alone competent to render the work immortal; and they are to be propi. tiated by the solicitation of none but accomplished scholars. To the voice of none but those, who are deeply versed in the belles lettres, and practised in composition, and who have studied language as a science, no less than an instrument of power, will they condescend to listen.

But of such ripe scholars, and disciplined writers, our country has but few. Were I to say it has none, perhaps I would not do violence to truth. Nor will the case be otherwise, until criticism, taste, and the art of composition shall be more ably and thoroughly taught in our seats of learning, than they are now; and until we shall have a class of scholars and writers by profession.

And such should be the state of things, at the present moment. In our colleges and universities, the use of our mother tongue, in all its correctness and refinement, its application and powers, should be faithfully and thoroughly inculcated. It is not enough that our educated men are able to think, and talk, and speak in public. They should be able also to write like scholars. They should understand our language philosophically, and be competent to use it grammatically and classically.

Americans think, invent, and reason, as well, at least, in some respects, better, than any other people. They are, moreover, unsurpassed, I think, unequalled, in fluency, fire, and force, of public speaking. They have a native aptitude for eloquence, and are, many of them, able and adroit in debate. But, for want of practice, they are not disciplined, polished, and graceful writers. In them, the tongue, rather than the pen, is, as yet, the conductor of the lightning of genius. They write for the present, rather than the future; for cotemporaries, not for posterity. Foreigners whom they could easily overthrow, in extempore debate, surpass them in writing. To this fact my attention, when abroad, has been often attracted. I have found many Europeans dull in conversation, and weak in argument, who had, notwithstanding, written very creditable, some of them, very excellent books.

Of this the reason is obvious. The individuals referred to were disciplined in writing. Some of them were writers by profession. Let Americans pursue the same course, and they will arrive triumphantly at the same result. They will soon have a literature of their own, unsurpassed by any other on earth. Their own heroes, statesmen, orators, and institutions, will live in their own history, and poetry, the pride and glory of their own times, and a bright and instructive example to future ages. When, in coming centuries, the wisest of sages, the most renowned of heroes, the most resplendent orators, and classical learning of the highest standard, shall be spoken of, in terms of admiration and eulogy, the human mind will turn instinctively to the country of Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, and their future compatriots.

Shall I be still told that we have not yet reached the period of fine writing in the United States? that we are not able to maintain a class of writers by profession? and that, at best, fine writing is a luxury, rather than a matter of necessity or usefulness? I reply, that each of these alle gations is unfounded.

The inhabitants of the United States are much more intellectual, cul tivated, and refined, than those of many other places, where polite litera

ture is prized and cherished. There is no reason, therefore, on the score of a want of intelligence and taste, why they should not also prize and cherish it. If I am not mistaken, the imputation of such a want, would be highly offensive to them.

That twelve millions of people, in prosperous circumstances, very many of them abounding in wealth, are unable to maintain a class of men to strengthen, decorate, and delight their intellects, is a position so preposterous, as to be unworthy of refutation. Theatres, concert and dancing assembly-rooms, watering places, public gardens and walks, expensive and elegant, steamboats and carriages, as vehicles for pleasurable excursions, fashionable milliners and mantuamakers, mercers and taylors, pastrycooks, confectioners, and soda-water and syrup-shops, can be, not barely maintained, but munificently patronized and rewarded by us, in fifties, hundreds, and thousands, as every section of our country testifies. To pretend, then, that we are unable to maintain a few authors by profession, who would be content to subsist on plain fare, and live in humble dwellings, is, I repeat, an allegation so preposterous, as to be unworthy of an answer. It carries along with it its own refutation. The truth is, we have the means, in abundance, but lack the disposition. We are more inclined to decorate our persons, and to gratify our propensities for mere pleasure and amusement, than to embellish our minds, and cultivate a taste for polite literature. Nor is this the most humiliating truth that may be told. There exists among us a much higher relish for a paragraph of common news-paper political or even personal slander, than for a page of elegant belles lettres composition. The latter is a cordial only for the few, while the former is meat and drink for the million.

As respects the insinuation, that fine writing is a matter of mere fancy, and useless in effect, what has been already stated of the importance of authorship, is amply sufficient to expose its fallacy.

