Literary fame, which is the sole preserver of all other fame, participates little, and remotely, in the remuneration and the honours of professional characters.  All other professions press more immediately on the wants and attentions of men, than the occupations of LITERARY CHARACTERS, who from their habits are secluded; producing their usefulness often at a late period of life, and not always valued by their own generation.

It is not the commercial character of a nation which inspires 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, and that we were incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful arts which have not yet travelled to us—­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 this singular revolution in human affairs, was effected by a glorious succession of AUTHORS, who have 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 foreigners 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 enclosed 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 the Grecian city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheld every polished European crowding to its little court.

In closing this imperfect work by attempting to ascertain the real influence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice some curious facts in the history of genius.