Mr. Butlers Discourse. 19? 



best — is calculated to weaken the understanding, and to pro- 

 duce and to keep up an unnatural excitement, alike injurious 

 to the mind and incompatible with the active duties and the 

 dry realities of life. When to this we add, that newspapers 

 and periodical publications are much more numerous and ac- 

 cessible in this country than in any other part of the world, 

 we may easily perceive how great is the danger, that we shall 

 become a nation of light readers and superficial thinkers. 



But this is not the worst— for the last two or three years 

 we have been inundated with foreign works of this class, the 

 tone and execution of which are, in many cases, repugnant 

 alike to morality and good taste. It would seem from the 

 encouragement afforded to the booksellers engaged in this 

 system of republication, that these productions meet the taste 

 of our countrymen. I consider this one of the most fearful 

 " signs of the times." What will the next generation know of 

 the simplicity of Addison, the elegance of Goldsmith, or the 

 vigorous thought and sound morality of Johnson — to say no* 

 thing of Hooker, Taylor and Bacon, who have already become 

 obsolete— if our booksellers continue to thrust upon us so 

 many of the trashy productions of the London press ? And 

 who can calculate the injury which may be done to the litera- 

 ture, the morals and the welfare of the nation, by the indis- 

 criminate perusal of such works ? 



There is the less reason for these pernicious importations, 

 because we have a rapidly increasing literature of our own, 

 which requires only to be cherished, to become honorable to 

 the nation and useful to mankind. I can only glance at this 

 topic, and the slight notice I can give to it, must be confined 

 to the literature of our own state. 



In the early period of our colonial history, there was little 

 room for literary exertion. The first colonists, and their de- 

 scendants for several generations, were compelled to content 

 themselves with the rudiments of learning. Occupied in re- 

 ducing the desert to a habitable state ; in tilling the soil for 

 their daily bread ; or in repelling the attack of invading ene- 

 mies; they had neither leisure nor inclination for literary 

 pursuits.— You have already heard that until the foundation 

 of Kings college, less than twenty years before the declaration 