In another point of view, polite literature is altogether invaluable. It purifies the morals, refines the taste, and elevates the tone and standing of society. Grossness, dissipation, and debauchery fly from it, as savagism retreats, when civilization advances. By furnishing the mind with delightful employment, which is always accessible, it prevents idleness, which is not only a ground of unhappiness, but a fountain of vice. By producing, moreover, a literature of our own, to which other nations might look, for that instruction and pleasure, which we have, heretofore, derived from them, it would complete our independence, and remove forever the last pretext for the charge against us of inferiority of intellect.

On every ground, then, the art of composition should be patronized and promoted. In our schools of instruction it should be faithfully and ably taught, as the highest branch of a liberal education. The more effectually to recommend it, by uniting motives of passion and considerations of pride to those of usefulness and personal reward, it should be regarded as a polite and gentlemanly accomplishment, constituting a line of demarcation between refined and vulgar literature. And from a class of ripe scholars, and professional writers, its fruits should be purchased, at a generous price, as the genuine elements of national glory, and the only source of that renown, which, far from diminishing, or impairing, in its lustre, time itself shall confirm and brighten.

The following conveys an important lesson, to the truth of which no person is more ready to subscribe, than myself. No one knows, what is in himself, till circumstances operate to put the slumbering faculties in action. Let the lazy, who lay the unction to their souls, that they are geniuses, read, and digest what follows. Byron was burnt up, not altogether by voluptuousness or gin. He had an unequalled power, of intense concentration of his thoughts; and this labor, with the friction of these vile stimulants, prematurely wore out the frane. Byron himself, generally quoted by the indolent, as a precedent of inspired and intuitive attainment, probably labored harder in his productions, than any of the writers of his day.-[ED.

LITERARY INDUSTRY.

"For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose."

Castle of Indolence.

PRODUCTIONS of acknowledged superiority, especially in the literary world, are commonly attributed to the genius of the author. Men are mutually jealous, and therefore disposed to believe, that he who has attained uncommon excellence, owes it rather to the favor of nature, than to any effort of his own. Hence, remarkable success, in the walks of letters and science, is, in the estimation of many, attendant only on superior faculties. This opinion, however general, is, I am convinced, erroneous. It is not more unfavorable to the ambition of ordinary mortals, than inconsistent with the known progress of the human understanding. That progress is a succession of improvements; and the highest literary performance is achieved, not by the original powers merely, but, by those strengthened by exercise, and aided by the acquisitions of labor and method. The largest portion of artificial attainments may consist with a very limited intellect. We can, therefore, never know to what degree of excellence an uncultivated mind may attain, or how much of what we call genius is buried, like metallic ore, in the unworked mine. In this sense only do I understand the poet, when he speaks of those among the tenants of the village churchyard, whose hearts were

Or, who might

-Once pregnant with celestial fire,

-Have waked to ecstacy the living lyre."

For he subsequently adds, that

"Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll."

On the other hand, we can as little know when superior excellence is exhibited, what portions of it must be respectively assigned to the arts of cultivation, or the gifts of nature. The successful performance is not placed before us till it is disconnected from all the artificial help by which it was accomplished. The simple result we know, but the "viginti annoTum lucubrationes" are neither visible nor tangible. We are not interested to trace the progress of the individual, nor is it always possible. In

deed, of all the exercises of judgment, perhaps the most difficult is to discriminate in the operations of a cultivated mind, between those which are the results of the natural powers only, and those which involve also the acquisitions of labor. This difficulty is so great, that the thoughtless multitude frequently bestow that praise on the splendor of genius which is due only to the diligence of industry.-There exist, doubtless, many gradations in the original constitution of the human mind, ascending from the stupor of idiocy to the flashings of intuition. Yet, who can believe that the strongest and quickest intellect could accomplish any one of those works now thought monuments of literary genius, without the additional strength acquired by exercising its faculties, and without that knowledge which vigilant industry only can confer?

The mind capable of such efforts is not the original creation of nature, but changed and improved by the arts of cultivation. Such change and improvement, though in different degrees, may be made in the meanest capacity. Who then can tell, however remote now from superior distinction, to what heights of ambition he may hereafter ascend?

