320 Recapitulation. 



of the Earth*; foreigners of distinction are more 

 frequently elected members of academies and 

 other associations of a similar kind ; commerce, 

 £is its channels became multiplied and enlarged, 

 furnished at once a convenient medium and 

 strong incentives to literary intercourse ; the great 

 increase in the practice of translating respectable 

 works into all polished languages has also served 

 to render books of value, and their authors, more 

 generally known : — to all which may be added, 

 that the increased frequency and extent of mo- 

 dern travels have been decidedly favourable to 

 the correspondence of learned men, and to a 

 knowledge of the works and characters of one 

 another. 



Such is an imperfect outline of the literary and 

 scientific character of the century to which we 

 have just bidden adieu. The picture is necessa- 

 rily extensive and various ; and the features, how- 



* To illustrate this remark, two or three facts shall be stated 

 with regard to a single post-office establishment. In 1728 the 

 London post arrived one day at Edinburgh with only one six- 

 penny Loudon letter, and that was addressed to the post-master-' 

 general on office business. The arrival of the post was then 

 only once a fortnight ; now it is six times a week. The post 

 then employed ten days in travelling from London to Edinburgh; ■ 

 now it employs only three. Then the mail produced no revenue 

 or nett profit to governmentj but was rather a continual charge; 

 but the revenue of the post-office in Scotland, for the year end- 

 ing in April 1802, was 85791/. \\s. 3d. A corresponding 

 increase in commercial and literary intercourse has taken 

 place in the same period in almost every cultivated part of the 

 world. 



