38 literary society, Newcastle. July la. 



scurlty. Many excellent writers have been encouraged 

 through the medium of their transactions, to make their 

 first entry into the world of letters, who would never 

 have ventured, but under some such sanction, to have ap- 

 peared before the public in a literary character at all. 



" It is to the honour of our native country, that these 

 excellent helps to the improvement and diffusion of know- 

 ledge were introduced by her sons ; and that the Royal 

 Society of London, which was the first in order of time, 

 continues to claim the first rank, among the literary soci- 

 eties of Europe. But it is to be regretted, that, while, 

 in Germany, France, and Italy, there is scarcely a provin- 

 cial town of consequence which has not some establifhment 

 of this kind, in England they have been, in a great mea- 

 sure, confined to the metropolis. Of late, indeed, very 

 respectable societies have been formed in the capitals of 

 our sister kingdoms, the transactions of which have done 

 honour to the abilities of their respective authors. And 

 in England, the Literary and Philosophical Society of Man- 

 chester has not only been eminently serviceable to that 

 flouriftiing town, by leading the attention of several of its 

 members to pursuits connected with the improvement of 

 its extensive manufactures, but it has greatly contributed 

 to the general instruction and entertainment, by the pub- 

 lication of its memoirs. 



" Is it not highly desirable that these provincial liter- 

 ary societies might become more general ? Might they 

 not serve as nurseries, to train up useful members, for the 

 larger and more important afsociations ? to whose labours ' 

 they would, in the mean time, be the means of exciting 

 a more general attention, by diffusing, more extensively, 

 a taste for philosophical and literary Inquiries. Might 

 they not, besides, be made to answer a salutary moral pur- 

 pose, by encouraging in pur youth a love of literature. 