Distinction in literature, more than in any other subject, is founded on acquired talents. Taste, one of the most valuable literary qualifications, is in its refined state wholly artificial. It relates not merely to a knowledge of the modes of thought and habit of action in the living generation, but to whatever is delicate in sentiment, cultivated in language, or beautiful in imagery, whether exhibited in ages past, or referred to the opinions of those to come. Judgment is another quality necessary to iverary men. Without it in the choice of subjects and the mode of illustration, a writer may waste abilities of the highest order in unavailing efforts. This, with other faculties, even imagination itself, are improved by that species of exercise, which we take in the acquisition of learning and the scrutiny of criticism.

That study and labor have been the only means by which any thing great or durable, in letters and science, was ever accomplished, is a proposition sustained, I think, by all observation of what is, and all record of what is past. If the secret history of the most celebrated compositions in English literature could be faithfully exhibited, it would afford an interesting and instructive commentary on what is commonly denominated the inspiration of genius. Paradise Lost, the great model of poetic excellence, was not the spontaneous effort of unaided intellect, but the work of much labor and various learning; nor was it a hasty and unamended production; but originally conceived in the dramatic form, was subsequently changed to that in which it now appears, corrected on revisal, and enriched by the fruits of long meditation.

Pope was remarkably precocious; and if any one could be supposed beyond the necessity of art and industry, it should be the person who

"While yet a child, ere yet a fool to fame,

He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.”

Yet even he brought to the aid of genius all that could be derived from the "limæ labor" and the severity of study. His manuscript of the Iliad, deposited in the Harleian Library, is rendered almost illegible by repeated corrections. Each phrase was selected with circumspection, and

the finest passages written in various forms, and modulated with assiduous care. The same may be remarked of all the works which he left to posterity. Johnson, the chief of prose writers, gave some remarkable instances of readiness in composition; yet, he also was laborious in research and accurate in investigation; nor is it easy to conceive that the vast learning he possessed was obtained without habits of intense application and uncommon study. His Dictionary is the monument of an industry, which is now seldom exhibited in the accomplishment of any object. The Letters of Junius were, we know from his own declarations, the work of great labor. The same result would, I am convinced, attend an investigation into the history of nearly all the models of excellence in writing. Eloquence, it is generally supposed, is confined altogether by nature; yet, all we know of the life and character of those, who in times past possessed most of it, is illustrative of the universal law, that superior eminence can be attained only by superior diligence. Even the vivid, ingenious, and imaginative Sheridan, left society and pleasure to elaborate in solitude, what he would have the world believe, flashed forth like the lights of the North, from its own exuberance. The examples to which I have here referred, are those in which genius is admitted to have shone with peculiar and unmixed splendor; but even in them, it was not the predominating influence; the learning which study had accumulated, and the strength which long and laborious exercise had conferred upon the faculties, entered far more than the original powers of the intellect, into the composition of those works which have transmitted the name and memory of their authors to other times and other generations. If such has been the necessity of labor to acknowledged genius, who would be ashamed of it? We owe to it most of what is excellent or admirable in human productions, and without it

"Those starry lights of virtue, that diffuse

Through the dark depths of time, their vivid flame,
Had all been lost, with such as have no name."

The applause posterity has given them was not the victory of intuition, but of patient thought and wearisome industry. The laurel they wear grew on no untilled soil; it sprung not up till labor and skill and learning had quickened its existence, and natured its strength.

There is a strong tendency in the west, to prefer the unassisted energies of nature, in literary efforts, to the refinements of culture, and the restrictions of rule. Learning is frequently thought idle, and criticism little. This feeling springs from a principle of independent action, noble and just in the abstract, but inapplicable to the pursuits of literature. They are the growth of artificial life; nor can even genius, without the discipline of labor and the observance of rule, hope to be distinguished in them. Great abilities, it is true, may accomplish much without the aid of either; but in what instance could they not have done more with it? The rose is beautiful in its native wood, but its hues are richer, and its foliage more exuberant, when reared on the terrace, and sustained by the hand of cultivation. I do not mean to say that art can supply the deficiencies of nature, or that he who is destitute of intellect, can by any industry attain the summits of literary fame. The contrary is most obvious: but how