Shall we then hesitate to assert, that this class of literary men forms a useful, as well as a select order in society? We see that their leisure is not idleness, that their studies are not unfruitful for the public, and that their opinions, purified from passions and prejudices, are always the soundest in the nation. They are counsellors whom statesmen may consult; fathers of genius to whom authors and artists may look for aid, and friends of all nations; for we ourselves have witnessed, during a war of thirty years, that the MEN OF LETTERS in England were still united with their brothers in France. The abode of Sir JOSEPH BANKS was ever open to every literary and scientific foreigner; while a wish expressed or a communication written by this MAN OF LETTERS, was even respected by a political power which, acknowledging no other rights, paid a voluntary tribute to the claims of science and the privileges of literature. CHAPTER XXII. Literary old age still learning.--Influence of late studies in life.-- Occupations in advanced age of the literary character.--Of literary men who have died at their studies. The old age of the literary character retains its enjoyments, and usually its powers--a happiness which accompanies no other. The old age of coquetry witnesses its own extinct beauty; that of the "used" idler is left without a sensation; that of the grasping Croesus exists only to envy his heir; and that of the Machiavel who has no longer a voice in the cabinet, is but an unhappy spirit lingering to find its grave: but for the aged man of letters memory returns to her stores, and imagination is still on the wing amidst fresh discoveries and new designs. The others fall like dry leaves, but he drops like ripe fruit, and is valued when no longer on the tree. The constitutional melancholy of JOHNSON often tinged his views of human life. When he asserted that "no man adds much to his stock of knowledge, or improves much after forty," his theory was overturned by his own experience; for his most interesting works were the productions of a very late period of life, formed out of the fresh knowledge with which he had then furnished himself.