs of North-Britain thrill through the veins of every Scot; and some martial Caledonian strain will shortly pierce a Brunswick's ear like witching incantations. (g) A correct taste asks poems in "an higher mood." Poetry in other times and governments, wherein the rights of man were unknown or trampled on, [Page]having sometimes taken a wrong direction, misled and hurt mankind. The morals of the two great epic poems of antiquity, are bad in essentials, and took their complexions from the licentious manners of the ages in which they were composed. In Homer's time, predatory expeditions, or what we should term piracies, seem (and they are spoken of by him without blame,) to have been regarded as a reputable occupation. It is no wonder then that the carrying fire and sword into the country of an unoffending people to recover a royal strumpet should, in comparison with an ordinary robbery, be applauded as an heroic exploit; more especially as she was the wife of one of those confederating monarchs, who came into the world for no other purpose than to tread upon the necks of such dutiful warriors. It is well known too that, among the Romans, the conquerors and butchers of innocent nations were held in the highest esteem as the most virtuous characters alive; and that too in cases wherein not even their tyrant had given offence (whose guilt however should in no case have been avenged in the persons of his subjects;) it was very natural therefore that Latinus's breach of promise when he had betrothed his daughter should be made a sufficient pretext whereby the pious Aeneas took occasion to involve a harmless race of men in all the horrors of desolation and slaughter. No material alteration had taken place in political philosophy when in an evil hour Alexander of Macedon came like a pestilence into the world to plague mankind. By Aristotle he was taught to delight in [Page]Homer: unfortunately in his Achilles he delighted more and learnt from him to bathe the face of earth in human gore. It was the boast of Virgil that this was the principle of his country, ‘Parcere subjectis & debellare superbos;’ which may certainly be fairly translated thus; "to spare the abject unresisting wretch and put the brave to death;" or thus, "to degrade the noble mind to slavery but not murder the man enslaved." The worst part of this hallowed maxim, but not always the best, ruled the wasteful life of Alexander. Sometimes indeed he would surpass himself and, as in the case of Porus, he would seize upon a kingdom like a robber and restore it like a hero. We on the contrary are so happy as to live in an age of the world when the human mind has assumed in politics and morals, some moderate portion of the light of reason; enough at least to discern that a great rogue is much more detestable than a small one, as the treasures of a world exceed the value of a purse of gold, and a million of lives out number the life of an individual. No longer are the Iliad and Aeneid perused as exemplars in moral, but in poetic, excellence;

"Farewell the plumed troops, and the big war

That makes ambition virtue! oh farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,

The royal banner and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance, of glorious war;

all these are viewed no more by us with veneration but shuddering horror as the pageantry of hell if not engaged [Page]in the cause of liberty, justice, and the human race. But being thus nobly employed by a bard who rises with the rising theme, who shall not feel the great sublime of poetry and virtue? Too long have witching numbers urged the brave to mutual slaughter; when shall their better influence bind them in friendly league and drive them like a tempest on the foes of wretched man? When withdraw the statesman from the wicked wiles which ensnare unwary innocence? When fill his mind with patriot plans to bless the country he inhabits, and urge him to establish, not disturb, his fellow men abroad in all the good they know, while he allures them to participate in more? When lead the philosopher to meditate on fatal errors which enslave the mind, and with a skilful, patient, tender hand, to pluck them off? When sooth the minister of the God of mercy to dwell in charity with his neighbour, to pity his frailties because he is a man, to wipe the tear from his eye because he is a fellow creature, to revile him not at all?

THE moral and political uses of fine writing have been mentioned first as they deserve; but as a certain portion of pleasure is necessary to man, and that too even as an encouragement in the discharge of his duty, and as in defect of those pleasures which are innocent he is apt to indulge in the guilty, the most rigid politician, philosopher, or moralist, will scarcely object to the propagation of polite studies even as sources of delight. When the patriot shall have done his utmost in the most momentous departments of legislation, much will still remain to be done [Page]to soften the condition of human nature. Nor can the labour of philosophic exercises be sustained perpetually; the mind must seek occasional recreation in gentle elegant amusement. Rough is the path of life, tender the feet of man; it is not sufficient that sharp flints and craggy protuberances shall be broken away; but, that man may walk cheerily on his journey, soft herbage must sometimes comfort his foot-steps, and roses blow amidst innumerable thorns. He is often compelled to steal from sad reality to scenes of fancied bliss, there to lay down awhile his load of cares, and snatch a short repose which like nightly sleep fits him to bear a weight otherwise above his strength. The sad consequences of melancholy appear often in debility both corporal and mental; and nothing conduces more to the sanity of the whole human system, the Mens sana in corpore sano, than cheerfulness and mirth. The productions of comic writers are therefore happily fitted for the comfort and relief of those whose need is greatest. A traveller observing a man at a distance reading a book and using very extravagant gestures pointed him out to his companion, who replied that the book must be Don Quixote or the man must be mad; the former proved to be the truth. It is evident then that not only the strength, but the beauty of literature also, merits the patronage of the public even when it stands alone and is viewed merely as an object of delight. Rhetoric and poetry however we have seen may be employed in a direct manner for the most important purposes; and even wit, too often deemed a pleasing trifler, can sometimes [Page]advance the best designs of virtue, policy, or philosophy. Mirth, cheerfulness, and health, are followed usually by benevolence; and actions become pleasures which were duties before. A joyous character is generally too happy in the pleasing habit of his soul to attempt an augmentation of his bliss by a wilful injury of others; and seldom but in gloomy tempers have we detected atrocious guilt. Nothing but the black horrors of flagitious bigotry could so naturally have incited Philip II. of Spain to the massacre of a nation and the murder of his son. The success with which Cervantes combated the mad spirit of chivalry is well known; and it is certain that to wilful pertinacious error the subtilties of philosphy and the thunders of eloquence are less terrible than the shafts of ridicule. As much good may be done by well directed wit, so also may much mischief be prevented as the consequence of those baleful productions which, being recommended by all the graces of fine writing and those flatteries in which voluptuous passions delight, have long been, and still continue, in very improper hands. In the best esteemed novels published in states whose habits and manners differ materially from ours, not unfrequently does an inconstant wife so pathetically bewail the guilt in which she has been involved by the neglect of an husband, probably too neither young nor handsome, that the heart becomes too much engaged in the distresses of the lovely mourner to be at leisure to condemn her crimes; and to a peice of this description has the author prefixed this notable motto, Quibus pretium faceret ipsa fragilitas. [Page]The gallants of their wittiest comedies are commonly rendered by every effort of the poet amiable in proportion to the number of families they may plunge in woe; or the number of cuckolds which, as they gayly phrase it, they may be so skilful as to dub. The brightness of Wycherly, Congreve, and Vanbrugh, we must admire but as a flame which while it warms may burn. There is certainly wit enough in our own citizens if means were used to draw it forth; and, as it is not necessary that a man should be wicked that he may be witty, there can be no doubt that it may be applied to the best purposes, among others the expulsion of what has hitherto been applied to the worst. A combination of the gayer and graver faculties of the mind is moreover found not unfrequently in the same genius. In Homer were united judgment, fancy, and humour. In Shakespeare and Horace, judgment, fancy, wit, and humour. Every intellectual excellence deserves to be rated high. The ruby is not the less a jewel because it is not a diamond. It happens unfortunately however in literature that men of considerable, but of different talents, do all take delight in degrading those possessed by others that their own may rise in the comparison; yet by their fruitless efforts to assume the slighted character betray involuntary respect. Schismatic rancour in literature as in religion endangers the common interest by inducing an opinion of weakness in that wherein none can ascertain the seat of strength. Public patronage extended to each department of knowledge would at once establish, improve, and enforce, the claims of all.

[Page] WHENEVER literary establishments shall have provided sufficiently for the two most valuable objects virtue and happiness who that feels the ardour of a patriot or the emulation of a scholar pants not for his country's glory too? Greece boasted justly of her tribe of sages; philosophers, lawgivers; but how widely has her sphere of greatness been extended by seraph-tongued eloquence and poetry?

Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera

Credo equidem: vivos ducent de marmore vultus;

Orabunt causus melius; caelique meatus

Describent radio, & [...] sidera dicent:

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

(Hae tibi erunt artes) pacisque imponere morem,

Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

These are the words of a Roman poet venerating the power which could subdue a world and the wisdom which could retain it in peaceful obedience. But had no art but legslation been cultivated by Rome she had sought in vain for such poets to exalt her name.

Vix are fortes ante Agamemnona

Multi: sed omnes illacrimabiles

Urgentur ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.

Robbed of her Ivy wreath we should exclaim

"Her form has yet not lost

All her original brightness, nor appears

Less than Arch-Angel ruin'd, and th' excess

Of glory obscured; as when the sun new risen

[Page] Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams."

Graceful in their classic honors which have survived a lapse of time scarcely comprehensible by the mind of man, still do Greece and Rome continue to receive tokens of veneration which are not homage but adoration; and still like sister muses give laws to willing mortals throughout the world of learning.

THUS much it was necessary to urge in favor of the utility even of the graces of literature, to obviate objections which might occur in the perusal of this discourse, or at any other time midst the busy scenes of plain democracy. Let us now resume the question on the propriety of providing incitements to the pursuit of literature in general.

I HAVE spoken above of the necessity of giving personal dignity to literary characters as such, the advantage whereof appeared in a very striking manner in France, before the revolution; where a Voltaire, a Rousseau, a Marmontel, might always assure themselves, though not always of pecuniary advantages, at least of such a portion of consolatary respect in the capacity of literati, as would certainly have been denied to the most opulent obscure ignorant. But I have said that in free governments the leading citizens are usually too much occupied by political engagements to devote much time to the society of the learned; and the distribution of property through all branches of every family leaves no resources for very effectual patronage. Nay even in one of those countries which from the difference of circumstances might be [Page]expected to abound in patrons we have seen the monarch himself enraptured with the productions of a poet written in support of his unstable cause, yet this royal critic while he reveled in the luxuries of a world heightened by the wit of Butler, could view without emotion his neglected Bard, languish without consolation or hope, in want, melancholy and imprisonment. In free states too the opportunities of accumulating wealth and the pageantry of successful men operate with great power in withdrawing the attention of the community from literature and literary men. Besides, let us suppose that intellectual accomplishments shall obtain a measure of respect as ample as is consistent with a state of indigence, yet will property be ever found necessary to the full attainment of their deserts. Though wealth as such may in some cases be estimated at no very high rate by a man of abstract views, yet if he be a man of the world he cannot be insensible of the value of that which is the only mean whereby justice can be exacted in favor of qualities really respectable. Relative advantages only can give effect to the highest of those which are personal. In those simple governments wherein virtue and genius were in themselves competent to the dignity of a citizen, wherein a philosopher could be revered, and a dictator sought for, in a cottage, wealth might have proved but a troublesome superfluity; but the subsequent degeneracy of manners and prevalence of luxury shewed without doubt to every man of talents, even to him who stood first among the orators, and foremost among the statesmen, of Rome, fortified too in philosophy [Page]and public favor, the value of ample possessions: [...] had surely more admirers than the oration for Milo. Horace might properly applaud the Greeks for their contempt of gain;

Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo

Musa loqui, praeter landem nullius avaris;

and such disinterested magnanimity might well be upheld among spirits great enough to accept great faculties as substitutes for wealth, and respect an indigent genius; but the poet himself, blessed as he was with that philosophic acumen which has been the wonder of so many succeeding ages, betrays, in his fond frequent mention of his labine farm, a deep sense of its indispensible necessity; and without that he had probably been without much of his personal dignity though the favorite of an emperor, and the friend of his prime minister. The greater part of those gratifications which sooth self love and glad the heart of man, must come at last, even to the most successful writer, from the private intercourses of society:

"What's fame? A fancy'd life in others breath;

A thing beyond us even before our death.

Just what you hear, you have, and what's unknown

The same (my lord) if Tully's or your own.

All that we feel of it begins and ends

In the small circle of our foes or friends:

To all beside as much an empty shade

An Eugene living as a Caesar dead;

Alike, or when, or where, they shone or shine,

Or on the Rubicon or on the Rhine."

[Page]The effects of jealousy, envy, enmity, and ignorance, upon the reputation of an author are well known and he is often least applauded who deserves best; Amant quos non timent; but let us suppose him fortunate enough to have surmounted every obstacle to celebrity; to have become the theme of every tongue; yet what imports it to him that he is treated like an angel by the public while in private he is scarcely received as a gentleman?

"Raise me this beggar, and denude that lord;

The sen [...]tor shall bear contempt hereditary,

The beggar native honour."

"The learned Pate

Ducks to the golden fool."

