chair in which he composed part of his Seasons was produced, and appears to have communicated some of the raptures to which he was liable who had sat in that chair: RABELAIS, among his drollest inventions, could not have imagined that his old cloak would have been preserved in the university of Montpellier for future doctors to wear on the day they took their degree; nor could SHAKESPEARE, that the mulberry tree which he planted would have been multiplied into relics. But in such instances the feeling is right, with a wrong direction; and while the populace are exhausting their emotions on an old tree, an old chair, and an old cloak, they are paying that involuntary tribute to genius which forms its pride, and will generate the race.

CHAPTER XXV.

PROFESSIONS RISE OR DECLINE IN PUBLIC ESTEEM ACCORDING TO THE EXIGENCIES OF THE TIMES -NATIONAL TASTES A SOURCE OF LITERARY PREJUDICES-TRUE GENIUS ALWAYS THE ORGAN OF ITS NATION-MASTER-WRITERS PRESERVE THE DISTINCT NATIONAL CHARACTER-GENIUS THE ORGAN OF THE STATE OF THE AGE-CAUSES OF ITS SUPPRESSION IN A PEOPLE OFTEN INVENTED, BUT NEGLECTED-THE NATURAL GRADATIONS OF GENIUS- -MEN OF GENIUS PRODUCE THEIR USEFULNESS IN PRIVACY-THE PUBLIC MIND IS NOW THE CREATION OF THE PUBLIC WRITER-POLITICIANS AFFECT TO DENY THIS PRINCIPLEAUTHORS STAND BETWEEN THE GOVERNORS AND THE GOVERNED-A VIEW OF THE SOLITARY AUTHOR IN HIS STUDY-THEY CREATE AN EPOCH IN HISTORY-INFLUENCE OF POPULAR AUTHORS THE IMMORTALITY OF THOUGHT-THE FAMILY OF GENIUS ILLUSTRATED BY THEIR GENEALOGY.

Of the various professions or avocations in society, it is remarkable that each rises or declines in public esteem according to the exigencies of the

times: ere we had vanquished the fleets of our rivals, the naval hero was the popular character; while the military, from the political jealousy of standing armies, was invariably lowered; and as Mr. Gifford, with his accustomed keenness of spirit, has detected, became "the indispensable vice of every novel." The public feeling is now reversed. The medical and the legal professions are not placed so high in the scale of honour abroad, as they are in our country; so relative is the public regard of the professional character. The commercial character in this country was long considered as the money agent of the distressed noble; while the trading interest was long viewed with jealous eyes by the "Freeholder." Banks and loans, by combining commercial influence with political power, elevated the mercantile character. All professions however press more immediately on the wants and attentions of men than the occupations of the literary character, which, from its habits, is secluded; producing its usefulness often at a late period of life, and not always valued by its own generation. Literary fame, which is

the sole preserver of all other fame, participates little and remotely in the remuneration and the honours of professional characters.

But the commercial prosperity of a nation inspires no 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; incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful arts which had not yet travelled to us, and 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, on human

affairs, was not effected by our merchants profiting over our neighbours by superior capital, nor by our warriors humiliating them by our armies and our fleets: it is a glorious succession of auTHORS, as well as of seamen and of soldiers, which has 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 them 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 closed 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