s been distinguished. We may illustrate this by
the familiar use of the words ancient and modern, when applied to
poetry. What can be more inconsiderate or unjust than to compare a few
existing writers with the whole succession of their progenitors? The
delusion, from the moment that our thoughts are directed to it, seems
too gross to deserve mention; yet men will talk for hours upon poetry,
balancing against each other the words ancient and modern, and be
unconscious that they have fallen into it.

[26] See Ashe's _Travels in America_.

These observations are not made as implying a dissent from the belief
of my correspondent, that the moral spirit and intellectual powers of
this country are declining; but to guard against unqualified admiration,
even in cases where admiration has been rightly fixed, and to prevent
that depression which must necessarily follow, where the notion of the
peculiar unfavourableness of the present times to dignity of mind has
been carried too far. For in proportion as we imagine obstacles to exist
out of ourselves to retard our progress, will, in fact, our progress be
retarded. Deeming, then, that in all ages an ardent mind will be baffled
and led astray in the manner under contemplation, though in various
degrees, I shall at present content myself with a few practical and
desultory comments upon some of those general causes, to which my
correspondent justly attributes the errors in opinion, and the lowering
or deadening of sentiment, to which ingenuous and aspiring youth is
exposed. And first, for the heart-cheering belief in the perpetual
progress of the species towards a point of unattainable perfection. If
the present age do indeed transcend the past in what is most beneficial
and honourable, he that perceives this, being in no error, has no cause
for complaint; but if it be not so, a youth of genius might, it should
seem, be preserved from any wrong influence of this faith by an insight
into a simple truth, namely, that it is not necessary, in order to
satisfy the desires of our nature, or to reconcile us to the economy of
providence, that there should be at all times a continuous advance in
what is of highest worth. In fact it is not, as a writer of the present
day has admirably observed, in the power of fiction to portray in words,
or of the imagination to conceive in spirit, actions or characters of
more exalted virtue, than those which thousands of years ago have
existed upon earth,