ion. They are counsellors whom statesmen may consult;
fathers of genius to whom authors and artists may look for aid, and
friends of all nations; for we ourselves have witnessed, during a war of
thirty years, that the MEN OF LETTERS in England were still united with
their brothers in France. The abode of Sir JOSEPH BANKS was ever open to
every literary and scientific foreigner; while a wish expressed or a
communication written by this MAN OF LETTERS, was even respected by a
political power which, acknowledging no other rights, paid a voluntary
tribute to the claims of science and the privileges of literature.

CHAPTER XXII.

Literary old age still learning.--Influence of late studies in life.--
Occupations in advanced age of the literary character.--Of literary men
who have died at their studies.

The old age of the literary character retains its enjoyments, and usually
its powers--a happiness which accompanies no other. The old age of
coquetry witnesses its own extinct beauty; that of the "used" idler is
left without a sensation; that of the grasping Croesus exists only to envy
his heir; and that of the Machiavel who has no longer a voice in the
cabinet, is but an unhappy spirit lingering to find its grave: but for the
aged man of letters memory returns to her stores, and imagination is still
on the wing amidst fresh discoveries and new designs. The others fall like
dry leaves, but he drops like ripe fruit, and is valued when no longer on
the tree.

The constitutional melancholy of JOHNSON often tinged his views of human
life. When he asserted that "no man adds much to his stock of knowledge,
or improves much after forty," his theory was overturned by his own
experience; for his most interesting works were the productions of a very
late period of life, formed out of the fresh knowledge with which he had
then furnished himself.

The intellectual faculties, the latest to decline, are often vigorous in
the decrepitude of age. The curious mind is still striking out into new
pursuits, and the mind of genius is still creating. ANCORA IMPARO!--"Even
yet I am learning!" was the concise inscription on an ingenious device of
an old man placed in a child's go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it, which,
it is said, Michael Angelo applied to his own vast genius in his ninetieth
year. Painters have improved even to extreme old age: West's last works
were his best, and Titian was greatest on the verge of his century.
Poussi