and by them, statesmen recorded their laws, and the sages their maxims of wisdom.

The sentiments of one age being preserved for another by letters, each additional store enhanced the value of the former collection; for the errors of the earlier ages were corrected by the criticisms of the following; but their blessings did not become so generally diffused as they have been since the invention of printing which happened in a comparatively late age of the world.

It has been the object of some reasoners to decry letters, as giving an effeminacy to a people, particularly polite literature; but this reasoning is as amusing as that of the Roman knights at the supper of Lucullus, who, when revelling on a hundred dishes at the table of that luxurious epicure, discussed the flavor and nutritiousness of the primitive food of man, such as acorns, figs, roots, and berries, and decided that man in a state of nature was most happy.

Without stepping out of our way to describe the effect of letters upon past ages, or turning to the pages of those works which it could be proved had humanized the world, we can say, in general, that letters have been the most useful, the most glorious, and the most permanent monument of national greatness, to be found in the history of man.

They have been the most useful-for letters have assisted in advancing and in preserving the arts and sciences, as well as themselves, and in elevating the character of man.

They have been the most glorious and permanent ;— for while the great things of art have crumbled to dust, and ten thousand demi-gods have perished from off the earth, the letters of an early age have been pre

served; and whatever names are now to be found among the mighty and the wise of early time, come down to us embalmed in the literature of the age in which they lived, or in which their deeds were recorded. All the little princes and potentates of the Trojan and Grecian armies would have been no more known, if they had not been preserved in the Iliad, than the ancestors of Red Jacket, or those of Tecumseh. There were deeds of the aborigines of this country that had more of daring and prowess in them than can be found in the sack of Troy. Letters live longer than temples or monumental arches. The prayer of Solomon, at the dedication of the Temple, is still preserved in all its piety and sweetness, but the house of the Lord is demolished, and the angels who guarded it have ascended to their celestial abodes.

It is wiser, in the first place, to examine the history of our native language, and to ascertain, as far as is practicable, the treasures of knowledge we have in it; they are abundant and of great value. These treasures are ours by birthright; they were won by mental toil from age to age; preserved and improved by deep thinkers and patient reasoners, who were proud of their nation, and who scorned to have their tongues tied, even by their conquerors. Taste, philosophy, divinity, politics, and eloquence ask for nothing more than can be found in the English language. Should not the writers in English be our constant study?

Our language is indeed a modern one compared with some other living languages. Notwithstanding its copiousness, it is still a growing and improving language, and is yet susceptible of new beauties; but we deprecate a rage for changing that which is already so

admirable. Let us not be in haste to make it more copious. The English language has a singular origin, and one that shows more decidedly what the spirit of a people can effect silently and quietly, by the force of intellectual power, than that of any event in history.

The Saxon language was in general use in the Island of Great Britain in 1066, when the conquest of William of Normandy was effected. It was a copious and well constructed language, and had much more philosophy in it than that brought from Normandy; but the conqueror insisting on his right to change the language, as well as the laws of the people, had all his records and laws put into Norman French. The Saxon legends were now turned into Norman rhyme, and within a century after the conquest, a new language, made from the Saxon and Norman, had grown up to no inconsiderable character, which took the name of the English language. The Saxons had more invention and more sound philosophy than the Normans, and their mind was seen in this new and wonderful work most distinctly. Layman wrote some where between the years 1135 and 1180. His works show more than any other of his age, how far the new language had advanced towards its present excellence. In the course of the time from 1200 to 1300, the process of improvement was going on rapidly. There is extant a dialogue, written between this period, after Layman's time, between an owl and a nightingale, disputing for superiority. This, much more decidedly than the works of Layman, shows the great change which had taken place in the growth of our language.

In 1300, or thereabouts, Robert de Brunne wrote a history of England in metre. He composed tales in

verse.

He was a man of genius, a satirist, but not dese titute of tenderness, and was full of romance. Some of his works having been five hundred years in manuscript, have lately been printed for the gratification of the curious.

From 1300 to 1400-a century-was the reign of romances. The devotion of all classes to them was great as it is in the present day. Then, as now, they were paramount to all other literature. King Arthur, Richard Cœur de Lion, Amadis de Gaul, were subjects of romance. Young ladies learned to write for the sake of copying these works; and when printing was discovered, these works soon issued from the press as rapidly as possible. These romances were seen and read in the groves of learning as well as in the alcoves of taste and beauty, as the Waverley Novels now are found not only at the toilet of the reigning belle, but in the study of the grave statesman and solemn divine. Under proper directions this may not be an evil. When the soul is waked by all the tender strokes of art, the genius inspired by master touches of fancy, and the whole current of thought is elevated by the deep knowledge of human nature in these productions of the imagination, who can resist the desire to become acquainted with their contents? But this taste is sometimes found to degenerate to a cormorant appetite for the whole mass of fictions, of every hue and quality. This excess is full of evils, and as deleterious to the wholesome desire for knowledge, in a plain and honest form, as confectionary is to our natural desire for plain and succulent food to sustain our animal frames. This vitiated taste is to be deplored; but, to our comfort, it often happens that a surfeit cures what reason will not.

If these romances did not exactly grow out of the ages of chivalry, they were matured by them, and lasted until the wit of Cervantes had laughed them down, or the habits of man, as well as his manners, had changed. If these romances were the offsprings or the nurslings of chivalry, ours had no such origin or nursing; for although these fictions of ours grew up in an age of wonders, they did not, in most instances, relate to them directly or indirectly. The fictions of the present day owe their popularity to two causes; the first, the power of the genius and learning of the writers, for if not the first and most voluminous of these works, certainly one of the sweetest tales of the whole of the mass is Johnson's Rasselas. It was followed, after some length of time, by Godwin's St. Leon, Caleb Williams, and others of the same school; but it was reserved for Sir Walter Scott to become the legitimate sovereign of the world of fiction. To this throne he was elected and anointed by public opinion, and probably will hold his empire without a brother near him for some ages to come. The second cause of this universal passion for fiction, or novels founded on fact, (a sort of deceptive epithet, to cheat those who wish to become acquainted with history, and who have not the courage to sit down and study it,) is the general appetite for reading, now so distinctly abroad in England and this country; and which, instead of being regulated and directed to particular objects, is desultory and miscellaneous, as we have before remarked. The progress in the arts, and the multiplicity of inventions of labor-saving machines, have given leisure to millions, who in former days devoted themselves principally to industrious methods for producing clothing or food.