Who doubts that Voltaire was indebted to his handsome establishment at Ferney, for much of that personal distinction which he fondly accepted perhaps as a writer? Stript of this advantage would the travelling critic, speaking probably of what he did not understand, have given himself the trouble to pay his compliments to him as "un plus grand monstre?" Had Otway been a man of fortune would he not have been courted to feed on dainties at the tables of the great? But alas! he was poor, therefore for his own could he not obtain a morsel of bread until exhausted by famine he was suffocated in attempting to swallow. Is it not notorious that an author by profession is less respected (with equal or superior abilities) than a man who makes law or physic his occupation? Whence should come this? Why, ‘Poverty is the badge of all the tribe.’ [Page]Nay, does not the player in many instances stand upon higher ground than the writer whose verses he recites? Have we not just seen a noble tragic poet, expiring with hunger, while eminent players were distempered with repletion? Compare the condition of the greatest of dramatic authors with that of the greatest of dramatic actors; compare the conditions of Shakespeare and Garrick. The first was many years engaged as a player in the house for which he wrote; probably with a scanty salary as he acted indifferently; and he retired in declining life, with something which seems to have been thought considerable (perhaps for a poet.) The other was ever amassing treasures from his entrance to his exit, and quitted the stage in splendor. Now, in a comparison of their respective talents, we will do the best for Garrick, and it will be this; like the horses of the sun he breathed from his lips celestial fire, the emanations of the genius of Shakespeare like the sun himself. Not merely are eminent writers overlooked, they are often avoided in the commerce of men: those who are not wealthy themselves shun such characters because they are poor; those who are wealthy shun them because they possess superior faculties, and because they will not lose in their presence any portion of the importance which gold confers. "Dont you see (says a dramatic poet) how worthless great men, and dull rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune? Why he looks like a writ of enquiry into their titles and estates." Nothing is so disgusting to blockheads whether rich or poor, as the honest pride of genius: they can grant no indulgence to [Page]a passion generated by merits which exceed the reach of their comprehension. Men are more ready to love than to admire or respect; because admiration and respect are generally tributes to a superior; yet property is often necessary to the attainment of a companion's love. Every instance of attention from a man of fortune is usually received as a kindness, and affection is the offspring; from all others it is received as a right and forgotten. Thus while the wealthy fool obtains an admirer and friend in every man he meets, the needy wit stands comfortless and alone, because he scorns to bend to the haughty brow of knavery or dulness. To such a man neglect is the mildest destiny, contempt and ridicule the most probable.

WERE the condition of authors who are citizens of a free government to remain unnoticed so far as they themselves may feel, the services they render the state give them the strongest claims to public notice. When statesmen and orators assist in the councils of the nation the public readily furnishes their establishments; yet does the dignity of the office alone requite them, and future honors and rewards still wait them. But writers by whose labors they have been taught to lighten on the cabinet, or thunder in the senate, what has been the recompence of gratitude to them? Want, misery, despair. In literature alone of all the departments of industry does the laborer toil in vain. The citizen whose task has no motive but interest, no end but the accommodation of a few neighbors, is sure of plenty and may hope for opulence: while he who reclaims the wild chaos of prejudice, ignorance and error; [Page]who forms his fair creation, his world of reason, irradiating the face of things; who refines, and sublimates the mind of man; who renders his fellow citizens wiser, better, happier, and opens perpetual sources of good to his country; such a man as this is destined to pine in indigence or may die with famine. The author of the Social Compact, a book which has concurred with other causes in the emancipation of a mighty people, sustained his invaluable life on a pittance earned by copying the notes of musicians who battened on the favor of the public. The Spirit of Laws has been so much dreaded by the enemies of human peace, that the publication thereof has been prohibited in several of the despotisms in Europe; of so much consequence to the world may prove the written wisdom of a single man. Without the declaration of independence the French alliance had not been obtained, and American liberty had perished, and with it the hopes of the surrounding world. This measure has been admitted to have been caused in a great degree by Mr. Paine's pamphlet entitled Common Sense; yet has this industrious and disinterested writer emerged from the personal obscurity to which he was condemned by his fellow citizens into the favor and protection of a foreign nation. The productions of genius even when they prove lucrative do not always enrich the author but frequently either a bookseller, or at some distant period, a commentator. Milton's profits from the noblest poetical production in the English, or perhaps in any other, language, amounted to no more than thirty pounds: the time employed in the composition of [Page]the piece was ten years: three pounds a year then was the compensation of the labours of the greatest poet upon earth, who was believed to have been employed in the service of God and man. Sometime after this a commentary not equal in value to the ten best lines of the work, was sold for several thousand pounds. But, gain who may by literature, (more especially that which is most useful) the public are sure to obtain by far the amplest share either in the form of pleasure or of profit. The profits of the inventors of the mariner's compass and quadrant would not weigh with those of the commercial world so much as a feather with a mountain. Since then the state must ever be the heir of learning it will do wisely to improve its funds. Patents for the construction of useful machines have frequently drawn showers of gold upon their inventors; but the principles upon which they were constructed, whence were these derived? From books written by tattered, houseless, starving servants of mankind. Is it not astonishing that the profession of literature, the only one which ministers directly to the good of the state, should by any good government be suffered to remain without a recompence? The gates of glory admit as readily the votaries of law and physic as the votaries of the muses: but how great the disparity in pecuniary advantages? ‘How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost?’ Said Pope of the eminent lawyer of his hour: these two friends entered the temple of fame together, but under what unequal circumstances of distinction? Lord Mansfield graced with all the pomp of office; Pope accommodated [Page]with the appointments of an ordinary gentleman. Mansfield we [...] suppose was not unacquainted with the versatility of his powers, but seized the road which led to golden greatness. Pope too mixt thrift with his ambition: the profits of a translator he found more necessary to his comfort than the renown of a poet; he therefore devoted to his versions of the Iliad and Odyssey the best years of a valetudinary life, and thereby probably deprived the world of an original epic, which too late he meditated; in lieu of this gift which perhaps would have been above all price, we have received two performances, which to half the learned world is useless, and which, though excellent, are so much below the powers of the author, that the verses of his coadjutor Broome, a writer little known but by those, are not to be distinguished from his own. That the public should suffer in this way, in instances which will much more concern its interest than the finest poem, may very rationally be appl [...]d [...]d. Nor is it more candid to censure a writer who in his choice determines in favor of the gainful walks of learning than a lawyer or physician who quits them all for his more gainful walk. That literature may become an honorable profession like law and physic, and that powerful minds may be engaged in the pursuits of this as of those, it is requisite that, like those, it shall be rendered profitable. By this too would another learned profession be presented to the election of discriminated genius. Let no fears prevail that genius shall assume a mercenary character: when all her efforts shall obtain their recompence [Page]then for the first time will she follow nature as a faithful guide and quit no more the station which becomes her and best fits her for the public service. An attempt to win the honors and emoluments of the bar could not have been culpable in the author of Common S [...]nse and the Rights of Man; yet might he have failed in the attempt, and being diverted from other objects have remained in perpetual obscurity; or, succeeding, he might have been too much occupied to compose the first of those books which was a remote cause of the liberty of one nation; or the second which will prove perhaps the proximate cause of the liberty of another. Until the lucrative departments of business and genius shall have been filled up can it be doubted that the niggard soil of literature shall be left uncultured? While men of distinguished talents are thus profitably employed can any hope survive that they may be removed without a lure? But in a country of such vast extent and with an increasing population who shall declare the time when agriculture, commerce, physic, and law, shall want employment. That such is the extent and such the population of our country is matter for animating reflection, but upon literature must it depend at last whether the character of an immense empire shall be Attick or Boeotian. Nor can any apprehension be reasonably entertained lest the patronage of learning should crowd this department with professors. This patronage may indeed give independence and domestic comforts to genius, but no emoluments [Page]likely to attend it in favor of the best and most successful writer are likely to enrich him like either of the other professions: whatever ministers most immediately to the necessities and interest of men will ever find the surest, most effectual support. In a government like the late French monarchy where lucrative vocations crowned not the ablest or the wealthiest man with honor, while the learned were held in reverence, a genius found some temptation to forego ignoble gain and enter into a state of splendid poverty: but in free states such pursuits enrich, promote, and dignify, the citizen; and he must be an enthusiast indeed who shall be disposed to embrace a science not highly portioned when rich and noble rivals are within his reach. Circumstanced as the profession of literature is at present every "fool to fame" is in eminent danger of disappointed ambition, in neglected, cheerless, hopless, poverty. Had fortune smiled upon the labors and graced the conditions of the authors of Paradise Lost, and Comus, Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth, is it to be imagined that these wonderful poets would have remained for a long time unnoticed by the world, and that such precious performances would have stood in need of the commentaries of Addison, or the representations of Garrick to proclaim their worth? How many men of distinction in the learned and the fashionable world are there to be found who would quit the sumptuous scenes of luxury and pride, to seek the sad retreat wherein a needy unsuccessful humbled party man was consoling himself in the study of poetry? Or the unhonored [Page]green room of a petty theatre?* In poverty there is a spell which blasts a man's condition; the fruits of happyness and the buds of hope: nothing prospers with a poor man. Even praise the cheapest prize of wit, the boon which costs the wealthy bloockhead nothing, shall be withheld from him who wants all other comforts: but deck his state with gold, the best embellishment of nature, then shall the glittering tribe admit his claims and recognize superior worth: a genius then becomes their Mercury, their magnus Apollo; and, like Aeneas, only with a golden bough can he enter the elysium of their favor. Having obtained this advantage he stands upon high ground whence to repel the shocks of envy, jealousy and dulness, in literary warfare; and when he shall have subdued their power they will but swell his triumph like captives at a victor's car. From this high ground too will a wise man be better heard when in some momentous hour the exigencies of the state call for counsel from the wise. In the private intercouse of men, and sometimes too in deliberative assemblies, we find, that, of two men who possess equally the gifts of nature, he is most successful in commanding attention who has the advantage in the gifts of fortune. Thus shall the same means which encourage the efforts of genius give them proportionate operation. By this kindly influence obtained such a man might often have it in his power to quell the rage and obviate the mischiefs of party; [Page]

— Magno in populo cum saepe coorta est

Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile vulgus;

Jamque faces et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat:

Tum pietate gravem ac meritis fi forte virum quem

Conspexêre, silent, arrectisque auribus astant:

Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet.

By cool dispassionate reasonings upon important points, such writers might often help to prepare the public mind for a final discussion and decision; allaying by such means much of that disputatious animosity which first invades the peace of social life, and, after, impedes most perilously the advancement of public business. The power of virtuous wisdom in filling a state with felicity has never yet been completely displayed: and in free unanimous governments no dangers are to be apprehended from the productions of flagitious genius; for where men are accustomed to think for themselves it is as difficult to persuade them from their true interests as it is to persuade them thereto where others have been allowed to think for them: and this difficulty grows with the growth of disseminated wisdom. Men of experience and observation will recollect instances of useful projects, which have been slighted by the public because the authors were obscure; and very just complaints of this sore evil are to be found in the performances of very able writers. We know too that some eminent geniuses have been led into the service of the public by circumstances purely accidental; and so very little encouraged are good writers in comparison with other men of superior minds that it may well seem to be an accident when [Page]any man takes upon him their unprofitable thankless employment. But what has hitherto been the effect of chance may by suitable incitements be made to proceed in future from design; and the danger of being deprived of the contributions of the learned be proportionately diminished. The American revolution was an accident by which the necessity of the time drew forth into the service of mankind powers which had otherwise remained unknown not only to the world, but to the generals and statesmen who possessed them: but steady encouragement to literary exertions would reveal exalted characters as much superior in number to those which have been found without, as the extent of politics and war is exceeded by the ample round of science. We shall not then see other Chattertons bursting their hearts with disappointment, nor other Otways expiring with hunger in a garret while a frivolous ungrateful multitude dissolve in idle tears because Mominia weeps.

As the public do in no other instance expect the services of a man of genius without a compensation, so likewise must it be concluded that in the instance of an eminent writer they will not often be so cheaply obtained. But this will happen not only as a natural consequence of discouragement, but as a consequence in many cases inevitable and utterly beyond the control of the writer himself. Without a competency at least it is impossible for a liberal man to possess that peace of mind and consequent health, that integrity of the whole system, so necessary [Page]to the full accomplishment of literary designs. Every man is conscious in his own case and a multitude of others, that the powers of the mind sink under the pressure of afflictive passions or corporal sufferance. Debility is but premature old age, and the alterations in the faculties induced by the influence of time are too well known. The astonishing intellect of Newton became so enfeebled in the decline of life, that he was unable simply to comprehend the mysteries of nature which in the vigour of his reason he had revealed: that luminary which had beamed upon the world effulgence which none but eagle's eyes could bear, lost the mild lustre of the setting sun. Such consequences of ruffled spirits or debility should not surprise us, since when these causes act with uncommon violence madness itself ensues. We find too that the activity of the soul even in youth and habitual health is often materially impaired by causes which but slightly disturb the body, such as a late instance of ebriety, a hearty meal, fatigue, or exhausted passion. Nay it is not uncommon for persons who feel not even a transient ailment to demand the aids of some external agent. Some minds obtain their utmost power, others are bereft of it, by the application of a stimulus. Horace has said

Quid non ebrietas designat? operta recludit;

Spes jubet esse ratas; in praelia trudit inermem;

Sollicitis animis onus eximit; addocet artes.

Foecundi calices quem non fecere disertum?

Again,

Prisco si credis, Maecenas docte, Cratino,

[Page] Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt,

Quae scribuntur aquae poloribus. Ut male sanos

Adscripsit Liber satyris Faunisque poëtas,

Vina fere dulces oluerunt mane Camenae.

Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus:

Ennius ipse pater nunquam nisi potus ad arma

Prosiluit dicenda.

