t be
ascertained, when the soul is searched into, that they are only an
auxiliary motive to exertion, never the principal or originating force.
If this be too much to expect from a youth who, I take for granted,
possesses no ordinary endowments, and whom circumstances with respect to
the more dangerous passions have favoured, then, indeed, must the noble
spirit of the country be wasted away; then would our institutions be
deplorable, and the education prevalent among us utterly vile and
debasing.

But my correspondent, who drew forth these thoughts, has said rightly,
that the character of the age may not without injustice be thus branded.
He will not deny that, without speaking of other countries, there is in
these islands, in the departments of natural philosophy, of mechanic
ingenuity, in the general activities of the country, and in the
particular excellence of individual minds, in high stations civil or
military, enough to excite admiration and love in the sober-minded, and
more than enough to intoxicate the youthful and inexperienced. I will
compare, then, an aspiring youth, leaving the schools in which he has
been disciplined, and preparing to bear a part in the concerns of the
world, I will compare him in this season of eager admiration, to a
newly-invested knight appearing with his blank unsignalized shield, upon
some day of solemn tournament, at the court of the Faery-queen, as that
sovereignty was conceived to exist by the moral and imaginative genius
of our divine Spenser. He does not himself immediately enter the lists
as a combatant, but he looks round him with a beating heart, dazzled by
the gorgeous pageantry, the banners, the impresses, the ladies of
overcoming beauty, the persons of the knights, now first seen by him,
the fame of whose actions is carried by the traveller, like merchandize,
through the world, and resounded upon the harp of the minstrel. But I am
not at liberty to make this comparison. If a youth were to begin his
career in such an assemblage, with such examples to guide and to
animate, it will be pleaded, there would be no cause for apprehension;
he could not falter, he could not be misled. But ours is,
notwithstanding its manifold excellences, a degenerate age; and recreant
knights are among us far outnumbering the true. A false Gloriana in
these days imposes worthless services, which they who perform them, in
their blindness, know not to be such; and which are recompensed by
rewards a