We live in a country pre-eminently rich in mental and physical resources. We have whatever internally or externally is requisite to promote national greatness and prosperity. We live in the full possession and enjoyment of a government founded on the experience of the past, and reared by the genius and wisdom of an unrivalled ancestry. The mind here blooms and grows under the protecting wings of the Genius of Freedom--its native boldness and vigor unrestrained. Here it may be aroused to all that is noble in enterprise, or excellent in virtue. Here the aliments of its growth are as rich and as inspiriting, as they are abundant. It enjoys the choice fruit of the loftiest minds of departed ages; and may feast on the wisdom and learning of every modern age. It enjoys the bland influence of the christian spirit; and may attain a superior standard in moral greatness and power. But these are not the only advantages which tend to the development of American mind. In whatever direction we gaze, nature's beauties, as profuse and lovely as the stars of the sky, meet the vision. We behold landscape after landscape, enchanting beyond measure; the graceful undulations of luxuriant prairies; tall forests, clothed in the magnificent robes of summer, or cheerless with the storms of winter; noble and beautiful rivers, over whose placid waters genius and enterprise have scattered the wonders and researches of science; towering mountains, fairy groves, and silver-sparkling lakes. Add to these, the wild traditions of a people unknown to former minds: traditions, over which curiosity loves to linger, and philosophy to speculate; traditions, which, imbodying the terrific, the romantic, and the ennobling of the savage state, throw over the page of fiction a charm and an interest, enchanting and enchaining. From this view, we might indulge the prophetic thought, that our national mind would attain to the highest degree of intellectual pre-eminence. Now, the mind is the prime source of literature, creating it, and giving to it an enduring form. If all its powers are fully developed in their varied beauty and might, that literature to which it gives character, will be of an exalted nature. Should then our national mind be made to appreciate its advantages, it naturally follows, that our literature will be all that is grand and sublime--will soar to the loftiest summit of the Olympian mount. But whatever will have a tendency to pervert these advantages, to draw the mind into pursuits below its real nature, will impede its growth. We behold around us such impediments. It shall be our object to exhibit a few of them, feeling convinced that if the obstacles which retard the transit of our literature in its ascent to greatness, be once known and surmounted, its destiny will be bright and glorious.