410 He capitulation. 



of merit meet with more liberal encouragement $ 

 and when the time shall arrive that we can give 

 to our votaries of literature the same leisure, and 

 the same stimulants to exertion with which they 

 are favoured in Europe, it may be confidently 

 predicted, that letters will flourish as much in 

 America as in any part of the world ; and that w T e 

 shall be able to make some return to our trans- 

 atlantic brethren, for the rich stores of useful 

 knowledge which they have been pouring upon us 

 for nearly two centuries. 



RECAPITULATION, 



WE have now made a hasty tour through one of 

 the departments of the subject which we under- 

 took to examine. From the foregoing survey, 

 which, however tedious it may have appeared to 

 the reader, is, in reality, a very rapid one, the 

 eighteenth century appears to bear a singularly 

 distinct and interesting character. In almost every 

 department of knowledge, w T e find monuments of 

 enterprize, discovery, and improvement; and, in 

 some, these monuments are so numerous, valuable, 

 and splendid, as to stand without parallel in the 

 history of the human mind. There have been 

 periods in which particular studies were more cul- 

 tivated ; but it may be asserted, with confidence, 

 that in no period of the same extent, since the 

 creation, has a mass of improvement so large, 

 diversified and rich been presented to view. In 

 no period have the various branches of science, 

 art 'and letters, received, at the same time, such 

 liberal accessions of light and refinement, and been 

 .jr.ade so remarkably to illustrate and enlarge eac]i 