Churchill who discovered satiric talents worthy of the most sedulous improvement, is said to have been armed by Bacchus when he assaulted the profligate velut ense stricto. There is a thing printed as a journal of Ben Jonson (perhaps indeed as a piece of raillery by a cotemporary wit) in which he ascribes to certain presents of wine, which he had occasionally received, the success of several of his best performances. Aeschylus too never applyed himself to dramatic composition without the aid of wine; and wine when unfriendly to present pi [...]i [...]ity and correctness, will doubtless often prompt the invention and furnish materials to be worked up in future. The strongest and boldest conceptions of most men perhaps have been the suggestions of a powerful stimulus, which could augment the tone of the system to the extreme and exalt the man above his natural character. Of Dryden it is recorded, that he employed the assistance of medicine in fitting him for his literary labors. If then the mental energy admit not of the slightest impediments, and, where even these are not, it be found expedient to raise it by promoting a rapid circulation of the blood and brisker flow of spirits, who shall not foresee that a dejected pining child of poverty, tottering under [Page]his load of grief, must find it almost an hopeless task to attempt the heights of literature? Beautiful as are the writings of Pope, sublime as are those of Milton, and though to improve The Rape of the Lock, or the prime beauties of Paradise Lost, would be to polish the smoothness of ice, and to brighten the splendor of the sun, yet who shall set bounds to their probable achievements had not the distempers of frail mortality so lamentably encumbered the divinae particulam aurae. Even to the poets, whose effusions should flow spontaneous as from a priestess on the sacred tripod, and demand not the steady intense attention of philosophic studies, retirement, for the peace it gives, has ever been most precious: but can any thing be more distant from peace than the condition of a man of a liberal mind who hourly finds himself in want of the decent ordinary comforts and conveniencies of life? His retirement indeed is likely from the temper of the fashionable world to be very complete if he can enjoy or employ it. Every man who knows the value of learning must respect the learned and will feel a blush of indignation on his cheek when he remembers that they are often thus miserably degraded: different men will feel for them on different accounts, as opinion and sympathy may prompt; but all I hope will feel for them as fellow citizens and servants of the public. Let it be kept in mind for our own sakes that the notions of a man distracted by cares which perpetually interrupt his speculations, or even by business which he must attend to or starve, must necessarily come forth often in an imperfect [Page]misshappen form; a sorm little qualified to give them efficiency in the general cause. Truth demands full complete examination: upon a single step in an investigation may depend the success of the whole process including moral, political, or philosophical, principles, important in the last degree to the precious felicity of man. In the rays of unclouded genius the minutest particles of error are discoverable like motes, in a sunbeam. But a man who writes under the spur of the occasion, whether goaded on by indigence or the dread of interruption, will surely communicate to his performance the disadvantages he feels and they will appear in defective materials, perplexed arrangement, or impure diction. To the eternal regret of literary men immaturity in the works of poets shew the indispensible necessity of competence and ease even to the accomplishment of their lighter labors. One of the few perfect pieces of Dryden and that by which we form the best estimate of his capacity, is the ode for St. Coecilia's day; and this was the only one, or with a few exceptions, upon which his wants allowed him to bestow the requisite attention. The Aeneid, one of the few eminent poetic productions of length, was the fruit of seven years culture under the beams of royal munificence. The enormities of the greatest dramatic genius of the world, whether suffered to remain through the hurry of indigence or introduced to gratify a barbarous taste in the public, abundantly prove the propriety of placing genius, more especially that which conduces most essentially to the common weal, above all vile control. [Page]A mind perpetually liable to be called off from the contemplation of its object even by things indifferent, and much more by such as wring the heart, does not find it practicable to resume at will the attention and the intuition which have been lost. This I believe is a truth of familiar notoriety to those gentlemen who in the senatorial or forensic character are most engaged in the discussion of abstruse points. Instances are known wherein this principle has been adopted, and pursued indeed too far, even to the ruin of the student's health and peril of his life. (h) If then peace and leisure be so indispensible to the literary man, and if it be in the power, and evidently concern the interests, of his country, to grant so small a boon without which too perhaps not even the bay shall grace his brow, or wither there; if trifles light as air can be made at once the price of weighty benefits and the tribute of gratitude, who shall hesitate to do so profitable a duty? What those benefits will be shall be made known in a year, a lustrum, or an age, as circumstances may demand and must determine; and when those benefits will end, the consummation of all things beneath the moon alone can shew. The wisdom of the Spirit of laws and similar performances began to bless mankind when first they made them think of liberty; the beneficent influence grew great when America resolved to hold the rights of men; it grew greater still when it gave the Frenchman Samson's strength to burst his bonds. But who shall bound the sphere of genius or count the ages or the myriads which shall feel its power? [Page]Learning is food to the mind which receives it, and like grain is good in the first instance; but when the one is imparted and the other planted in the earth, they rise in value till their increase is inestimable. Like the Sybils leaves genius can reveal the fate of man; it can do more, it can direct it: it is the richest gift of the Divinity, and worthily employed will perpetually advance the human race in nearer approaches to the goodness and felicity of their Great Creator. Shall any man who knows their value, hesitate to raise to the highest the transcendent faculties of mind? Shall laws be made and taxes levied that roads and rivers may be improved, and shall the mind alone, whence all improvements come, remain neglected? From the press as from a sun are beamed those rays of light which guide the erring traveller; those rays of heat which rear the tender germes of reason and virtue in the soul. From the press as from a fountain flow salubrious streams which purge the sick weal from vice and error; or poisoned draughts to intoxicate the brain and sink the heart, causing the madness without the joys of wine.

How great those labors were which unrewarded have occasionally ennobled and felicitated the human character no man but moderately acquainted with literature need now be told: and of all these labors much the worst are those which most immediately lead to useful objects, as in the instances of political and philosophical dissertations, history, mathematics, and some others. How difficult [Page]is his task who forms, examines, and corrects to his approbation the various disjointed parts of some great work, preparing and fitting them to unite in one admirable whole. When this has been effected, it remains for him to form these members into one harmonious body; this multitude of things must stand in lucid order; the rays of wisdom's light are to be separated as by a prism and none to meet together but such as are homegeneous. Much genius is necessary to invent; much labor to fashion, divide, and connect at will the particles of a grand compages. Parvis componere magna, nothing but Omnipotence could bid the elements to be, amidst the boundless void; and powers second only to Omnipotence could create a world.

Ordinis haec virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor,

Ut jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici

Pleraque differat, et presens in tempus omittat. (i)

Lord Shastesbury censures an author who shall be induced by any consideration or under any plea of necessity to write below his powers; and following this rule of Horace, pronounces every performance faulty wherein any thought is to be found which might have been placed with propriety in any other part thereof. Such doctrines fit very well the condition of a writer who, like himself, is a favorite of fortune; who need only to declare his wants and they are supplied; to whom writing is an occupation which he can take up or lay down at pleasure; who can wait the happy hour of composition, the tranquil mind, the matured judgment, the brightened fancy; [Page]and he, deeply sensible of the value of genius, might have embraced with ardor and promoted with assiduity any practicable plan for the relief and encouragement of the Muses train; but is it possible that those illustrious sufferers should restrain their indignation when a selfish coxcomb, with a full purse and empty [...]ead, who remembers just enough of the Latin which was whipt into him at school to quote a few rules for the accomplishment of what is infinitely above himself, shall coolly tell a starving writer,

— Ego nec studium sine divite vena

Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium: alterius sic

Altera poscit opem res et conjurat amice:

He will then add perhaps that it is his business—

— Et jucunda & idonea dicere vitae;

And all must be entirely exquisite, for

— Mediocribus esse poëtis

Non homines, non dii, non concessere columnae: And yet this unfortunate man knows that the hopeful critic after being thus ready, as the dramatic wit expresses it, "always to assist him with his advice," would think it hard it should be expected of him in return for the pleasure and profit which, though he affects them, are enjoyed by the public, to give up the smallest portion of what he wants not, to enable a man who is in the people's service to execute his business in a masterly, effectual, and as far as the case will admit of it, in an easy and expeditious manner. No; much rather would such a wealthy blockhead whose property depends upon the influences [Page]of genius for its value, nay rather would many others not furnished with the apology of dulness and ignorance, bury their treasure in the ocean, than employ it in assisting to raise to the dignity of independence and a level with themselves, the best and brightest votary of science. Genius only can respect genius as it deserves; Folly ‘But wonders with a foolish face of praise.’ Yet do we find the honors and emoluments which befit it withheld even by congenial spirits: and when they are bestowed, whether by a wit or a dunce, a Frederick or a Lewis XIV. they are bestowed not as the laurel wreath which crowns Apollo's choir, but as the wretched alms which requites the mendicant musician. Those who know how little friendship subsists even among professed friends, and that a good horse usually renders his master more substantial service than any friend he has, will not wonder that a friendless man of literature should not meet with much support from strangers. How very small a part of every man's income is spared from his pleasures and employed for literary purposes, for his own improvement, or the advancement of such as might be induced to delight or instruct mankind? Nay in new countries such advantages in the improvement of estates are to be made by the use of money that few men indulge themselves even in expensive pleasures much as they are preferred to the comfort of learned men and interests of learning: avarice in such countries is as pernicious to science as in others luxury and voluptuousness. [Page]For such persons as I have spoken of do fine writers exhaust their health, spirits, time, and patience; and neglecting in the service of their fellow-citizens the means of [...]masing treasure, they are despised for their poverty. In many cases too the poverty of the author is commensurate to the difficulty and excellence of the production. We have seen above that Pope obtained profits from his translations much superior to those which his beautiful original pieces could yield: and that Paradise Lost did not procure its author a sum sufficient to maintain him for a single year. The care with which these poets prepared their best pieces for the press is well known from expunctions and interlineations in their manuscripts: Pope in particular did never but in one or two instances send a poem into the world which had not remained a very long time in his hands. The Georgicks upon which Virgil meant to build his fame is known, short as it is, to have been the fruit of seven years labor. Yet how much more dignity is there in a small consummate [...] work than in folios which an ordinary man can scribble? As much more as in the famous statue of Alexander compared with a clumsy Colossus. Yet does even voluminous dulness in the present state of literature, often enrich the author more than the most useful or delightful lesser work.

LITTLE need the pains of penury to be added to the numerous evils which beset the learned. Great without doubt in many instances are the delights of literature [Page]when they are found, where only they need be fought, in peaceful plenty: yet are there pains as well as pleasures peculiar to genius, which often break its rest so much that the reader of a noble performance is often much more to be envied than the author. Men of distinguished faculties are usually agitated by more eager ardent passions than ordinary men, and "keen edged swords will cut their scabbards." Those who have most wants will surely in this world of grief feel most the pangs of disappointment. Besides, the very exercise of fine talents will often weary them and disorder the body in which they act: to those who embrace literature as an amusement it is a preserver of health as a check to the mischiefs of debauchery; but intemperate study brought on by the ardor of pursuit impairs the constitution; and there is always danger lest the fire of genius should consume in its own blaze. Even from the restless temperament of a vigorous mind constantly solicited by multiplying objects may a disposition to the profession of literature be in itself a calamity: and if, where the powers exist the disposition to learned labors is not also present, and nothing but a sense of duty urges upon a sea of troubles, the predicament becomes still more pitiable. How great too is the solicitude of a writer who dreads to miss his end yet feels at every step the peril of deviation. Hear the language of a man who was at once philosopher, poet, wit, and critic yet was never safe from error:

Decipimur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro,

Obscurus sio: sectantem laevia, nervi

[Page] Deficiunt animique; professus grandia turget:

Serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellae.

Qui variare cupit rem prodigaliter unam,

Delphinum silvis appingit, fluctibus aprum.

In vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte.

But suppose the work is finished, a work to wonder at, yet what work of man so perfect that envy shall not detect some faults, magnify those, and pretend others? Even dulness is often pardoned or applauded rather than distinguished excellence: and the following are the words of the accomplished genius above spoken of.

Romulus et liber pater, et cum castore pollux,

Post ingentia facta, deorum in templa recepti,

Dum terras hominum (que) colunt genus, aspera bella.

Componunt, agros assignant, oppida condunt;

Plorabêre suis non respondere favorem

Speratum meritis. Diram qui contudit hydram

Notaque futali portenta labore subegit,

Comperit invidiam supremo fine domari.

Urit enim fulgore suo, qui p [...]egravat artes

Intra se positas: extinctus amabitur idem.

So true is it that men are not content with starving genius but strive first to degrade and drive it to despair: and though both these propensities display in odious colors selfishness, ingratitude or dullness wherever they appear, yet has the world seldom afforded an instance wherein one or both of them might not commonly be observed. Can any thing be better fitted to wound the feelings and depress the ardor of a real genius than the frivolous, [Page]affected, and malevolent, remarks of such a writer as Warburton? a fastidious critic without taste; a character as insufferable as a proud man without integrity. The want of judgment in particular departments of literature which is observable in some men of fine talents and perfect candor acts as another check to literary attempts; and the erroneous censures of such men misguide the multitude and mar the writer's hopes more effectually than the most studied devices of dulness or malevolence. The mind of Locke, exalted as it was, was nevertheless not above the admiration of the poems of Blackmore, and might therefore not improbably have been without the discriminating sense of Pope's or Milton's beauties. On the other part, men of the brightest fancies are sometimes unpossessed of that portion of the faculty of judgment which qualifies to decide upon the merits of a philosophic dissertation. Dr. Johnson, though in many instances a discerning critic, says of certain pastorals, "it is sufficient blame to mention that they are pastorals," yet would those of Virgil, though he had written nothing else, have brought down his name with honor to our time; and Pope's, though he has borrowed freely from the other, would have convinced us he was capable of the graces of the Rape of the Lock, though he had never written it. But men of the best taste and genius do not always judge accurately even in their own departments, as they do not deny. A good critic in flowing spirits may easily disregard the tender meltings of an elegy; and another overwhelmed with grief is [Page]blind to all the charms of wit. Men of melancholy or saturnine constitutions should be careful how they pronounce upon the quality of a gay production, unless festivity or some other occasional cause shall have made a temporary alteration in their characters; otherwise they will want the entertainment which such pieces are intended to afford, and the ill-fated author may have reason to rue their unseasonable gravity. Falstaff says of Prince John, "Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me: nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine." If from various causes genius err thus in its decrees, what shall be expected from folly? and how intolerable must it be to a fine writer to see blockheads prefered to himself, or, if he be a generous man, to behold the neglect of great talents in another. All these intended woundings of the critic scourge whether inflicted by virtue or vice, sense or nonsense, are felt too at a time when it is become extremely difficult to employ with success after so many others, old modes of writing, or, after so many others, to invent new.

BUT though the labors of accomplished writing are very great and the success extremely uncertain, yet let us suppose what will never happen, that literature shall be fashionable without being made respectable, secondly that the public shall be content to feed to satiety every eminent writer with the only food he can ever obtain from them in their individual capacity, I mean with [Page]praise. As a distinguished wit has said of some of the critics above spoken of,

"Rules for good writing they with care indite

And shew us what is bad by what they write."

