cords of truth in the archives of heaven, with which, if your hearts were not already open for the relief of the innocents, I might powerfully enforce their plea. Ye shall be recompensed-for these, indeed, cannot recompense you— but you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

No. IV.

A DISCOURSE

Upon the Importance of Literature to our Country, pronounced at Cambridge, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society: 1807.

THE importance of Literature to our country, is the subject which, with much hesitation, I have ventured to select for that part of the customary exercises of this day, which the committee of appointments has confided to my care. It is a subject, for which every enlightened mind feels an instinctive affection, And on ground, where the Muses have long held a favourite resort; at this season of the celebration of our annual Panathenæa; before a Society professedly literary in its character and pursuits, may I not flatter myself that it is a subject which no one will condemn as unappropriate or uninteresting. When I consider its greatness and its extent, I am prompted by diffidence to pauseand should turn with timidity from the course before me, did I not know that candour is always the presiding virtue of this festive week; did I not feel that I am speaking before brothers, whose bosoms are replete with that affection for each other, which views even failings with an indulgent eye.

The power of letters to soften the manners and refine the sentiments of a people, has attracted the notice of every investigator of the causes of national character. As far as history and observation furnish us with lights, we discover satisfactorily, that they are friendly to good feelings and elevated thoughts, to correct opinions and generous deeds. The barbarity of savage nature is softened, heroism is cherished, vice loses at leas: its boldness and its grossness, public spirit is purified, and love is refined, wherever the influence of correct literature is felt. What softened the manners of the originally barbarous Gaul? The enterprizes of war called him to the regions where the Muses had dwelt. He saw at Byzantium the monuments of art. He breathed in Asia the air which came over Parnassus. He returned to his country, where the light of literature was beginning to dawn, and from that time the manners of his country began to be refined. It is unnecessary for me to point you to the quick sensibility, the enlightened elegance, the humanity, and the polished delicacy of Athens; and contrast them with the roughness and barbarity of some of her neighbouring States. I need not recall to your remembrance the lofty honour, the public spirit, the manly virtues of Rome, when she clothed herself with the splendour of literature and the arts; and contrast

them with her ferocity under her earliest chiefs, or with her sluggishness and imbecility under her last emperors. Upon this part of our subject the annals of the world are replete with examples and lessons of experience. They generally, if not invariably, exhibit barbarism connected with ignorance, and letters with refinement. We may derive from them ample and impressive testimony, that, as far as manners depend upon human means, the best feelings of humanity are unfolded, and the highest elevation of character attained, not amidst the confusion and carnage of fields of war, nor the confounding din of domestic contention, but in the mild seasons of peace, under the benign influence of Pallas and the Muses.

I am aware it may be observed that ages of literary excellence have sometimes been ages of extreme dissoluteness. There is truth in the remark. The fact has arisen from the infelicity of our present condition. In the same bright sunshine which is favourable to the choicest vegetation, weeds will be rank and numerous. It had indeed been happy for Greece and Rome, if, when letters freed them from the vices of barbarism, a pure and efficacious religion might have freed them from the vices of refinement. But let not the failings of a luxurious age be attributed to the spirit of literature, merely because they have been found together. Licentiousness has sometimes attached itself to liberty; and persecution has been found in company with the religion of peace. We are to look elsewhere, than to the expansion of 'man's mental powers, for the causes of the voluptuousness and vice, which may have tarnished the glory of his highest literary attainments. In the distinguished reign of Charles II. whose manners have given poignancy to the cavil we are noticing, the human mind bounded suddenly from the repellant point of superstitious rigour, to which it had been unnaturally forced and confined, to the opposite extreme. While it vibrated, there was indeed a triumph of dissoluteness: but when Literature recollected herself, and arose in her vigour to regulate its movements, the profligacy of Greatness was abashed, the temerity of Vice was restrained, the absurdities of Ignorance were exposed, the presumption of Folly, and the venality of Littleness were corrected, and the nation was gradually prepared to listen to the instructions, and pride itself in the name of that pre-eminent votary of Wisdom, whose writings at once breathed the purest spirit of morality, and were surrounded with the brighest splendour of literature.

