That literature alone is valuable, which leaves an impression of increased knowledge, and improved moral sentiments, of chastened feeling and benign impulses, of virtuous resolutions and high aspirations. By these, man is prepared to fill the high station for which the Creator designed him. To partake of the joys of life without selfishness, to meet its sorrows with fortitude, to practice its virtues with firmness, to avoid its errors by resolution, and to dispense its charities with the feeling of brother toward brother. Under a free government, the arts and intrigue of the courtier would be useless and disgraceful appendages to the accomplishments that ornament life. Unsullied honor is based on truth and generous feeling, and the blessings enjoyed by freemen will teach them not to treat lightly the privileges of others. As the principles they profess are so different from those maintained by the policy of monarchical courts, the expression of them must also differ, and our country can proudly point to those, whose writings on these subjects may justly be considered standards for future efforts. Constellations are already forming in our literary skies; some stars shining out in bold relief, like those glowing in the belt of Orion, or sparkling in the eye of Aldebaren. Some stretch across the northern sky, separate and grand as those in the Ursa major, while others timidly shrink from their own simplicity and beauty, like the meek twinkling of Pleiads. But all have their peculiar influence. History, with its crowding events and exciting struggles, has already employed many gifted pens in our land. That of Bancroft, with his strong resources and vivid style; of Prescott, with his fine arrangement and freshness, combined with his clear narrative and research, and others, whose talents a limited essay is obliged to pass without remark. Ethics and philosophy have brought to their aid a strong array of brilliant minds; the peculiar lights of each have their admirers. Comparison might be considered invidious, and it is enough that their names and talents belong to their country. In various sciences, the American mind has shown itself capable of deep investigation, and our writers on these subjects, by their clear elucidations, have shed light on much that was shadowed in doubt. In medical learning many works have appeared, and some of them of high importance and value. The number must increase, for the varied climate and diseases of our country require it, and the young physician, just entering on the practice of his profession in some newly settled prairie, or border land of the northern lakes, will find an American author his best guide in the treatment of diseases that differ so much in their nature from those of Europe, as to be but lightly glanced at by the best medical writers of the old world.