So a very fine poet has given this precept—

"Let such teach others who themselves excel,

And censure freely who have written well."

It is easy for a good writer to adopt this rule in his practices to other men as directed; but there are also those whose candor and accuracy of taste are such that they do not hesitate to adopt spontaneously such rigid discipline in the correction of their own performances: wanting other censure the finest writers, being themselves most sensible of the difficulty of their task, have often risen above the little weaknesses of vanity and passed, like Brutus, a rigid sentence upon their offspring; ever finding them below some fancied model of perfection. Good writers like good moralists, are ever more indulgent to the errors of others than their own. Pope speaking of some of the ancients, says,

"The gen'rous critic fann'd the poet's fire

And taught the world with reason to admire."

And can we ever sufficiently applaud the sublime friendship of Virgil which could with-hold him from becoming the rival of Horace in the province of lyric poetry, or the unequalled candor and exquisite refinement of taste which could lead him to discover in a poem of his own, one of the most noble and perfect in the world, faults which could induce a resolution to consign it to that [Page]oblivion which seventeen ages which have succeeded and all which shall succeed those, would not perpetually have regretted only because they would have been insensible of the value of the treasure which had been lost. Nay such is the perverse fate of fine writers that they have not only the task of producing a work which shall be deemed admirable as a whole, but they are often driven to the hazardous necessity of weakening particular parts to give additional force and effect to the rest, as musicians introduce forced modulations and discords to raise the character of the melody and harmony which are to succeed. To this practice perhaps may be referred many inequalities in Paradise Lost; and perhaps Homer was unjustly censured when it was said of him, ‘Indignor quando (que) bonus dormitat Homerus:’ Pope perhaps was of this opinion when he said ‘It is not Homer nods but we that dream.’

LET us now proceed to take notice of some further reasons why a suitable encouragement only can render completely efficient to the public service the talents of the citizens even when they shall have been cultured in those numerous seminaries of learning which have with so much propriety been established throughout this country, and daily are increasing; and to observe that it matters little to the community how much any man may excel his fellows in wisdom and learning while he wants opportunity, or, which in many cases is the same thing, encouragement, to make them known. We will suppose [Page]in the first instance that in addition to wisdom and learning a man shall possess as much activity of character as disposes and qualities him for scenes of public business: but we may suppose as easily that such a man by peculiar circumstances in his case shall be buried in obscurity: he may be either the neglected offspring of an unfortunate gentleman, or the hope of a virtuous sensible parent whose house fortune never yet has smiled upon,

Sed fulgente trahit constrictos gloria curru

Non minus ignoros generosis.

Here then is a luminary hidden in a cloud; and who shall bring forth its splendors? Great talents are not within the sphere of common comprehension; and patronage in such a case would probably be indispensible; (in a free country ought this to be so?) That in this state of concealment a genius should be discovered, is at least a matter of uncertainty. But though he be discovered and recommended many new obstacles may rise up to impede the advancement of the highest merit; the distance of the object; the reserve of his character so natural to those who have been bred in retirement; the absence of colloquial advantages, or others of a more superficial kind so seldom to be found in secluded students who neglect the graces in their devotion to the muses; nay even the noble pride of honor which scorns a base submission, even this which ought to raise his powers to their lofty sphere, shall sink him down perhaps to dark oblivion, ‘Where hope comes not that comes to all.’ Since then no one will speak for this unfortunate man, [Page]let him at least speak for himself in his writings; Priestly and Paine, much to their honor, but probably little to their profit or they are rare instances, have done so, and have consequently been called even from their own countries to legislate for France. But it may also happen that a very valuable man in the situation above mentioned may be of a character merely speculative and without any portion of that alacrity of spirit which with his other qualifications would fit him to serve his country in a public capacity. The diversity of dispositions and of great talents is a matter of familiar notoriety. One man may feel a propensity to general speculation, and, incapable of con [...]inement to one pursuit, may tread the paths of literature deviously yet usefully. Another may be incapacitated for every other study by an [...] predilection whereby his mind is immovably rivetted to its favorite object; and from the defect of versatility does sometimes arise that consummate excellence in art which so much advances the interest of literature. Newton and Pope, were both absorpt in their different meditations; and the one would probably have been an inferior mathematician, the other an inferior poet, had each received double natural gifts and divided his efforts: not that a competency of general [...]arning is a bar, but rather, as in fine writing more especially, a furtherance to particular excellence: Milton was an universal s [...]o [...]. Another may be furnished with the soundest judgment yet so much want of celerity in decision that a rapid [...] claimer, incomparably his inferior, may throw out errors [Page]which the other shall be unabled instantly to expot [...], or perhaps even to comprehend. Another shall possess the advantages of judgment and decision, yet be without both memory and eloquence to enter with effect into the business of a legislature. Hogarth, the ingenius moral painter, was so deficient in the faculty of memory that he was unable to retain thereby an ordinary sonnet; and Magliabechi, a man of ordinary intellects could read a book throughout and recite the contents. Mr. Locke was a great philosopher and in theory a politician; yet did he make no distinguished figure when placed at the English board of trade. Addison after surprising and delighting the world for a time in the Spectator, sunk into obscurity as a member of the house of commons and secretary of state. One man shall speak well in private conversation, another in public deliberations, a third shall excel as a writer; yet neither of these shall possess the faculty of the other. Our literary character has not perhaps the gift of colloquial eloquence, nor, if he had, has he the companions to whom to make them known; neither has he the powers which command a listening senate, nor if he had would you send him thither; the talents of an author indeed are his, and he may write and starve: yet this man though not qualified himself for public transactions, is enabled by the unremitted studies of a private life, and willing with reasonable encouragement to furnish those who may be preparing themselves for office, with invaluable materials for their business. The benefits which have been derived by the French [Page]republic from the secluded labors of the author of the Social Compact, are best made known by the gratitude of the nation which has given him an illustrious station in its temple of worthies. Besides, the departments of our government are not so extensive as to give employment to all those men of talents and learning which nature, increasing population, and universal education, seem to promise to America. In the general council of the states, where only great designs for the public good at present originate, only two members from each occupy one branch of legislation, and only one member as a representative of thirty thousand citizens, the other: there are beside only four great officers; what then is to be done with your supernumerary servants? Let them be induced to become your Rousseau's, your Smith's, your Montesquieu's. (j)

THE perfect equality maintained throughout America in elections for public posts, is an advantage which aided by literary institutions cannot fail to raise her political character to an exceeding height of excellence. The struggle for the highest offices, and the preparatory studies, are well calculated to form even in unsuccessful candidates a very large and respectable body of legislative men for departments important though of inferior eminence. Even before the revolution, the infant colonies excited the wonder of the parent state.* This was owing [Page]to the superiority in representation and consequently in government enjoyed even at that time. Who shall estimate the greatness of those designs which shall be formed by a selection from a nation composed of nations, those countless myriads which will overspread luxuriant wastes of an enormous empire composed of empires? From the union of virtue, wisdom, learning, and eloquence, in this venerable band, employed against vice and folly which are usually powerless or [...], what atchievements shall be found too great? (k) Virtue I mention not only as it leads to worthy actions but as it inspires the most elevated species of eloquence. Cicero has made virtue an essential qualification of an orator; and it is certain that the most interesting themes of declamation and those which are fitted to kindle the enthusiasm of consummate art, have a near affinity with virtue and the happiness of men. In the instance mentioned on a former occasion it was the purpose of Demosthenes to rouse the Athenians to a proper sense of the dangers which threatened their country when public shews and other means of dissipation had enervated and vitiated their characters; but how could this be effected by any but a man who was himself free from this general corruption? Without the feelings of a patriot, without his griefs, his fears, his indignation, his magnanimity, how might he hope to animate, to sublimate, his discourse, till it should touch a palsied heart? how but in conscious purity and dignity could he presume to hold the mirror up to vice, or hope to lure her from her joys? To such a [Page]man as this must a government like our own present the most interesting and endearing objects that can employ the contemplation and the wit of man. In any state which has parted with its freedom if a combination of circumstances shall at any time have exalted rhetoric and given it a manly spirit, very soon will luxury, prodigality, avarice, and political profligacy, emasculate its powers: affectation and theatric rant will be substituted for feeling, meretricious ornaments and false refinement for strong sense and simple sublimity. Or those in whom the nerve, the hardihood, of virtue and genius are not yet extinct, shall fly from the unhallowed haunts of men in mute despair. Compare the powerful effusions of Mr. Burke in the proud day of his integrity with the imbecility of his later efforts, sunk and degraded as he is in his apostacy from the faith of liberty! The first are as the lofty strains of Tully the saviour of his country, the terror of evil-doers, of traitors, and usurpers, in the commonwealth of Rome; the last but the soft warblings of the mutilated sons of Italy in her degenerate days. Long did this unhappy man resist the ill [...] influence of courts; but he yielded at length to the pernicious contagion; his head and heart became sophisticate, and he assumed the general disposition in bad governments to supp [...] [...]he [...]reat and overlook or crush the helpless; he turned to folly and became a slave. His declamation has now the lustre without the sublimity of a vulcano, it is splendid but not powerful, a meteor and not a sun. He has the singular mortification to find [Page]that he is bec [...]me too vicious to endeavor good, too feeble to accomplish evil; and discovers the black malignity without the potency of demons. He has blasted the brighter glories of his life and the venerable graces of declining age; he has associated himself with a party the most base, cruel, and abandoned, that ever existed in any nation or generation of human kind; an unnatural confederacy against virtue, against wisdom, against liberty, and the reviving happiness of man. Such are the evil consequences of evil governments, and the appointment of flagitious rulers. In a state where every power of the mind and body, every doctrine, every establishment, every hope and every fear, are employed to mislead and degrade the people a hero's firmness must uphold a man in the dignity of human nature; but under an establishment wherein freedom, education, literature, and eloquence, concur to strengthen and support, he must indeed be meaner than the meanest slave who gives his mind to weakness and his heart to sin. Happy Americans who while all other nations through the vast expanse of nature bow down in sorrow to a tyrant or brave his uplifted sword to break his rod, have gained already blessings above all price, and may still hope for others through every stage of time, wisdom, and experience. If when auspicious ages fun their round, your liberty, your felicity, must be no more, our eyes reach not the distant dreary prospect, or are dazzled by the blaze of intervening glories. But the advantages in possession, or in expectation, can be secured so well by nothing as [Page]by the aids of literature. The progress of America in arts may be made rapid even to our wishes. The intellectual powers of other nations have usually expanded slowly under the imbecility induced by oppression: cherished as she is by freedom America may be made to step from childhood to maturity; she is a lusty infant and has already strangled a serpent in the cradle. England has already borrowed a political writer from this country, whose advice if prudently adopted will cover her with blessings which she never yet has known.

THE full license which the form of our government allows for investigation is at present the only incitement to literary industry; but were suitable encouragement super-added thereto an extreme eagerness peculiar to a good cause and very favorable to its success, would quickly animate the powers of the learned; and the emoluments they might receive from any institutions in their favor would be repaid an hundred fold by their services. The condition in which America does now, and for sometime to come, will stand, both as a tree, and a new, country, demands in a very particular manner the united efforts of all vigorous minds whereby she may be enabled to apply, improve, and obtain, advantages: and, whether through the form of the government, or the genius of the people, a disposition to useful speculation is more frequent here than any other literary propensity, and might be rendered infinitely beneficial. In all the states of Europe, France excepted, few men can [Page]enjoy the luxury of writing a disquisition with any hope of its being acted upon; a wise and virtuous man attempting to do good in a bad government rolls the stone of Sisyphus, or labors like Enceladus with a mountain on his breast. The masculine, original, and candid manner of thinking, in matters which regard the happiness of human kind, and which the new and interesting state of things in America has generated, is almost unknown in old establishments long accustomed and reconciled to abuses. In such situations the mind is circumscribed and it is as much impossible to range at large the paths of truth as to travel in the walls of a prison. It is no wonder then that under these circumstances literature has usually been confined to subjects of mere theory or curiosity, to the neglect of the most useful practical speculations. In America we do not amuse ourselves with striving to prove what we all know very well without it, the existence of matter or time, or disputing about what it is of no consequence to determine, whether matter be infinitely devisible, or whether a simple unit in matter occupies no space at all. It is of much greater importance to us to know and upon all occasions to bear in mind such things as these (which seem but very lately to have attracted the notice of European nations) that man is composed of certain parts, be they what they may whether either of them be admitted to be material or not, one of which cannot be lacerated by the bayonet or the rack of a tyrant without suffering much pain; that the other part which is called spirit or mind, cannot be insulted [Page]or unlawfully restrained without anguish of another kind: and that both the matter and the spirit being thrown together into a dungeon, allied as they are in one system, will both grieve miserably together; and this distress will be afflicting in proportion to the number of weeks, months or years they may be confined, whether weeks, months & years be parts of time or not. So much has the human mind been hitherto deprived by tyrants of exercise and food that its bulk and strength are probably yet but infantine. If France and England have done so much under the controling hand of oppression, what may not be expected from the powers of intellect acting as they do in America without check or hindrance, if to the most perfect freedom and a sense of duty be added the motives which spring from interest and convenience? Even in England, the easiest of enslaved states, discussion is declared to be mischievous; and those who starve while they labor to pamper their oppressors under an old establishment, are taught to believe that innovation is an evil. Chivalry is exalted above patriotism, and the best chivalry, not that which is employed against a giant or enchanter in favor of an individual, but against a despot for the relief of a wretched degraded nation, [...]he chivalry of Nassau and Washington is branded with terms of infamy and reproach. What then of improvement is to be expected in a country wherein the people are instructed to think no more? Wherein this doctrine is applauded by the seminaries of learning, the reputed sources of the wisdom and religion of the nation, while royal [Page]fulminations come in aid to drive them from their wits? Accordingly the British nation has hitherto made very little use of political wisdom. Their applauded constitution is but a fortuitous combination of parts assembled together by the interest of parties; as, when the commons by an intrigue were introduced into parliament as a check upon another branch of the legistature; and when the barons, with the assistance of the neglected ecclesiastics, obtaind from king John several concessions in favor of themselves and the people. What had originated in a party was ever conducted in conformity to the views thereof as such, whether of York or Lancaster, [...] or presbyterian, whig or tory: in all these transactions not only the prosperity of the people at large, but even of those of the prevailing party, has been postponed to the favorite object of a king or leader: these ill-fated men have ever been neglected by haughty despots, or misled by hot brained zealots, or insidious demagogues. What else than this do we discover in their history, whether amidst the din of arms, the clamors of the senate, the cry of patriotism, or the cant of superstition?

