earliest haunts, and delighted most in their olden walks, which they loved for the very frequency with which they had trodden them. The system of study which had trained so many of their sons to eminence, seemed to them the best, and they were too slow in moulding its forms to the progress of science. It was endeared to them not only from the nature of its pursuits, but from past success, and it was no mean ambition which stimulated their sons to tread in the paths which a Bacon or a Clarendon, a Newton or a Locke, had trodden before them. And yet a little reflection should have taught them that if these glorious models of human excellence had left science where they found it, their reputations had never existed. A fierce opposition at length sprung up to a system of study so narrow and exclusive,--the growing wants of education demanded a university in London, which project was opposed by many of the friends of the old institutions. The elements of a party thus formed, were soon combined, and as the controversy waxed warmer, they attacked not only the venerable temples of learning, but the very study of the ancient languages itself, at first, perhaps, because the most celebrated abodes of this species of literature were to be found in the universities to which they had become inimical. Like every other literary controversy for some time past in England, this question connected itself with the party politics of the day, and thus many changed sides on the literary, that they might be together on the political question. Strange as it may seem, it has been for some time a reproach against the English that the Tories would not encourage the Whig literature, and vice versâ. No reader of the British periodicals for the last twenty years can have failed to remark this fact, which serves to account for the progress of the literary heresy which has already done so much to degrade English literature and to deprave the tastes of those who read only the English language. We shall not pause to inquire further into the effects produced by this illicit connexion between politics and literature in England, although it presents a highly interesting subject of inquiry, and one which must deeply occupy much of the attention of the historian who may hope hereafter to give an accurate account either of the political or literary condition of that country for many years past. Neither is it our purpose to arraign at the bar of public opinion those who have draggled the sacred "_peplon_" itself in the vile mire of party politics, although we sincerely believe that they will have a heavy account to settle with posterity for this unhallowed connexion. We merely allude to it by way of pointing out one of the causes of the heresy which we mean to combat, from the belief that it is mischievous, and the more especially as it diverts public attention from the particular want of American literature. Unhappily our