have had equal success in defending injustice? Because he was able to sustain the violated rights of property, would he have been also able to destroy them? Certainly not: For he with difficulty succeeded, even at the cost of his life: and success would have been impossible but for the dauntless intrepidity and the zealous support which the goodness of his cause inspired. [Footnote 8: Heeren and Niebuhr.] To the progress of our literature and science we may look with unalloyed hopes. In many branches, both ornamental and useful, we are still behind the country from which we are descended; and we fall as far short of her in the quantity of original productions as in the quality. But this, we confidently trust, is but a temporary inferiority. Our whole faculties are now engaged in cultivating the choicest fruits of civilization, and by and by we shall turn our attention to its flowers. Our late rapid advancement in letters affords a sure presage of future excellence, and symptoms of this gratifying change gladden our eyes in every direction. As soon as the more imperious wants of the country shall be satisfied, and men of superior powers and attainments shall have filled the learned professions, and offices requiring science and talent, then we shall begin to form a class of men of letters, who will devote their leisure and genius to minister to our intellectual wants: And they will find here a wide field both for speculation and description, political, physical and moral. We are justified in pronouncing that our literature will have freshness, boldness, richness and variety, and I would fain hope, the crowning grace of simplicity. Poetry, though not destined again to receive divine honors, or even the same profound homage as in a later day, will always occupy a high place in the world of letters: for the pleasure which can be conveyed to the mind by rhythm, imagery and fervid sentiment combined, are immutable; but the higher province of intellect will be to instruct and convince; to aid us in the arduous duties of life--whether as members of a profession, as citizens of the state, or as moral and responsible beings. Until that day arrives, let us cherish those institutions which best serve to preserve and diffuse a knowledge of science and letters, as well as to increase a taste for them; and never relax in our exertions until we are at least upon a level with the highest. Next to an elevated moral character, this is the most proper object of national ambition: and while I should be content that this country may never give birth to a Phidias, or Canova, a Raphael or Titian--that it should not produce as good musicians as Italy or Germany--as beautiful millinery as Paris--as cheap or good cutlery as Sheffield--I should be mortified to think that we should never be able to boast of such poets as Byron or Pope, such historians as Hume or Gibbon, such moralists as Johnson, such novelists as Walter Scott, or such mathematicians as La Place.