Stultorum regum et populorum continet aestus,

Quicquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi.

Too long has genius been employed to hood-wink the eyes of reason: let her be withdrawn at length from the unhallowed work of "secret, dark, and mid-night hags," and bid to pour upon the sight unclouded day. Only in [Page]such a government as this can a wise and good man expect success in an attempt to convince a whole people of their real advantage. Where interests are divided, and parties, whether royal, aristocratic, democratic, or eccles [...]stical, are created by the character of the establishment, suspicion in some or all of these suspend the judgment: and when the people know not where to seek for true felicity they take comfort in indulging the servile or pernicious passions of a f [...]ction. Besides, a cool and candid philosopher, untainted with the virulence of contest, indulgent to weakness, ignorance, or inveterate habits, addresses the misguided multitude with far better hopes than the furious enthusiast who, by arrogance, and contempt, so often provokes the indignation, and rivets the opinion; of his opponent. The loss which a free country sustains in valuable speculation [...], by the neglect of the learned, must necessarily be supposed to be very great from the opportunity afforded therein of just reflection; and probably in all countries a greater portion of wisdom has perished in contemplation and fugitive discourse, than has ever yet been treasured up in books. If the service and instruction of a free nation were worthily requited, the improvement would be without example. Common sense, the faculty by which truth is distinctly discerned through the veil of which custom, prejudice, laws, constitutions, or lawless power, had drawn over it, has at length regained a portion of long lost dominion over the minds of men. By this faculty could Paine bind one nation in an unanimous resolution to resist the encroachments [Page]of a tyrant; by this has another been roused like a sleeping lion to burst its bonds, and by this perhaps shall the whole world at last sing Io Poeans to the sun when he shall rise to fructify the soil which they possess in freedom. When useful writers are drawn out in succession each in his turn gives double power to him who goes before, and him who follows after; and they form together an impenetrable, resistless, phalanx to brave the assault of insolence, ambition and wickedness, and to bear down the firmest champions of prejudice and error. Minds which may be easily disposed to such objects as are most immediately conducive to the great end of human felicity, are perhaps, as has been hinted above, more frequent in America than in all Europe taken together before the French revolution. How delightful is it to contemplate in the character of Dr. Franklin, that simple and sublime wisdom and benevolence which could descend to the humble employment of preparing rules for the accommodation of such of his fellow-creatures as might be exposed to the inconveniences of a tedious voyage; or on shore might be disposed to amuse themselves with a pack of cards; and afterwards could rise to the momentous business of founding a mighty empire, or disarming the lightning of its terrors! The restless gloom of an idle Englishman, and the ennui which the most animated nation of the world could once feel in its low estate, may be utterly extermined from a scene wherein objects perpetually present themselves which interest the mind through the medium of delightful passions, admiration, [Page]joy, emulation and benevolence. Even now, frivolity is scarcely known, except in the characters of a few giddy boys whose birth sets them above labor, and whose talents do not raise them to any respectable occupation; who are too young or too ignorant to be right, and too old to be whipt for being wrong. When dissipation shall have become more fashionable than at present throughout these states encouragement will become more indispensible to literary efforts and they will be less efficient: in the interim it would check dissipation in its progress. Industry in literature might be made the means of benefits which no sagacity or foresight can anticipate. The habits of industry induced in the study and practice of the learned professions do usually, notwithstanding the necessary avocations, advance the character in the various walks of science much more than that of a private man of education. Extensive cities which co-operate with other causes in distracting and enervating the mind and withdrawing it from literary pursuits, are not yet to be found among us; but even this circumstance, while the public neglects literature, will operate against it also. In the social intercourse which subsists in such places only, the learned may accidentally obtain that personal deference which may help to console them under pecuniary disadvantages: there too might connexions with men of influence accidentally be formed which only could be expected to push their fortunes. There are men of parts who unrewarded would as soon undertake to compose an [Page]elaborate work on Cruso [...]'s island as in the recesses of America.

LITERATURE deserves the support of government not less for its moral than its intellectual influences. The object of legislation should be to promote among the citizens a species of happiness worthy of the dignity of human nature; which can be done by no other means than the union of virtue and wisdom. Where success is probable, as in free states, ought any thing to be left unattempted? How far the very form of a government may operate in amending the character of man, we see already in a variety of instances among ourselves. In the short space of twenty years many prejudices and errors, some of them of the most pernicious nature, which have been rooted in the mind perhaps ever since the creation of the world, have been totally extirpated. The enlightened and liberal principles which originated from the political advantages of these states when colonies, generated the American revolution; this revolution first taught her citizens, next the citizens of France, and soon perhaps will teach all the nations of Europe, that those wars with which the ferocious ambition of monarchs has so long disturbed the earth are wicked and murderous; that as they have had no object so far as concerned the people but a change of tyrants, any man employed in them was a slave and ruffian, though the favorite of an emperor and the leader of millions. We have learnt at length that to follow a royal cut throat to the field to slaughter [Page]offenceless fellow creatures, is no less barbarous than to sooth the ghost of a departed friend with human sacrifice; to expose, or inhume with the departed mother a living infant; to persuade an heroic faithful woman to cast herself upon the funeral pile of her husband; or to doom to death the venerable fathers of the people worn out in the service of their murderers. How pleasing is it to reflect that while every chronicle of former times i [...] filled with complaints of perpetual degeneracy, and each succeeding age is censured for falling from bad practice to worse, we enjoy the advantage of inhabiting the globe at a crisis when state diseases having reached their height have begun to subside again; when the revolving year brings on some new attainments to the virtue and the happiness of society. A better instance of the operation of rational freedom in the advancement of morality need not be produced, than that the favorite theme of statesmen and phi [...]losophers, orators and poets among the ancients, their boasted spurious patriotism has now fallen utterly into disgrace, is contemplated with horror as the curse of human kind, and is followed by a principle mild, innocent, beneficent, which, while it renders the bravest [...] hurtless to foreign nations, preserves them faithful in the discharge of their duty to their own. Look back upon Caesar and his legions, first fighting the battles of the republic abroad, enforcing lawless claims and tyrannical dominion; then see these parricides repass the Rubicon and wield their impious arms against their country. Turn now from this detested spectacle, and behold [Page]the champion of America and her patriot army wanting food and cloathing, pay and spoil; enduring the labors, braving the perils, of war, to establish the rights of human kind, and resisting the efforts of a party, and the magic of bewitching eloquence, employed in urging them to quit their standards and exact their dues. A state must indeed be in a condition devoutly to be deprecated, both by its citizens and neighbors, which give honorable [...]ppellations to the most baneful qualities, and rivets on men's minds by an indissoluble bond the grossest errors and [...] sins. Such unhappily was the condition of Rome. Such is now the condition of England, where voluntary slavery is honored, by the name of loyalty: [...]uch as that of England was lately the condition of [...]rance; but she has risen indignant in her might, and [...]is folly is no more,

"But like a dew drop from the lion's mane

Was shook to air."

[...]esides, where false qualities whether useless or pernici [...]s are held in honor (as, in almost every age and nation [...] the world, indiscriminate valor) true virtue must give [...]ced to its counterfeit; but let the counterfeit be dis [...]aced and true virtue shall assume her throne in human [...]rts. The meed of Goths and Vandals shall now be [...]etted no more: we seek no feast of Odin, wading [...]ough seas of blood; nor thirst to drink from skulls of [...]rdered adversaries—

"No more the thirsty entrance of the soil

Shall damp her lips with her own children's blood;

[Page] No more shall trenching war channel her fields

Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs

Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes,

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heav'n,

All of one nature of one substance bred,

Did lately meet in the intestine shock

And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now —

— be no more opposed

Against acquaintance, kindred and allies;

The edge of war like an ill-sheathed knife

No more shall cut its master."

In a bad government even the diversions of the citizens partake of its character. The Romans amused themselves with the combats of gladiators; the Spaniards with bull-fights; and it is not surprising that those men can take delight in the spectacle of a wretched animal mutilated and cut up a live, or two fellow-creatures compelled to mangle each other for their sport, who can build their impious glory upon the massacre of a nation. As false moralty enjoins or permits many things which are abominable, so also does it prohibit many things which are innocent: the consequence of which is, that men make themselves amends with guilty pleasures. This we well know to be done even in cases where the morality prescribed is believed to be true: many characters whom decorum throws under uneasy restraints with respect to particular enjoyments, as those of wine and women, indulge to an unusual excess in those which have been [Page]termed the graver vices; pride, envy, calumny, gluttony, and avarice; this principle in human nature was known to Mahomet; so that when he refused wine to his disciples he made them rich amends in the Haram. True religion will also prosper most by the excision of unnecessary forms: the more religion is simplified the more will it be respected. Man is not naturally ungrateful to his Creator, as appears by the numberless religious institutions which have been so readily adopted: but tyrannical establishments, persecutions, bigotry, and folly, have too often disguised the holy form of piety and concealed her charms.

TRUE wisdom and learning, religion and morality with pure liberty superadded, it is evident, must elevate the soul to the highest sphere in which it is capable of acting, and render human life an exalted condition. In tyrannic states the pursuits of the citizens when innocent, are illy calculated to enoble the character: the business of the poor is gain, the business of the rich is pleasure; a new bargain or scheme of profit employs the industry of the former; a new play or opera, player, singer, or dancer, occupies the attention of the latter: to both is the business of the state a matter of equal indifference; they feel they have little interest therein; if it prosper they are slaves; if it do not, they can be little worse. Even in England, the best of bad governments, the power of the monarch almost extinguishes the importance of the other branches of the legislature; neither [Page]lords nor commons maintain the manly pride which becomes the hereditary and delegated rulers of a great people; they degrade themselves, and the nation partakes of their disgrace; all are overlooked in the immense distance between the first magistrate and any other person in the realm; and all these [...]e arrogantly styles his subjects, rather than the subjects or citizens of the government. The members of both houses of parliament, being habituated in their individual capacity to this humiliating comparison, become insensible of their own consequence as collective bodies. Hence the condition of an Englishman is in a political view uninteresting, or only rendered otherwise by his approximation to a revolution. (l) In America, on the contrary, that pride of heart which has so long militated against the rights of man, assumes a new, a virtuous, and a dignified character: every man feels that he forms a portion of the majesty of the people. The country is dear to him not from that common instinct which might attach him to a barren rock under the control of a tyrant [...] but because it supplies his wants and secures him in his possessions. Wherefore, as every man in turn during the rage of [...]ar drew a sword in her defence, so n [...]w do all in different degrees devise for her prosperity in peace. Even in his amusements the man of pleasure is not unmindful of the honor of his country: and in his gainful occupations, the man of business feels an honest pride when [...]e reflects that while he enriches himself he adds to the resources and the greatness of his country; and that the wealth [Page]he earns will be employed in the service of his offspring and of the state, and neither be wrested from him to pamper the spoilers of the public weal, nor be confined by unnatural and tyrannic establishments to an ungrateful heir who battens on the birth-rights of his brethren, and appeases their discontent by the sale of his honor to his king. Such principles prevail in private citizens; and in public the desire of obtaining the approbation of those who are to be served, together with a sense of duty, often advance the character to the most exalted pitch. The glare, the tinsel, the gewgaws, the noisy pageantry of government, are slighted by the servants of a pure republic; and they are solicitous not about a spectacle or a sound, but an added blessing, or a curse removed. In the revolution war, while the leaders of the British army were panting for the glories of victory, the generals of America provided more carefully for the advantages of retreat; while the first were struggling to keep the field, the last were only anxious to keep the country; while the one party amused themselves with erecting trophies, the other were busied in estabishing an empire. While in bad governments the blackest crimes against the state, the shock of which will be felt by millions living and hundreds of millions unborn, are pardoned, spoken of familiarly as trifles, and even encouraged and rewarded by a royal traitor; under such establishments as ours inevitable infamy or destruction are sure to overtake such reprobates. The conduct of the officers of different governments being so entirely opposite, [Page]it is not to be wondered at if in the bad a veil is thrown upon their unhallowed deeds, and in the good all national concerns even court the public eye. Accordingly while in England every possible restraint is thrown upon the freedom of the press, in America not only is that freedom impracticable to all assaults, but the rulers of the people even assist in providing the most easy and convenient conveyance for the chronicles of their transactions,* (m) This undisguised process, while it establishes the integrity of office creates and cherishes that vigilance in the community which perpetuates the fire of liberty like a Vestal's flame. Men are thus daily reminded of the inestimable quality of the blessing they enjoy, and taught to feel deeply what was said of the Romans; that, if they should sink to slavery, their new condition would be wretched in proportion to the felicity of the former. Cicero remarks, that "the recollection of slavery will improve the charms of freedom;" how much more would the image of departed freedom heighten the deformity of slavery? The same writer says again, "it is better not to live at all than to live under the loss of advantages once possessed;" but what advantage can leave behind it such inconsolable regret as extinguished liberty? Shall any man who loves virtue, who loves his country, who loves the human species, hesitate by all the aids of genius to render "immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven," [Page]blessings which have been reserved from the creation of the world to be lavished upon this favored latter age? Let it be remembered too that the precious deposit in our hands will not easily retain, if it do not increase, its worth. Human affairs do seldom in any particular continue stationary; they are ever progressive or retrograde; to be rescued from deteri [...]ration they must improve. Besides, whatever changes have taken place in, and in consequence of, civil and ecclesiastical polity, let it not be forgotten that but few years past these states were dependencies of a kingdom whence the mature vices of an old government were transported. That, this, and all other empires, like men, when not corrected by philosophy must pass from guilty youth to profligate old age. Long established distempers demand a regular and patient exhibition of powerful medicines:

Fervet avaritia, miseroque cupidine pectus?

