Such are the cultivators of knowledge, who are rarely authors, but who are often, however, contributing to the works of others; and without whose secret labours the public would not have possessed many valued ones: that delightful instruction which these men are constantly offering to authors and to artists, flows from their silent but uninterrupted cultivation of literature and the arts, and constitutes more particularly their province.

When Robertson, after his successful History of Scotland, was long irresolute in his designs, and still unpractised in that curious research which habitually occupies these men of letters, his admirers had nearly lost his popular productions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. BIRCH enabled him to open the clasped books, and to drink of the sealed fountains. RoBERTSON has confessed his inadequate knowledge, and his overflowing gratitude, in letters which I have elsewhere printed. A suggestion by a man of letters has opened the career of many an aspirant; a hint from WALSH conveyed

a new conception of English poetry to one of its masters. The celebrated treatise of GROTIUS On

on

"Peace and War" was projected by PEIRESC. It was said of MAGLIABECHI, who knew all books, and never wrote one, that by his diffusive communications he was in some respect concerned in all the great works of his times. Sir ROBERT COTTON greatly assisted CAMDEN and SPEED; and that hermit of literature, BAKER of Cambridge, was ever supplying with his invaluable researches Burnet, Kennet, Hearne, and Middleton. Such is the concealed aid which these men of letters afford our authors, and which we may compare to those subterraneous streams, which, flowing into spacious lakes, are, though unobserved, enlarging the waters which attract the public eye.

Count DE CAYLUS, celebrated for his collections, and for his generous patronage of artists, has given the last touches to this picture of the man of letters, with all the delicacy and warmth of a self-painter.

"His glory is confined to the mere power which he has of being one day useful to letters and to

the arts; for his whole life is employed in collecting materials of which learned men and artists make no use till after the death of him who amassed them. It affords him a very sensible pleasure to labour in hopes of being useful to those who pursue the same course of studies, while there are so great a number who die without discharging the debt which they incur to society."

Such a man of letters appears to have been the late Lord WOODHOUSELEE: Mr. Mackenzie, returning from his lordship's literary retirement, meeting Mr. Alison, finely said, that "he hoped he was going to Woodhouselee; for no man could go there without being happier, or return from it without being better."

Shall we then hesitate to assert, that this class of literary men forms an useful, as well as a select order in society? We see that their leisure is not idleness, that their studies are not unfruitful for the public, and that their opinions, purified from passions and prejudices, are always the soundest in the nation; they are counsellors whom states

men 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, how 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 letter written by this MAN OF LETTERS, was even respected by a political power which, acknowledging no other rights, paid a voluntary tribute to science and to literature.

CHAPTER XXII.

LITERARY OLD AGE STILL LEARNING-INFLUENCE OF LATE STUDIES IN LIFE-OCCUPATIONS 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.