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THE influence of literature upon individual and national character is no longer questioned or disregarded. The time has been, when the arbitrary will of one man constituted the only law, when the people acted no other part in the great machinery of government, than to be the passive recipients of the impulses of others, that the education of the chief, was all that was absolutely necessary for the proper direction of public affairs. But when this unnatural state of society was changed, when the people began to recover their natural and invaluable rights, then the prosperity, the very existence of the government depended upon the intelligence of the people.

That we may duly appreciate the difference between the intellectual condition of the citizens of ancient republics and our own, we must carefully divest ourselves of all those prejudices, which our systems of education so naturally create and cherish. In the very cominencement of our literary course, we are taught to repeat the names and rehearse the productions of a Cicero and a Demosthenes; to dwell with pleasure upon the beauties of Virgil, and the bold imagery of Homer. The mind unconsciously acquires a reverence for these authors; and this reverence invests even the age and the country in which they lived, with a sanctity that ill disposes us to receive the truth concerning the intellectual character of their fellow citizens. The glowing descriptions of the "golden age of Literature," and of the "abodes of the muses," so frequently to be found in our literary addresses, tend to encourage this impression among those who from their education are not disposed, or from their circumstances are not able to investigate the subject; and they soon believe that the distinguished men so frequently alluded to, were but the indexes of their age, representing favorably it is true, but yet correctly, the condition of the people.

If this error was one only of opinion, one which exerted its influence merely on the individual, it might be disregarded, but when it is

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used to prop up the tottering fabric of aristocracy, to intimidate the friends of the people, then it becomes a subject worthy the attention of every philanthropist.

Let us not be charged with a want of respect for the distinguished orators and statesmen, philosophers and poets, painters and sculptors of antiquity. Their works yet exist, monuments of their taste and talent; the judgment of many ages has fixed upon them a character which will only be increased by the approval of posterity. They labored assiduously to elevate the condition of their fellow citizens, and their labor was not unrewarded, although its results were not those calculated to promote the political interests of their respective nations.

İn Athens, philosophy and the fine arts reached their perfection; to Athens then we may look for the most favorable literary condition of the people. It is said that its citizens "spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing."

If the people were thus devoted to the acquisition and communication of knowledge, it might be supposed that they would have posessed sufficient of it to enable them to perform the duties of freemen. But where shall we look for their instructors, those who were to teach them the principles of political science and their application? To the dramatists of the day, the servile flatterers of the basest passions of human nature? And yet these exerted a powerful influence over the community, these were the objects of universal regard, of unbounded applause. Or shall we look to the philosophers whose frequent collisions before the people may be supposed to have elicited some truth? Information may have been gained concerning the various doctrines of the different sects of philosophers, but what great truths in morals or in politics, what that is calculated to make men wiser or better ever proceeded from them? Their public discussions partook of the nature of mere sectarian controversies, and their proudest displays of genius consisted in entangling an opponent in the mazes of their syllogisms and sophistries. These were the exhibitions of the proud sophists of Greece, which were to fit the community to be freemen! Little as was the connection between the tenets of these philosophers, and the fundamental principles of freedom, yet if the great mass of the people had been taught even in these, no slight advantage would have resulted to the state. The human mind once excited and disciplined, can easily conform itself to the exigencies of any case, and thus the discipline caused by even the most visionary of the sophists, might have been the means of disseminating truth, and establishing liberty on a basis, which even the corrupting influence of Persian gold could not have undermined.

The citizens of Greece were not favored with even this indirect safeguard of their freedom. Only a select few of their wealthiest citizens could be admitted within the enclosures of knowledge, while

the many were permitted to gather their information from the little which was scattered in the public controversies. Until the time of Alexander the great, until the glory of the republics had departed, and the despot had seized upon the government, no public provision was made for the education of the people. The Sophists were the only teachers of wisdom. How could it be possible that pure streams should flow from such fountains? Who would not have expected that a people thus taught, would have one day banished a Demosthenes, and another condemned a Socrates to death.

This then was the condition of the citizens of Greece; of a republic famed above all the nations of antiquity for its refinement; of Greece, at the very mention of which, a crowd of classic recollections thicken upon the mind of every scholar; of Greece, the abode of the muses, the birth-place of liberty.

The earliest records of Greece inform us that the people were of a disposition and habits favorable to the cultivation of literature; the founders of Rome were a company of banditti. The earlier Romans were warriors; to conquer the world was their ambition. Whatever tended to secure this result was noble, whatever did not was unworthy of their attention. Literature could not exist under such auspices, and we find that until near the termination of the republic, no attention was bestowed upon it. The proud spirit of a Roman could not stoop to explore the mysteries of sciences cultivated among a conquered people. Even after the philosophy of Greece had been introduced, he committed to his slaves the labor of the mind, while he reserved to himself the nobler exercise of the body. This was the prevailing spirit of the Roman people during the existence of the republic. Many of the works which are now perused with the greatest delight by every classical scholar, were the productions of those who wore the insignia of slavery. The sports of the amphitheater were supported at the public expense, while the disciples of philosophy were banished from the kingdom. Could a nation thus disposed ever become the patron of the arts and sciences? It was not until the original character of the people had been changed by the destruction of rival Carthage, and by the intorduction of her wealth, not until the last vestige of a republic was lost in the rule of the Cæsars, that a Virgil and a Horace arose, and by their brilliant displays of genius, attracted the attention of the Emperors. The Golden age of Roman Literature, of which mention is so frequently made, did not commence until the time of the second Punic war, and terminated in the reign of Augustus. Let no one mistake the character of this golden age, and suppose that during it, the people were basking in the meridian light of literature. The distinguished authors above named and their cotemporaries gave a character to the age, yet they shed but a pale and flickering light around their paths while living. Their immortal productions were rehearsed only in the ear of royalty, and before a few friends who

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