Pass we from the influence of letters upon manners, to what is not less important to a people, and we trust will never be less dear to Americans, their influence upon the interests of religion. And is it asserting too much to say, that between religion and letters there is a reciprocal service? Let us look at the ages in which that pure and gracious religion which came down from heaven had its glory obscured; its efficacy manacled, and the beauties of its form marred by distortion, or covered with the drapery of absurdity. They were the ages of midnight darkness; the ages in which man seems to have forgotten that he possessed a mind; the ages in which learning, disgusted with the general apathy, retired to the cloister, and slumbered unnoticed amidst the poppies and night-shade which Stupidity there cultivated with leaden perseverance, persuaded by Superstition that they were "herbs of grace." Let us look at the defenders of this religion, the noble champions who have gone before her, bearing the shields which have repelled, and

blunted and broken the shafts with which her adversaries assailed her. They stood indeed in the spirit of their God. But they brought successfully to her aid the force of improved reason, and were strong in the fruits of their learned researches. The very light of that stupendous reformation which restored to Christianity its purity and freedom, was preceded at its dawn, and facilitated in its progress, by the revival of letters. And it has been the opinion of many eminent divines, among whom, if I mistake not, we may reckon the late excellent professor of divinity in this university, that, ordinarily speaking, the arts of civilization and improvements of the mind will best open the way for the extension of this light into savage lands. Such indeed is the constitution of man, so fine are the powers of association, and so indissoluble the links of the mysterious chain which connects all his faculties with each other, that a cultivated taste and improved understanding, an acquaintance with the perfections of nature and the beauties and sublimities of art, prepare his mind to admire the harmonies of moral science, and to venerate the greatness of truth. It is a high and important office of our holy religion to check the pride and prevent the abuses of science; to subject all human attainments to the wisdom of God. But.she disdains not the aid of those noble faculties with which the beings are distinguished, to whom she is sent, nor of the acquirements which are placed within their reach.

"Proximos illi tamen occupavit
Pallas honores."

Biblical knowledge may correct and confirm her ancient records. Eloquence may be the most successful instrument in impressing her instructions upon the mind, and conveying the balm of her consolations to the heart. And sound principles of criticism and taste are, under heaven, efficacious means to preserve her votaries from the fantastic forms of superstition on the one hand, and the wild reveries of fanaticism on the other. Could it be supposed thaf in this enlightened country there are any who question the utility of learning to religion, and with a spirit worthy of Omar would exclude the powers of genius and literature from her service, we would point them to the dark ages, and to many an unhappy region, in which ignorance and superstition are found wedded together, and the best virtues of humanity dead at their feet. To these ages and regions let our country look; and, as she values the blessing of a pure religion, she will estimate anew and more highly the importance of our seats of learning, and consider it as a leading duty of national wisdom to promote, by all practicable means, the cultivation of the minds of her citizens. Besides this general influence of literature upon manners and religion, its aid is important in the formation of the statesman, and embellishment of the hero. It inspires and cherishes that love of glory, which is favourable to the production of brilliant and useful characters; and the keys are in its keeping of many of the sources of that liberal feeling and superior information, which frees men from the confinement of contracted views, and raises them above the influence of narrow considerations. A knowledge of the opinions of the wise of all ages, an acquaintance with the experience of nations under different forms of government, an enlarged perception of the nature and operation of human passions, correct principles of criticism and reasoning, an intimacy with the purest models of political wisdom and patriotic spirit, ability to bring

the treasures of language to the illustration and defence of truth, and that magic power of eloquence, which in Cicero could detect and confound the enemies of the commonwealth; and in Demosthenes could rouse from their delusions the slumbering citizens; which in Chatham could gather glory around a British senate, in the day of its feeblest policy; and in Ames could control a whirlwind of passions at the moment when it would have prostrated in its maddening course the venerable father and the peace of his country; these high attainments, which alone can qualify men to be entrusted with the care of their country's prosperity and fame, are most of them found, and all of them improved, in the walks to which learning conducts her sons. They are not innate: nor can it be supposed that they spring up to the hands of the husbandman in the furrows of his plough; or descend unsolicited upon the savage, through the shades of his forest. They are the gifts of Minerva, to the assiduous votaries of her temple; and the people are wise, who discern their value and give scope to their influence. The æra of a nation's greatest glory is generally the æra of its greatest literary splendour. The most brilliant age of royalty was that of Louis the Fourteenth, when literature and the arts gave a lustre to the reign which was scarcely surpassed by the glory of that monarch's arms. Of republican felicity, where shall we find a more interesting picture than Florence exhibited, when the love of letters was the pride of her chief citizens, and the offices of state were filled with men of genius and learning. Greece, with whose name is associated in the scholar's mind the claim of transcendant refinement; Greece was at the acme of her glory when the letters and the arts poured the brightest beams of their powers upon her states. And the conqueror of Greece, the mistress of the world, rose not to the complete ascendancy of her superiority, till she had appropriated to herself, not only the territories, but the spirit and literature of the nation she had subdued. Pale, then, as the beams of the waning moon in the light of day, was Grecian splendour, when in full orbed majesty Rome stood at her zenith, attracting by the combined effulgence of letters and her arms, the admiration of genius and the homage of the world. But with the declension of this effulgence her greatness declined, and Rome, it is an observation of the great English poet, worthy for the instruction of nations, to be graven upon the last stone of her ruins:

