diy Viol h | alias! ee or 
“LITERARY MERIT DURABLE. 453 
by that which there is in man of most noble, of most 
elevated: by the soul, by the thoughts, by the intellect. 
How foolish must that man be who, placed on such a 
theatre, should be detected in wishing that his lineaments 
were preserved by the chisel of a David,* to be some day 
exposed to the glances of idlers taking their walk. Such 
honours, I repeat it, need not be envied by the learned 
man, by the author, or by the artist; but they ought not, 
on any account, to allow themselves to be declared un- 
worthy of them. Such, at least, have been the thoughts 
that lead me to submit the following discussion to your 
judgment. 
Is it not a truly strange circumstance, that these vain 
pretensions that I am combating should have been raised 
merely on account of these five statues, not one of which 
cost a single obolus to the public treasury? Far from 
me, however, to take advantage of this inconsiderateness. 
I prefer taking the question in a more general point 
of view, such as it was laid down: the pretended pre- 
eminence of arms over letters, over science, over art ; for 
we must not deceive ourselves—if magistrates and ad- 
ministrators have been mentioned together with military 
men, it was only as a passport. 
The shortness of the time allowed me for this discus- 
* It is uncertain whether the noted Jacques Louis David, or Pierre 
Jean David is here meant; for though the former is generally known 
as a painter only, he proposed to construct a huge colossus in honour 
of the people, out of the ruins of royal statues; and of this he made a 
model. But we could have wished that our author’s taste had pre- 
vented his intruding the truisms in this and in the tirade which fol- 
lows; at least, the biography of the enriched and greatly honoured 
Watt hardly appears to be a fit peg whereon to hang so laboured a 
declamation. Even now; one of the finest line-of-battle ships in the 
British fleet is the James Wart; still, we admit, the best records of 
an eminent man are certainly his works.— Translator. 
