that benevolent goddess, under whose protection the honours of ftation and the bleffings of opulence are to be attained; while Learning and Genius are profcribed, as leading their votaries to barren indigence and merited neglect. In doubting the truth of these affertions, I think I fhall not entertain any hurtful degree of fcepticism, because the general current of opinion feems of late years to have set too strongly in the contrary direction; and one may endeavour to prop the failing caufe of literature, without being accused of blameable or dangerous partiality.

In the examples which memory and expe-' rience produce, of idleness, of diffipation, and of poverty, brought on by an indulgence of literary or poetical enthusiasm, the evidence must neceffarily be on one fide of the question only. Of the few whom learning or genius have led aftray, the ill-fuccefs or the ruin is marked by the celebrity of the sufferer. Of the many who have been as dull as they were profligate, and. as ignorant as they were poor, the fate is unknown, from the infignificance of those by whom it was endured. If we may reafon à priori on the matter, the chances, I think, fhould be on the fide of literature.

In young minds of any vivacity, there is a natural averfion to the drudgery of business,

which is feldom overcome, till the effervefcence of youth is allayed by the progrefs of time and habit, or till that very warmth is enlifted on the fide of their profeffion, by the opening profpects of ambition or emolument. From this tyranny, as youth conceives it, of attention and of labour, relief is commonly fought from fome favourite avocation or amufement, for which a young man either finds or fteals a portion of his time, either patiently plods through his task, in expectation of its approach, or anticipates its arrival, by deserting his work before the legal period for amusement is arrived. It may fairly be queftioned, whether the most innocent of those amusements is either so honourable or fo fafe, as the avocations of learning or of science. Of minds uninformed and grofs, whom youthful spirits agitate, but fancy and feeling have no power to impel, the amusements will generally be either boisterous or effeminate, will either diffipate their attention or weaken their force. The employment of a young man's vacant hours is often too little attended to by those rigid masters who exact the moft fcrupulous obfervance of the periods destined for businefs. The wafte of time is undoubtedly a very calculable lofs; but the wafte or the depravation of mind is a lofs of a much higher denomination. The votary of study, or the enthusiast of 06 fancy,

fancy, may incur the first; but the latter will be suffered chiefly by him whom ignorance, or want of imagination, has left to the groffness of mere fenfual enjoyments. ́.

In this, as in other refpects, the love of letters is friendly to fober manners and virtuous conduct, which in every profeffion is the road to fuccefs and to respect. Without adopting the common-place reflections against some particular departments, it must be allowed, that in mere men of business, there is a certain profeffional rule of right, which is not always honourable, and though meant to be selfish, very feldom profits. A fuperior education generally corrects this, by opening the mind to different motives of action, to the feelings of delicacy, the fenfe of honour, and a contempt of wealth, when earned by a desertion of those principles.

The moral beauty of thofe difpofitions may perhaps rather provoke the fmile, than excite the imitation, of mere men of business and the world. But I will venture to tell them, that, even on their own principles, they are mistaken. The qualities which they fometimes prefer as more calculated for pushing a young man's way in life, feldom attain the end, in contemplation of which they are not so nice about the means. This is ftrongly exemplified by the ill fuccefs of many,

many, who, from their earliest youth, had acquired the highest reputation for sharpness and cunning. Thofe trickifh qualities look to fmall advantages unfairly won, rather than to great ones honourably attained. The direct, the open, and the candid, are the fureft road to fuccefs in every department of life. It needs a certain fuperior degree of ability to perceive and to adopt this; mean and uninformed minds feize on corners, which they cultivate with narrow views to very little advantage: enlarged and well-informed minds embrace great and honourable objects; and if they fail of obtaining them, are liable to none of those pangs which rankle in the bofom of artifice defeated or of cunning over-matched.

To the improvement of our faculties as well as of our principles, the love of letters appears to be favourable. Letters require a certain fort of application, though of a kind perhaps very different from that which bufinefs would recommend. Granting that they are unprofitable in themselves, as that word is ufed in the language of the world, yet, as developing the powers of thought and reflection, they may be an amufement of fome ufe, as thofe fports of children in which Numbers are ufed, familiarife them to the elements of arithmetic. They give room for the exercise of that difcernment, that

comparison

comparison of objects, that diftinction of causes, which is to increase the skill of the physician, to guide the fpeculations of the merchant, and to prompt the arguments of the lawyer; and though fome profeffions employ but very few faculties of the mind, yet there is fcarce any branch of bufinefs in which a man who can think will not excel him who can only labour. We shall accordingly find, in many departments where learned information feemed of all qualities the leaft neceffary, that those who poffeffed it in a degree above their fellows, have found, from that very circumftance, the road to eminence and to wealth.

But I must often repeat, that wealth does not neceffarily create happiness, nor confer dignity; a truth which it may be thought declamation to insist on, but which the present time seems particularly to require being told. The influx of foreign riches and of foreign luxury, which this country has of late experienced, has almost levelled every distinction, but that of money, among us. The creft of noble or illuftrious ancestry has funk before the fudden accumulation of wealth in vulgar hands; but that were little, had not the elegance of manners, had not the dignity of deportment, had not the pride of virtue, which used to characterise fome of our high-born names, given way to that tide

of