"One age saw both learning fall and Rome."

The invention of the art of printing has introduced a new agent upon the character and fortunes of nations. A free press is esteemed, in this country, the palladium of our liberty and dearest privileges. Well regulated, it may have claim to this high estimation. But a freedom to perpetuate falsehood, licentiousness and malignity, without restraint, is the unhappy and dangerous freedom of reprobate spirits. The interference of law is here difficult; and has frequently been found dubious and ineffectual. The best guardians of the press are good sense and a cultivated taste in the people; and writers, who have imbibed at the high sources of intelligence a spirit of manly virtue and correct opinion. There is ever in republics a subtle adversary to national happiness, by which the utility of the press is often prostituted or impeded. It is the monster faction. Of base spirit, groveling, yet ambitious, it finds its way into the happiest regions, in the form of an angel of light. In the hour

of tranquillity and sleep it plants itself by the public ear, forging illusions for the fancy, and inspiring venom to taint the animal spirits. The work of this fiend is destruction-destruction of the virtue and happiness which its own restlessness, envy, and malignity will not suffer it to endure. Among the most vigilant and successful spirits which heaven has sent to detect and confound this foe to public prosperity, is high-born satire. With its spear it touches the monster, and

"Up he starts

...... In his own shape Discovered."

This dread corrector of faction and folly is bred in the regions of Pieria. And fastidious in the consciousness of superiority, it seldom vouchsafes to appear where letters are neglected. When it comes in its dignity and power, when it acts upon passions which God has implanted, and is actuated by motives which God will approve, when it aims to rouse the fear of shame and the love of glory to the aid of truth, virtue, and the public good, it is at once the boldest asserter of the Press's freedom, and the firmest protector of its utility.

By ignorance, as well as faction, this new and important agent upon the interests of nations may be impeded. It is an enlightened Press that is a national blessing. Unless it be wise, in vain will it be free. With the aid of Learning and Genius, it may cherish in our country the spirit of Freedom, and promote her happiness and renown by the diffusion of knowledge and refinement. Without their aid it can give neither wisdom to her citizens, nor celebrity to her characters.

But who loves his country? Would he have her honourable and happy only while he spends in her lustre his own short life? Would he have her great and renowned only in the transient period which is generally allotted to national existence? The genuine patriot wishes for his country a present and a posthumous fame, he would have her heroes admired, her statesmen reverenced, her glory celebrated, her example quoted in far distant ages. If the period must arrive, when she shall bow to the common fate of empires, he would have the places of her departed glory frequented with a generous sadness by the geniuses of future times, and her very dust venerated by the traveller, who in remotest ages shall pass by her tomb. And what but letters and the arts can confer on our country this unperishable renown? Rome owes more to her letters than to her arms The latter without the former

The arts which she fostered

would not have given immortality to her name. have embalmed the proudest memorials of her glory; and Time views with increasing awe those relics of her greatness, which her Muses have taught him to venerate. Our country in no other way can perpetuate the memory of her renown. Her great men are mortal. Her existence is perishable. The gratitude of her citizens does not demand, and the economy of her government does not afford, monuments of brass or marble for the bones of her worthies. To her poets and historians we must confide the care of embalming her celebrity. It is in the pyramids, which her sons of genius must build, that the knowledge of her greatness and the fame of her heroes shall be preserved for ages.

There are obstructions to the progress of literature and the fine arts, which it will not be foreign to our purpose to notice, and every lover of letters and