Sunt verba & voces, quibus hunc lenire dolore [...]

Possis, et magnum morbi deponere partem.

Laudis amor tumes? Sunt certa piacula quae te

Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.

Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,

Nemo adeo ferus est ut non mitescere possit

Si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.

That avarice more especially does threaten to take posession of the hearts of men whose opportunities of obtaining property abound as in America, and whose attention is not diverted from the object either by military, ecclesiastical, or literary honors, while those in the civil department [Page]are too few to satisfy all claims; that this sordid passion may be expected to mar the morals and the peace of private life, as heretofore ambition has ravaged the public weal, I apprehend will not be denied by any man of sense and observation. How far this had been the misfortune of the state from which we emigrated may be conceived from the following passage from one of her most judicious, manly, moral, satirists, writing to [...] so long ago as fifty years:

"Vice is undone if she forgets her birth

And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:

But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore;

Let greatness own her and she's mean no more,

Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,

Chaste matrons praise her and grave bishops bless;

In golden chains the willing world she draws,

And her's the gospel is and her's the laws,

Mounts the tribunal lifts her scarlet head,

And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.

Lo! at the [...] of her triumphal car

Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,

Drag'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,

His flag inverted trails along the ground!

Our youth all livery'd o'er with foreign gold

Before her dance; behind her crawl the old!

See thronging millions to the Pagod run,

And offer country, parent, wife, or son!

Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim

THAT NOT TO BE CORRUPTED IS THE SHAME.

[Page] In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in pow'r,

'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!"

The avarice of England injures her government by means which strike directly at its prosperity, and even its existence; the avarice of America does indirect mischief to hers by depraving morals and diminishing patriotism. How interesting is it to reflect that upon the examples of America and France in good government, integrity, and consequent happiness, may depend at last the opinions of the surrounding world upon the grand question concerning innovation?

HAVING spoken of the benefits we possess chiefly from good government and some other means of advancing virtue, literature, and national happiness, proceed we now to take notice of other advantages and encouragements which have been received from nature. First of the climates.

WHETHER heat or cold be most [...]av [...]rable to the dispositions of the heart and the faculties of the mind seems to have been an undecided question; and a temperate climate might perhaps be found superior to either. Whatever may be the advantages however of heat or cold, America must be supposed to partake of them. In the eastern and western states much cold and very little heat are felt, as in England, one of those countries which have been eminently distinguished for the species of literature fashionable therein. In the middle states the extremes [Page]of heat and cold prevail alternately; in the lower part of the southern states there is much heat with but little cold, as in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, the seats of learning in the old world: and in the higher parts of the southern states little either of heat or cold is known; the winters would be deemed almost temperate by a Russian; and the summers by an inhabitant of the tropics. In none of these states is there to be found that excess of cold or heat which has been supposed to debase the heart, the mind, or the figure [...] of the human species. The piercing cold of the highest latitudes of the globe does indeed seem to produce very lamentable effects upon those nations which have long resided in them, but it does not appear that heat possesses influences in any degree proportionate. Admitting that the blackness of Africans has been a consequence of heat; (which however has not been sufficiently established) this disadvanvantage will not admit of a comparison with the stupidity and deformity of some other nations: and those who are accustomed to no other complexion than black have been known to shrink back in disgust from the whiteness of a North-Britain. As to the dulness usually ascribed to N [...]gros the writer of these pages, with the best opportunities, has been able to discover in them no marks of mental inferiority which might not very naturally proceed from inevitable ignorance. The fierce passions ascribed to southern nations are also as far from the character of a Negro, and, where in any other instances they have been found, may be attributed to neglected culture [Page]and an improper modification of the nervous excitability peculiar to warm climates. The ferocious courage which impels the American savage to the perils and cruelties of the field might, by a proper education, be improved into a steady, invincible, principle, and fitted for the noblest purposes: The scorn of the two most formidable of evils [...] agony and inevitable death which appears in every nation of these misguided warriors, shews how well the climates of this continent are suited to the purpose of forming an [...] ch [...]cter. When extreme sensibility prevails in the inhabitants of any country it must depend upon learning and good government whether it shall improve or degrade the national character.* Americans have not yet found reason to blush for any vices or weaknesses peculiar to themselves; and the morbific influences of intense cold, and extreme heat combined with moisture, upon constitutions but newly exposed to them personally or by progenitors may be expected to diminish, and those which are sanative and genial to increase, by habit and naturalization. How high the human character may rise even beneath the blaze of a scorching sun has been seen in the Pelew Islands: and [Page]excepting the article of complexion, the person was found to be beautiful, strong, and [...]hful. The valor, justice, honor, and beneficence of these untutored children of the sun have excited the wonder of the learned and refined in every other climate. Their language to the unfortunate English mariners was like the kind comforts of the Carthagenian queen upon whose coast the Trojans had landed to escape shipwreck and had at first received some harsh treatment.

"Solvite corde metum, Teucri, secludite curas.

Res dura, & regni novitas me talia cogunt.

Moliri, & latè sines custode tueri.

Quis gens [...] quis Trojoe nesciat urbem,

Virtutesque virosq: & tanti incendia belli?

Non obtusa adeò gestamus pectora Poeni:

Nec tam aversus equos Tyriâ sol jungit ab urbe.

Seu vos Hesperiam magnam, saturniaque arva,

Sive Erycis fines, regemque optatis [...]

Auxilio tutos dimittam, opibusque j [...]vabo. (n)

As no heavy evils are to be apprehended from the heats which prevail in any part of the American empire, so also have we as little to dread from the cold. The coldest climates to which we are exposed have not been able to dull the edge of genius; the sharpest winds of heaven which blow on us have not been able to turn to ice the milk of human kindness: those best know this who have visited the frozen regions of New-England. (o)

THE population of America which among other causes must regulate the chances of literary eminence is at this [Page]time fifty times as great as that of Greece in all its glory: and though the multitudes in other countries far out number ours, yet in none but France are they at liberty to act. The superiority of language may still in philological works at least put America upon a level with France. The French tongue, it is well known, sinks under the weight of an epic poem or a tragedy, and is obliged to sustain itself by the feeble aid of rhyme. Of such consequence are the language and the structure of the verse to the character of consummate poetry, that a traslation from a bad language, and from verses illy measured or associated, may very well surpass an original replete with poetical materials. The population of France seems too to be already at its full extent, whereas that of America, even before the revolution, was doubled once in five and twenty years. The proportion of additional increase which may take place hereafter by means of emigration it is impossible to foresee: but that it will be very considerable the advantages heretofore in possession, but now made known to the rest of the world, and the ultimate establishment of them by the strong hand of war, give us good reason to believe. The variety of good climates, the variety and cheapness of the richest soil, the perfect freedom, civil, and ecclesiastic, enjoyed by the country; these are all lures, which, unless an universal reform in government shall take place throughout Europe cannot [...]ail to win to these states millions of wretches now groaning under a tyrants rod, pinched with hunger and nakedness, pining in despair, now more than ever penetrated [Page]with the agonizing sense of their deplorable condition. These people will be told that such lands as are rented of their lords and paid for with little less than the whole of the fruits of their labor may be made their own in America for very little more than the expence of surveying. That those who till the earth, will reap luxuriant harvests, and those who take the produce off their hands will obtain it cheaply: that the woods abound with deer, and the seas, rivers, and lakes, with fish: thus are food and raiment ever at command: and he who clears an acre of land for the purposes of husbandry in the colder climates finds fuel at his door. Those who have been reared in the business of manufacturing goods will find in America almost every requisite raw material; and artificers of every description will ever find employment in the prosperity of agriculture and manufactories. (p) How well too will the produce of the lands and manufactories as subjects of commerce be secured by a government which has been furnished with the materials of naval armaments even in the prodigality of nature. For some of these articles other countries are obliged to rely upon the aid of foreigners; in America only can all be found, and in an inexhaustable profusion. So great are our maritime resources that these alone are competent to form a mighty empire. Carthage and Holland, which threatened destruction to the powers of Rome and Great-Britain, have built their greatness upon the seas. But what must be the future strength and grandeur of a nation which under the freest government shall link in one enormous chain [Page]the golden gifts of agriculture, manufacture and navigation?

"Visions of glory spare my aching sight!

Ye unborn ages crowd not on my soul!"

How different is this prospect from the melancholy scenes which shock the view in arbitrary establishments? how captivating to the longing eyes of miserable vassals. Seven Roman kings, in the long series of two hundred and fifty years, extended not their territory beyond the thirtieth mile; so little good did they to allure willing subjects to their dominion from the neighboring states, as America has done across the vast Atlantic: and happy had it been for bleeding humanity had their successors remained as feeble and as hurtless instead of forcing reluctant nations beneath their hateful yoke by plans which are as detestable, as they are unnecessary, to America. In this country too the continual overflow and emigration of the inhabitants of the lower states to those in the west will be attended with inestimable benefits. [...] in Europe the peasantry, for want of lands to cultivate, or encouragement to cultivate them, are perpetually crowding into cities and empoverishing the soil by their absence; Fruges consumere nati. The fields of America on the contrary are over covered with thriving, active, eager, laborers; alluring even the citizen from his sloth. These advantages great as they are seldom strike the observation of shallow voluptuaries from abroad, who are discontented when they find not all those sumptous elegancies and refinements in pleasures which are peculiar to large towns, [Page]none other being capable of affording those encouragements necessary thereto, by the vicinity of multitudes and union of the wealthy. America desires not those hives of drones and nests of hornets, those idle and those guilty throngs which feed upon the bread which useful citizens have made; and ruin the unwary or betray their country to supply the artificial wants of luxury and pride. These foreign triflers should be told that the greatness of a nation depends not upon such objects as they have been accustomed to admire; a large metropolis which drains the country of husbandmen to fill itself with sluggard [...] or knaves; palaces which lodge, and [...] which bear such men about; monopolies of land whence the weary peasant goes supperless to bed; funds which the lying scribbler of the day can shock; genius basely prostituted to the savage ambition of a despot, or insidious demagogue; but in frugal edifices erected for the comfort of a free, happy, simple, hardy, race of men, ever ready to spread themselves over fruitful boundless wastes, and transmute wildernesses into states; in lands which yield rich crops to feed the freeholder; in an unshaken national credit; in intellectual powers encouraged by the rulers to promote the happiness of man in every instance which discovers itself and to explore others. A sage and subject of a much greater [...]ire than any now existing has placed all genuine greatness in a course of virtuous actions: Virtus [...]ola [...]obilitas. But whenever large cities shall over-spread this continent the advantages in magnificence and art may be obtained without [Page]the concomitant evils which are inevitable in bad governments. Wherever freedom prevails and the earth is fruitful there is an opportunity of thriving on the plain, and few will repair to towns but such as have secured an independence or such as find it expedient to consert together for their mutual accommodation or to supply the wants of opulence, agriculture, and navigation; wherefore the crimes and miseries which spring from desperation will in a great measure be precluded from these industrious societies. The beneficence of nature and the consequent activity of the inhabitants will concur with emigration to increase population, and this will be done in the manner most advantageous: the two first will put it in the power of the citizens to form conubial connexions at their option, and the last will be a perpetual source of that variety in the strain which, as in other animals so also in the human species, is supposed to be productive of the happiest effects. Emigrants will also bring with them always something worthy of esteem and adoption; for their vices and follies it will be the part of the legislator and the scholar to provide early and efficacious remedies.

To raise the heart and mind of man to the exalted state of improvement of which they are capable is a task which well befits the fathers of a free people, and is worth ambition. How honorable an achievement would it be to render the rising generation wiser than the present and to provide for the advancement of wisdom progressive [Page]through every new-born race! If it be deemed a work of dignity to meliorate a form of government that the people may be happier, how great his design, how sublime his occupation, who labors to exalt the character of man whence all improvements come? The employment would be doubly grateful to those who may hope to see the risen glories of their country; and, in those who may not, it will be doubly magnanimous. What though they shall have acted but in the humbler scenes of the present hour, and must quit the stage when the curtain is about to rise for a more gorgeous drama, the splendors of an illustrious empire? Yet let them make their exit without repining if they can make it with applause: let them sink resigned into the sleep of death if myriads are to wake to happiness! Franklin saw but in a vision the honors which he had prepared for his country, yet smiled with complacent benignity and fled for his reward to heaven. Chatham cast the idol of his country's greatness in a mighty mould, then worshiped what he had made, and at its altar would have immolated a nation living, and countless unborn nations: such joy ambition finds. Where the road which leads to honor is open to the view a guide is needless. What people shall suffer like Americans the ignominy of scanty information? What other nations enjoy the precious privilege of feeding in full measure from the tree of knowledge? yet in no other civilized country are the citizens so seldom invited to the feast? Surely America will have too much goodness to be ungrateful to the good; too much wisdom [Page]to be forgetful of the wise. How transporting is it to a patriot heart to know, that, as Americans are now deemed the champions of freedom, it is moreover at their option to become the restorers of true philosophy, and the redeemers of human felicity. Is it not worthy of the greatest spirits to confer such benefits, and merit such renown, by all the aids which can be drawn from the mind of man? The efforts which some private societies have made for these purposes are extremely honorable to them, but these have been only proportioned to their strength, and were feeble in comparison with the might of government. The objects to be purchased will be publick, so also be the price. No longer let private, or individual, patronage degrade the sons of wisdom. Even monarchs have seldom couferred upon the literary character the dignity it deserves. These royal patrons have frequently been so notoriously ignorant of the merits they affected to esteem that it may well seem accident when genuine genius has obtained their protection: yet have their clients usually been fawning parasites and adulators; political sophists, those venomed spiders which weave their webs to ensare the offenceless; or military sorcerers who prepare their hellish charms to plague mankind. Little indeed of literary beneficence could be expected from men who kept their subjects in chains, their neighbors in terror, and deluged the world with innocent blood. But can the baneful wealth and power of Xerxes exalt a human creature like the virtue and learning of Alfred becoming the preceptor of his subjects? Well knew he that [Page]it was unworthy of him to suffer the people to want the light of reason and censure them for walking blindly. Such noble qualities rendered him no less venerable as an houseless wanderer, than a sceptered king: his sufferings are so dignified by innocence, that they seem to be above our pity; while those of an ordinary monarch are so debased by guilt that they sink beneath it.

