. All other professions press more immediately on the wants and
attentions of men, than the occupations of LITERARY CHARACTERS, who from
their habits are secluded; producing their usefulness often at a late
period of life, and not always valued by their own generation.

It is not the commercial character of a nation which inspires veneration
in mankind, nor will its military power engage the affections of its
neighbours. So late as in 1700 the Italian Gemelli told all Europe that he
could find nothing among us but our _writings_ to distinguish us from a
people of barbarians. It was long considered that our genius partook
of the density and variableness of our climate, and that we were
incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful
arts which have not yet travelled to us--as if Nature herself had designed
to disjoin us from more polished nations and brighter skies.

At length we have triumphed! Our philosophers, our poets, and our
historians, are printed at foreign presses. This is a perpetual victory,
and establishes the ascendancy of our genius, as much at least as the
commerce and the prowess of England. This singular revolution in the
history of the human mind, and by its reaction this singular revolution in
human affairs, was effected by a glorious succession of AUTHORS, who have
enabled our nation to arbitrate among the nations of Europe, and to
possess ourselves of their involuntary esteem by discoveries in science,
by principles in philosophy, by truths in history, and even by the graces
of fiction; and there is not a man of genius among foreigners who stands
unconnected with our intellectual sovereignty. Even had our country
displayed more limited resources than its awful powers have opened, and
had the sphere of its dominion been enclosed by its island boundaries, if
the same _national literary character_ had predominated, we should have
stood on the same eminence among our Continental rivals. The small cities
of Athens and of Florence will perpetually attest the influence of the
literary character over other nations. The one received the tribute of the
mistress of the universe, when the Romans sent their youth to be educated
at the Grecian city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheld
every polished European crowding to its little court.

In closing this imperfect work by attempting to ascertain the real
influence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice some
cu