ent man, in whose works 'the heart
speaks to the heart,' and whom Montesquieu called 'The Bee of France'." The
BACONS, the NEWTONS, and the LEIBNITZES were insulated by their own
creative powers, and stood apart from the world, till the dispersers of
knowledge became their interpreters to the people, opening a communication
between two spots, which, though close to each other, were long separated
--the closet and the world! The ADDISONS, the FONTENELLES, and the
FEYJOOS, the first popular authors in their nations who taught England,
France, and Spain to become a reading people, while their fugitive page
imbues with intellectual sweetness every uncultivated mind, like the
perfumed mould taken up by the Persian swimmer. "It was but a piece of
common earth, but so delicate was its fragrance, that he who found it, in
astonishment asked whether it were musk or amber. 'I am nothing but earth;
but roses were planted in my soil, and their odorous virtues have
deliciously penetrated through all my pores: I have retained the infusion
of sweetness, otherwise I had been but a lump of earth!'"

I have said that authors produce their usefulness in privacy, and that
their good is not of immediate application, and often unvalued by their
own generation. On this occasion the name of EVELYN always occurs to me.
This author supplied the public with nearly thirty works, at a time
when taste and curiosity were not yet domiciliated in our country; his
patriotism warmed beyond the eightieth year of his age, and in his dying
hand he held another legacy for his nation. EVELYN conveys a pleasing idea
of his own works and their design. He first taught his countrymen how to
plant, then to build: and having taught them to be useful _without doors_,
he then attempted to divert and occupy them _within doors_, by his
treatises on chalcography, painting, medals, libraries. It was during the
days of destruction and devastation both of woods and buildings, the civil
wars of Charles the First, that a solitary author was projecting to make
the nation delight in repairing their evil, by inspiring them with
the love of agriculture and architecture. Whether his enthusiasm was
introducing to us a taste for medals and prints, or intent on purifying
the city from smoke and nuisances, and sweetening it by plantations of
native plants, after having enriched our orchards and our gardens, placed
summer-ices on our tables, and varied even the salads of our country;
fu