HAVING lent my feeble aid to the unfriended cause of learning, unfriended probably through the present necessities of a new-born government, the foregoing observations are humbly submitted to the active minds of my countrymen as hints which may serve to recall past notions and to suggest others. This is done with the highest respect and deference to the honest representatives of a free people as viewed in contrast with the careless or wicked rulers of enslaved nations; and I cannot better express my exultation in the inestimable advantages we possess over them in this free appointment of public officers for the best purposes of the people whether civil, military, ecclesiastical, or literary, than by exhibiting together faithful portraits of the chief magistrate of America, and the chief magistrate of Great-Britain standing, as she does, not lower than the third-state in the scale of freedom. The first of these two characters has been elevated to his post by the unanimous voice of a free and grateful people, who knew, that as their happiness was to be provided for, it concerned them to advance an honest man: while his country is constrained to endure the other by a [Page]court and hierarchy which could not prosper under a virtuous monarch.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, at a point of time the most awful and momentous his country had ever known, or could ever know, was appointed to the supreme command of her armies. This elevated employment, which to every proud and ambitious man in the nation was an object of the most ardent desire, became to him, through [...] modesty and heroic moderation, an honorable burden. He resigned the tranquility of retirement and conscious integrity, and set at hazard a happy life and ample fortune, for greatness without exultation, and office without emolument. In the execution of the business which was committed to his charge he displayed the firmness of a hero, the prudence of a general, the integrity of a patriot, and the honor of a gentleman. His virtue was not the phrenzy of Aristides or Brutus building their country's greatness upon the spoil of nations; it was the virtue of reason combating for the oppressed not because they were fellow-citizens, but because they were fellow-men; founding, but not subverting, a mighty empire; not to insult, but to redress; not to enslave, but free the world. He obtained the confidence of his country during her struggle for happiness without the smallest mixture of suspicion. He was not only in every department of his office unblamed, but covered with applause and glory; the homage of the people was love, veneration, gratitude; and they discovered [Page]their sensibility in the presence of this father of his country, not only in looks and words, but in tears. Jealousy, envy, and calumny, if they wished to strike, dared not to aim the blow in the presence of an American citizen. Nor among American citizens only was his name inviolate; amidst the rancour of civil broils, the most injurious, ignoble, and murderous slave, still spared his virtues; and those who sought his life denied that he deserved to die. These were his honors in the field; and in the cabinet he ruled with undiminished purity the empire he had established.

GEORGE the Third, of England, never having, either in his own person or in that of any progenitor, been appointed to the diadem, stands of course upon the footing of an usurper. But he would suffer in comparison with the most mischievous or insignificant of th [...]se usurpers whose crimes have been recorded or whose follies have almost been forgotten. He felt the baneful ambition of Caesar without his talents for victory, or his clemency to the conquered: his lust for dominion was impotent and merciless. Like Augustus he was a despot, but knew not the refinements which could sooth the rage of injured vassals. His occupations like Nero's when they were not wicked were frivolous. But even Nero at an early season put forth the buds of virtue which perished by the pestilent breath of flattery: George on the contrary rushed with sudden eagerness into the corruption, the black atrocity of policy: he did not indeed like Nero disappoint the hopes of his subjects [Page]for he promised nothing, but when his career began [...]t [...]m'd their honest plaudits. The immense treasures lavish'd upon him by the empoverished state, he employed not even in the sumptuous elegancies of royalty, but in corrupting the servants of the nation which paid the revenue. The offices of government he basely put to sale, receiving in payment the liberties of his subjects. He plunged the kingdom into a debt of an hundred millions for the loss of thirteen flourishing colonies. This enormous debt, contracted by a war which involved the British nation in difficulties and disgraces which never may have end, was accumulated on a former still greater; but the first had been incur'd by his predecessor in a war which had exalted Britain to greater heights of glory than she had ever reached before. He mingled together crimes and errors gross and mountanous; he heaped Ossa upon Pelion and Olympus upon Ossa. Yet the armies employed in this ferocious war fought with a valor worthy of a better cause and better king: but the maxims of policy and dishonor which issued from the court infected these gallant troops; their rapine, treachery, and cruelty, created enemies faster than they could subdue them, and their last adversaries were more formidable than the first; they became invincible by despair. Whether the personal agency of such a king attempting to triumph over such subjects would have been effectual, seems to have been a question which never engaged his attention; the only law of his country which he was not disposed to violate was [Page]that which detained him from the perils of the field: thither he ventured not with the splendid villainy of a conqueror, but securely contemplated the horrid s [...]ene afar with the apathy of an executioner, or the [...] malice of an assassin. To an ambition predatory, bloody, and pusillanimous, he united the impious arts of s [...]ate hypocrisy. Like Augustus he strove to give an [...] to the sceptre by pontific robes. That he might obtain support for the worst of measures from his eccles [...]stics, both as peers and prelates, he promoted to the [...]itre and the holy crosier the worst of men; and the hierarchy of England shewed not like the ministers of the prince of peace, but the delegates of the enemy of mankind. He called upon Christ as his redeemer, and to him made horrid libations, holding up the representation of the blood he had shed for him in hands besprinkled with human gore. Finally: having been exalted in the sport of fortune to a throne which he was illy qualified to fill, he felt the haughtiness of greatness with the meanness of obscurity; the insolence of youth with the insensibility of age; the tranquility of innocence in the lap of sin; to him infamy was repose, and reproach a jest; his heart was adamant and his conscience dead.

THE END.

Notes

*

In Shakespeare's time there were sixty Play-houses in London, though so much short then of its present vast extent.

*

See Burke's famous speech in parliament, on a motion for withdrawing the troops from America.

*

See the Newspaper Law.

*

A late ingenious American writer supposes, from the difference which is found in the structure of the intestines of negros, and some other particulars, that they are a race of men distinct from the whites: but changes as great, or greater than those he mentions, have taken place by the influence of certain causes upon other animals. Dogs [...]r [...] supposed to have been originally but one species.

NOTES.

[Page]

Note—(a) Page 7.

IT is aftonishing and shocking to hear even in America the mild despotism, as it is sometimes called, of the old French government spoken of with commendation or indulgence: and, since we know the chain of tyranny which subsists in such a state, and the influence of power in corrupting the heart, it is a solecism to call any despotism mild. The people of France it is said have always been gayer and therefore happier than their freer neighbours, it is therefore contended that the form of their government was sufficient for their purposes. Let it be remembered however that tranquility, not gayety, is the test of happiness. Tranquility is the habit of a contented mind; it is the repose of the soul; gayety is an occasional gust of passion distinct from and often encouraged, as the substitute of happiness. This tranquility, or this gayety, I conceive, is not supposed to have been known in those dungeons whence multitudes who had survived their griefs were rescued by the reformed government bereft of their senses by despair. We know that the miseries of those wretches who were destined to be the sport of a graduated system of oppression were great enough to appal the imagination of a distant stranger; how much then must those have trembled who could hear the groans of an ill-star'd fellow creature and fellow subject, and knew not but their hour of anguish was at hand? Too well they saw, and terrible instances have transpired since the revolution, that even the nearest relatives have not always spared each other. But admitting that with so many causes of disquiet as exist in every unlimited mo [...]a [...]y [...]man could be capable of a competent portion of happiness, [Page]yet can it not be doubted that the portion of happiness would have increased by the extinction of these causes of disquiet, and a a freeman discontented with every reason to be happy, would surely be more discontented with none at all. Providence has evidently intended that no human being should taste happiness or misery in the extreme through the course of his existence. Under no concurrence or combination of circumstances, numerous as the human race has been; and with the chance of good fortune though exposed to the hazard of bad, has any one instance of a happy man appeared upon record; the purpose of which perhaps has been to reconcile the unfortunate to their fate, no man being exempt from trouble; and to prevent the prosperous from sinking into a selfish state of voluptuousness, and being unmindful of those duties which may procure their passport into some state of perfect felicity; and though, for the purpose last mentioned, the distresses of the human race usually preponderate; yet does the mercy of heaven appear in all instances however calamitous, and often in the midst of severest trials. Agreeably to these designs man has been framed to be forcibly acted upon by long established habits: the habits of pleasure and pain diminish the sense of either. It is not surprising therefore that the f [...]st nations should find something to wish for, and the most enslaved something to enjoy, but this does not destroy the distinction between freedom and slavery, nor their influence upon the happiness of man: nay, free brutes if furnished with the means of life are happier than those which are detained in a state of restraint.

Note—(b) Page 8.

THE boroughs upon this occasion were represented in what was called a convention of the people, principally by the presbyterians; and Walpole's execrable system of liberty not having been at that time introduced, this body of men acted with a becoming disregard to the claim founded on hereditary rights; yet does the reform in the representation seem never to have come under their contemplation as an expedient [Page]measure. This however is not be wondered at as this reform would have extinguished the influence of their own constituents; and useful as it would be at this hour it might perhaps then have been dearly purchased by the establishment of the Stuarts and the introduction of popery: this however appears doubtful since the revolution in France. One thing is clear; that the acts of the body of men then assembled to transact the national business were not the acts of a convention of the people; first, because the representation of the commons was very unequal; and secondly, because the lords maintained as usual their parliamentary authority; nor were these acts the acts of parliament, because no king sat upon the throne; no rational doubt then can remain whether the acts were illegal.

Note—(c) Page 12.

SINCE this tract was sketched out, the following passage from the notes to the [...] Mr. Hayley's fourth epistle upon epic poetry, has come under the observation of the writer. "It has lately been lamented by an elegant and accomplished writer who had too much reason for the complaint, that the profession of literature, by far the most laborious of any, leads to no real benefit. Experience undoubtedly proves that it has a general tendency to impoverish its votaries; and the legislators would act perhaps a wise, at all events an honorable part, if they corrected this tendency, by establishing public emoluments for such as eminently distinguish themselves in the various branches of science. It is surely possible to form such an establishment which, without proving a national burden, might aggrandize the literary glory of the nation by preserving her men of letters from the evil [...] so frequently connected with their pursuits, by securing to those who deserve it the possession of case and honour, without damping their emulation or destroying their independence."

PUBLIC rewards only can in any country raise literature to the eminence of which it is capable; but the press itself might in [Page]some eases be rendered the mean of advantages not at present in possession. It has been observed above that as literary property is now circumstanced a writer who published at home may be robbed of a portion [...] profits by a foreign bookseller who shall reprint, or by a domestic one if he should publish abroad. There seems indeed no good reason why a man may not print a book for his own benefit in several countries at the same time and in each retain the copy right. But it might often happen that the author or the printer to whom the copy should be [...]old, would find it inconvenient to print a book in a distant country as well as his own: wherefore an agreement between two states who speak the same language to prohibit the practice of re-printing from each other such books as may be published in future, would operate as a superior encouragement. A proposal for such an agreement would probably be acceptable to Great-Britain; for the number of books annually published in that country does now very far exceed those published in the same time in the United States; and the [...]ase with which property is obtained by means of agriculture, commerce, law, and physic, together with the vast field presented to the view of each department in our extensive territory as population gradually extends, will for a long time to come keep up the superiority of numbers in British writers. Something indeed might be lost to America in the printing line if re-printed books are sold cheaper than those imported; but the English books already in circulation afford ample materials for this business; nor should a narrow piece of political economy be suffered to supersede the great concerns of literature: the direct application of written wisdom to political purposes will quickly overbalance any trifling disadvantages induced. How far too the extension of the term of copy right may be beneficial is worthy of consideration: and in all regulations or establishments for the propagation of learning it seems to be advisable that every new attainment [...] a writer should come to him as the reward of some specific perform [...]ce, that his profits [Page]may not diminish his activity. For this reason it is apprehended that college fellowships, pensions, or any rich settlements for life, are by no means the best expedients for the advancement of literature. The French have appointed a minister of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, and a minister of works, succours, public establishments, and arts.

Note—(d) Page 21.

THE impression made upon the British arms by the capture of Burgoyne and the spirit displayed upon that occasion by the militia of New-England are well known: at the battle of Bennington eight hundred of these militia without bayonets or artillery, forced the entrenchments of five hundred regular troops armed in the best manner and furnished with two pieces of artillery, killing or making prisoners the greater part and taking possession of the field pieces. In another engagement they resisted the charge of bayonets with clubbed muskets, not being furnished with similar weapons, and under this terrible disadvantage for some time slighted the orders issued for a retreat. Such conduct has perhaps never been equalled by undisciplined troops.

