A principle of compensation may be observed in literary pursuits as in other things. Reputations that never flame continue to glimmer for centuries after those which blaze highest have gone out. And what is of more moment, the humblest occupations are morally the safest. Rhadamanthus never puts on his black cap to pronounce sentence upon a dictionary-maker or the compiler of a county history. _Montesinos_. I am to understand, then, that in the archangel's balance a little book may sink the scale toward the pit; while all the tomes of Thomas Hearne and good old John Nichols will be weighed among their good works! _Sir Thomas More_.--Sport as thou wilt in allusions to allegory and fable; but bear always in thy most serious mind this truth, that men hold under an awful responsibility the talents with which they are entrusted. Kings have not so serious an account to render as they who exercise an intellectual influence over the minds of men! _Montesinos_.--If evil works, so long as they continue to produce evil, heap up condemnation upon the authors, it is well for some of the wickedest writers that their works do not survive them. _Sir Thomas More_.--Such men, my friend, even by the most perishable of their wicked works, lay up sufficient condemnation for themselves. The maxim that _malitia supplet aetatem_ is rightfully admitted in human laws: should there not then, by parity of justice, be cases where, when the secrets of the heart are seen, the intention shall be regarded rather than the act? The greatest portion of your literature, at any given time, is ephemeral; indeed, it has ever been so since the discovery of printing; and this portion it is which is most influential, consequently that by which most good or mischief is done. _Montesinos_.--Ephemeral it truly may be called; it is now looked for by the public as regularly as their food; and, like food, it affects the recipient surely and permanently, even when its effect is slow, according as it is wholesome or noxious. But how great is the difference between the current literature of this and of any former time!