94 Political Journals. [Chap. XXII. 



menta, moreover, which they daily contain, re- 

 specting new books, projects, inventions, discove- 

 ries, and improvements, are well calculated to en- 

 large and enlighten the public mind, and are wor- 

 thy of being enumerated among the many me- 

 thods of awakening and maintaining the popular 

 attention with which more modern times, beyond 

 all preceding example, abound. 



In ancient times, to sow the seeds of civil dis- 

 cord, or to produce a spirit of union and coope- 

 ration through an extensive community, required 

 time, patience, and a constant series of exertions. 

 The art of printing being unknown, and many of 

 the modern methods of communicating intelli- 

 gence to distant places not having come into use, 

 the dillicuhy of conducting public aifuirs must 

 have been frequently great and embarrassing. 

 The general circulation of Gazetti^s forms an im- 

 portant era, not only in the moral and literarj'-, 

 but algo in the political world. By means of this 

 powerful instrument impressions on the public 

 mind may be made with a celerity and to an ex- 

 tent of which our remote ancestors had no con- 

 ception, and which cannot but give rise to the 

 most important consequences in society. Never 

 was there given to man a political engine of 

 greater power ; and never, assuredly, did this en- 

 gine before operate upon so large a scale as in the 

 eighteenth century. 



America in particular, and especially for the 

 ^ast twelve or fifteen years, has exhibited a spec- 

 tacle never before displayed among men, and even 

 yet without a parallel on earth : it is the spectacle, 

 jjot of the learned and the wealthy only, but of 



