You have not exaggerated the influence of the newspaper press, nor the profligacy of some of those persons, by whom this unrestrained and irresponsible power is exercised.  Nevertheless it has done, and is doing, great and essential good.  The greatest evils in society proceed from the abuse of power; and this, though abundantly manifested in the newspapers themselves, they prevent in other quarters.  No man engaged in public life could venture now upon such transactions as no one, in their station half a century ago, would have been ashamed of.  There is an end of that scandalous jobbing which at that time existed in every department of the State, and in every branch of the public service; and a check is imposed upon any scandalous and unfit promotion, civil or ecclesiastical.  By whatever persons the government may be administered, they are now well aware that they must do nothing which will not bear daylight and strict investigation.  The magistrates also are closely observed by this self-constituted censorship; and the inferior officers cannot escape exposure for any perversion of justice, or undue exercise of authority.  Public nuisances are abated by the same means, and public grievances which the Legislature might else overlook, are forced upon its attention.  Thus, in ordinary times, the utility of this branch of the press is so great that one of the worst evils to be apprehended from the abuse of its power at all times, and the wicked purposes to which it is directed in dangerous ones, is the ultimate loss of a liberty, which is essential to the public good, but which when it passes into licentiousness, and effects the overthrow of a State, perishes in the ruin it has brought on.

In the fine arts, as well as in literature, a levelling principle is going on, fatal, perhaps, to excellence, but favourable to mediocrity.  Such facilities are afforded to imitative talent, that whatever is imitable will be imitated.  Genius will often be suppressed by this, and when it exerts itself, will find it far more difficult to obtain notice than in former times.  There is the evil here that ingenious persons are seduced into a profession which is already crowded with unfortunate adventurers; but, on the other hand, there is a great increase of individual and domestic enjoyment.  Accomplishments which were almost exclusively professional in the last age, are now to be found in every family within a certain rank of life.  Wherever there is a disposition for the art of design, it is cultivated, and in consequence of the general proficiency in this most useful of the fine arts, travellers represent to our view the manners and scenery of the countries which they visit, as well by the pencil as the pen.  By means of two fortunate discoveries in the art of engraving, these graphic representations are brought within the reach of whole classes who were formerly precluded by the expense of such things from these sources of gratification and instruction.  Artists and engravers