318 Recapitulation. 



this respect was materially different. As the stu- 

 dents in these institutions became more nume- 

 rous, and literary characters in general more com- 

 mon, universities began to bestow their laurels 

 with a more free and incautious hand. Genuine 

 erudition and talents began to be less considered 

 as qualifications, than station, popularity, or 

 wealth. By these means, collegiate honours have 

 become by far more cheap and common, during 

 the jDcriod under review, than in any former age^ 

 but, as the natural consequence of this, they have 

 also becom€?'less valuable and less esteemed. 



The same remarks, in substance, apply to mem- 

 bership in literary and scientific societies. Before 

 the eighteenth century, honours of this kind were 

 conferred on few or none but those who were 

 eminent for learning or talents. But the popular 

 diffusion of knowledge, and the artificial state of 

 society which distinguish the last age, led to a 

 more unsparing distribution of honours of this 

 kind ; so that literary and scientific associations, 

 at the close of the period which is the subject of 

 this retrospect, consisted of a larger number of 

 members than ever before, and more particularly 

 of members of an unqualified and inefficient cha- 

 racter. 



15. The eighteenth century was preeminently 

 THE AGE OF LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTER- 

 COURSE. It has been repeatedly remarked in the 

 foregoing sheets, that the extension of commerce, 

 the discoveries in geography, and the improve- 

 ments in navigation^ in the mechanic arts, and in 

 the modes of travelling, have led to a more ge- 

 neral intercourse among mankind than in any 



