Shall I advance a seeming paradox? Civilisation is impeded by knowledge—that is, by the modern demand for it. The memory becomes crammed, till there be no room in the brain for legitimate thought to work in. Hence a bewilderment, a confusion of other men’s ideas, and none of our own; a general perplexity, and little agreement among people in sentiment, for they have no time left to consider upon their differences. The world is overstocked with the materials of knowledge, and yet there is ever a demand for more. The time of man’s best wisdom was when he was not overburthened with books. Happy are scholars that so many of the classics are lost. Were all that have been written extant, the youth that should graduate in honours would be the miracle of a short time, and an idiot the remainder of his life. Then our own literature: it is frightful to see the bulky monthly catalogue of publications. Had I to begin the world, I should throw down the list in despair, and prefer being a literary fool, with a little common sense. Besides, the aspirant in education must learn all modern languages also. What a quantity! I made a note from a paper published, November 1851. Here is a quotation. A letter from Leipsic says—“The catalogue for the book fair of St Michael has been just published. It results from it that during the short space of time which has elapsed since the fair of Easter last, not fewer than three thousand eight hundred and sixty new books have been published in Germany, and that one thousand one hundred and fifty others are in the press. More than one-half of these works are on scientific subjects.” Mercy on the brains of the people!—they will be inevitably addled. What with all this learning and reading, summing and analysing, and making book-shelves of themselves, they are retrograding in natural understanding, which ought to be the strong foundation of civilisation. And there is the necessity growing up of reading all the daily papers beside. Better, Eusebius, that the human plant should grow, like a cucumber, to belly, and run along the common ground, than shoot out such head-seed as is likely to come out of such a hotbed under a surfeit of dry manure. Verily it must shortly come to pass, that Ignoramus will be the wisest if not the knowingest among us. He may have common sense, a few flights of imagination unchoked with the dust of learning, or many wholesome prejudices, a great deal of honest feeling, and with these homespun materials keep his morals and religion pure, and, walking in humbleness, reach unawares the summit of civilisation. If you think him an imaginary being, wed him to the Chinese Purity in the japan frame, and no one will write the epithalamium so happily as my friend Eusebius. I might here have ended my letter, rather expecting to receive a solution to the great question than pretending to offer one. But having written so far, and about to add a concluding sentence, I