Note—(c) Page 24.

THE literary character of Dr. Franklin has not been overlooked in the compliment paid to him by the French during his political career in the famous line, ‘Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis.’ The effect of these images would have been heightened by the [...]version of the order (which would have removed the anti-climax) and by the aid of personification; eripuit coelo had been better written eripuit Jove.

Note—(f) Page 25.

IT was once intended to introduce into parliament, the late literary idol of the British nation, Dr. Johnson. He would doubt. [Page]less have made a figure in the debates of a corrupt assembly, where the worst measures were to be defended upon the spot; for he was an able sophist, and what he could perform, he could perform quickly. It would have been interesting and curious to observe, what fine speculative sense, keen sarcasm, tory rancour, bigotry, spiritual pride, and matchless effrontry could do against intuitive wisdom, the rage of oratory, the integrity of a patriot, and the dignity of a gentleman. A greater instance of the tyranny of fashion cannot be produced than the boundless reputation of Dr. Johnson. It appears evidently, even from the partial records of his particular friend, that he had the prejudices of a clown, the superstition of a gossip, the weakness of an infant, the arrogance of a tyrant, and the manners of a savage; yet has he been placed foremost in the tribes of English saints and philosophers. He was discovered to be an eminent poet too, because he imitated two satires of Juvenal, and wrote a tragedy which is neither acted nor read, and which in the latter of his life, when his taste had got the better of his vanity, he himself despised. Anacreon's dove has indeed all the force and elegance of an original, and, had it been such, would have done him more honor than all his other poems. The encomiums lavished upon his imitations, translations, and famous prologue, shew how little else has been found in his verses worthy of admiration: and the compositions of Pope in these kinds added to the merit of his greater pieces place him in such a state of exaltation, that it is not to be conceived how any man, who stands so far beneath him as Johnson, can be a poet. In one of his poems of gallantry (mi [...]abile dictu) he learnedly complains to the lady of "arthritic pains." Be these things as they may, he seems to have been as despotic in imposing his credenda upon the British nation as once the pope.

Note—(g) Page 28.

THE preference given to the Scotch nation by the present king of Great-Britain, forms the only instance of wisdom which appears throughout his long inglorious reign. Even in this too is wisdom [Page]blended with timidity and ingratitude; the English have been neglected because he deemed himself secure in their attachment. William the conqueror, on the contrary, kept the people of England in a state of perpetual discontent and insurrection by his predilection for the companions of his victory.

Note—(h) Page 54.

THE intricacy of combination in the orr [...]ry of an admirable American mechanic, may be conceived from this circumstance: that he has hitherto been unable to communicate to another the principles of its construction. It is said to be his design to give an explanation in writing: this however may not be practicable without much leisure and study. The state of Pennsylvania has done worthily in fostering genius in its citizen; but the duties of the office he holds, it is to be apprehended, may inrer [...]upt him in the business of putting other philosophers in possession of the benefits of his invention: for if he should not live to complete his task, the instrument will perish with him. The evils which would be involved in such a loss it is not possible to foresee; but as one improvement usually generates another, it may be conjectured that they would be great enough to deserve to be obviated by placing the inventor beyond the reach of interruption.

Note—(i) Page 56.

A SINGULAR practice of Dr. Priestly affords an instance of the difficulty of arrangement. This ingenious writer has no ea [...]r way of fitting the parts of an extensive work than by hanging up his materials on lines across his study, as printers do wet sheets of paper: and from this confused assemblage he has the art to draw out each part into its proper place. The following plan is submitted▪ Let the materials be noted down without order as they occur to the mind: let this common place-b [...]k be paged, and let the lines be numbered as it is usual to do in poems. When the writer is about to compose, let him inscribe several sheets of paper with the names of several distinct [...]eads, and then mark with numeral, or any other characters, all such [Page]notes as come under any one general head: Let him afterwards bring all these notes in their original form under their proper heads respectively and begin his piece: As he advances let him make a general index of what he does in order and not alphabetically: By refering to this he may occasionally insert into the body of his work, whatever may have escaped his observation at the proper time: this too may be done upon the plan proposed above. In the first draught of a piece, of length more especially, it is expedient to be very negligent of the graces of language, or it will suffer in luxuriance of thought and arrangement: as Roscommon says,

Make then the proper use of each extreme,

And write with fury, but correct with phlegm.

Note—(j) Page 69.

WE have spoken above of the diversity of talents, and among other instances, of the disparity which appears in the faculty of memory. Though memory standing alone obtains but little respect, yet when united with nobler faculties it rises in value exceedingly. It does little of itself which we can admire, but enables the judgment, wit, or fancy, to effect wonders. Memory by recovering at will lost notions of our own or others, or facts, forms combinations, elicits truth, and creates poetry, eloquence, wit, or humour. By this faculty, as the hand-maid to others, was Dr. Johnson empowered with so much facility on a sudden to discuss a variety of points in writing or conversation. To the advantages obtained by memory in advancing life may sometimes be ascribed the great superiority in many cases observable in the proportionate powers of the boy and man. However, the power of effecting a purpose so far as it comes from memory is not genius; learning is not genius though most skilfully employed thereby.

Remarkable instances of nice discrimination in genius appear in the characteristic walk. Very distinct talents are exerted in the delineation of characters in a drama, an epistolary, and a narrative, work. How admirable, yet how different are the powers discovered by Shakespeare, Richardson, and Fielding? Yet their object was the same, [Page]though perhaps neither could have attained it by the means adopted by the rest. Shakespeare though so well able in words to represent the whole race of men exactly as they are, found it impossible to personate them upon the stage. He who acquitted himself to the astonishment of the world in the lofty sphere of dramatic writing, could yet fall short of excellence in the analagous, and humbler capacity, of a player. It is interesting to enquire what might be the effect of propagating the species through a long series of generations by the union of transcendent and congenial minds: the improvements made by culture in the strain of horses might warrant the experiment. Strength and swiftness are the faculties most esteemed in horses; in men, the intellectual powers: why then might not the consequent melioration in either case be proportionate? why might not a being ultimately be produced as far superior to the first of human creatures, as the first courser now at New-Market to the best known in Europe before the introduction of the breed of Arabia? Who can say that man is not capable of rising as far above Newton, Locke and Milton, as they stand above ordinary characters? As we find in the present state of things that some men can on a sudden accomplish more in the exercises of the mind than others with the most laborious study, why might not a brood of genius be obtained which should surpass as much every fortuitous production? Philosophers and mathematicians who when called upon should on the instant vie with the researches of Locke, or the schemes of Newton? Orators who should assume the vigor of Demosthenes and the grace of Tully? Poets like the bard of Paradise, ‘Utt'ring such dulcet and harmonious breath,’ As the heaven-sprung council of Pandemonium?

Note—(k) Page 70.

ALTHOUGH the business of congress will draw forth many accomplished orators yet much interruption of business is already occasioned by the number of speakers, and there will be more when the number shall increase. In the assembly of the states general in Holland, one half of the members only are allowed to speak and are [Page]forbidden to vote; those who vote do not speak. There is much wisdom in this institution: for a man may speak much better than another who shall decide more judiciously. This is the best mode of bringing into operation all the wisdom and eloquence of an assembly; and all the honesty and candor too; for a man will determine more impartially upon a question which he has neither supported nor opposed in debate. When the most eloquent speak and the wisest form an unbiassed decision the measure must be prudent.

Note—(l) Page [...].

SO much is the bulk of the English nation under the influence of silly prejudices with regard to the form of their government, that they were extremely enraged with the Americans because they too would not adopt erroneous principles. Having been long accustomed to be taxed and oppressed by a parliament in which the representatives of the fourteen hundredth part of the citizens had the greatest number of votes, and to be amused with the notion of a virtual representation said to be enjoyed by the rest, they wished to propagate this doctrine in the colonies. These however had been long blessed in the advantages of a real and substantial representation and disregarded the s [...]gared fallacy. It is strange indeed, that a representation should in either case be termed virtual which in England had at best only virtue enough to crush the people equally in every class, and in America not so much as this, because the modes of taxation would necessarily have been discriminated by local circumstances, and the parliament were to have determined where and how heavily the weight should fall. The haughtiness which has prevailed in England with respect to surrounding nations is well known and has arisen from the superiority of their government (bad as it is) over all those which heretofore existed among them, and from their consequent opulence and naval vigor. It is not therefore to be wondered at that America, in her colonial state, should have been considered merely as an appendage; as a tail to a mighty comet; and that she should have been deemed by every drunken boor, or boorish squire, no more than property which belonged to England. Well might so vain an imagination [Page]produce another vaine still, that a free, enlightened, spirited, nation could also be led to acknowledge itself in this degraded condition, and with arms in their hands submit to be taxed at the discretion, or rather indiscretion, of the country which had been abandoned in contempt of oppression. It is remarkable too that the New-England dissenters who were thus driven in the largest numbers into exile, became at [...] most instrumental in terminating the existence of that tyranny which was even extended across the Atlantic, and with it much of the power of Britain.

This even-handed justice

Commends th' ingredients of our poison'd chalice

To our own lips."

Both in England and America this insidious virtual representation could do no otherwise than throw the whole direction of a profligate parliament into the hands of an atrocious monarch. The truth is that the citizens of that country possess no powers of legislation; the whole of their vaunted freedom resides in their judicial system; how long that citadel shall be maintained it must be left to those to determine who are so deeply, so awfully concerned: and they will do well to enquire whether lord chief justice Mansfield notwithstanding his highly extolled judicial integrity, did not decide in favor of the king, in all causes between him and his subjects, as obsequiously as the detested Jefferies in the reign of the Stuarts, who had the infamous effrontry to boast that he was the first judge who had ever been able to put the life of an innocent Englishman into the hands of his prince. Slavery can best make her approaches under the mask of liberty: This knew Julius Caesar when he refused the proffered crown; and Augustus when he stood for the consulship. The English have just liberty enough at present to console and restrain them from outrage under the less of the rest; other nations of Europe having enjoyed none, seem at length resolved to obtain it complete; and the English without a revolution, will possibly be less free than any. It is notorious that the British king, like queen Ann, encourages those doctrines by the disgrace of which he reached the throne; [Page]and that the nation has no means of redress but a revolution, or a convention of the people for the purpose of equalising the representation, a reform which would itself be a revolution incomparably the best that kingdom ever knew. Many independent enlightened Englishmen (and no other, such is the dreadful influence of the crown) believe these things; and the wisdom and virtue of the people, even in the instances wherein they are found united, will form a formidable power whenever they shall be brought into full operation; great spirits still abound among them; and great indeed are those which resist the raging pestilence of royalty.

Note— [...]

GREAT as are the advantages which result from the art of printing, the invention of modern times, and though it is extremely instrumental in propagating a competent, or indispensible portion, of knowledge throughout a nation, yet may it very well prove unfriendly to that veneration for literature the propagation of which is so much to be desired, and, so far, diminish the ardor of the learned. Among the ancients great literacy excellence raised the character much higher than in modern times; this perhaps arose out of the paucity of books, and the rarity of men of learning: men are prone to admire what is far beyond their sphere, and what is seldom to be seen; smatterers on the contrary are usually vain, presumptuous and arrogant. Let wisdom be honored in her priests and the press will propagate her faith.

Note— [...]

SOUTHERN nations, it must not be denied, have in frequent instances been found deficient in firmness; and Alexander, in the full career of conquest, was occasionally resisted by the hardy character of the Mountaineer in burning climates. This however has not been owing to the direct influences of heat upon the human system, but to that voluptuous inaction which luxury induces and which invites slavery the the parent of timidity. Such baneful consequences, proceeding from [Page]a luxuriant soil and genial sun, may in great measure be controlled by the form of a government; but what shall come in aid of this, whether to improve it, or strengthen its operation, what so powerfully as literature. This will be more especially necessary to fortify and ennoble the character of a nation which is intended to be the guardian of its own territory without the usual advantages of discipline in standing armies.

Note— [...]

THE state of Massachusetts has had the glory of forming an institution of a singular and most benevolent nature. Instances of shipwreck having sometimes happened on her coast, the legislature, or some private society, has made provision along the shore for the reception of the unfortunate mariners. Let this be compared with the practice which is suffered to prevail in some bad governments of enticing the sailor, by false lights to his destruction, and we shall feel a thrill of gratitude to God that we are citizens of an empire which promises to remove all evils that are within the reach of remedy.

Note— [...]

IT is said that when an Indian has returned from his annual hunt of five or six months in the wildernesses, he is not tolerably satisfied unless he has brought with him four hundred deer skins. This must give a great opinion of abundance and facility in the two most essential necessaries of life; and for the third, fuel, there can seldom be a scarcity; new countries are usually covered with wood; and in old, [...], the fulness of population can supply fuel by means of [...]

END OF THE NOTES.

Information about this book

Title statement

A plea for literature: more especially the literature of free states. / By a member of the old Congress.

Beresford, Richard, 1755-1803.

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI :

Date

2011-05.

ID [DLPS]

N19321

ID [TCP]

N19321

ID [STC]

Evans 25162

ID [NOTIS]

APV5898

ID [IMAGE-SET]

25162

ID [EVANS-CITATION]

99001333

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This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 ; no. 25162.

Notes

(Evans-TCP ; no. N19321)

Transcribed from: (Readex Archive of Americana ; Early American Imprints, series I ; image set 25162)

Images scanned from Readex microprint and microform: (Early American imprints. First series ; no. 25162)

Source

— A plea for literature: more especially the literature of free states. / By a member of the old Congress., Beresford, Richard, 1755-1803..

Extent

[4], 119, [1] p. ; 19 cm.

Printed by Harrison & Bowen, no. 38, Bay.,. Charleston, South-Carolina: :: M,DCC,XCIII. [1793]. (Attributed to Richard Beresford by Evans.)

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