d in every branch of the public service; and a check is
imposed upon any scandalous and unfit promotion, civil or ecclesiastical.
By whatever persons the government may be administered, they are now well
aware that they must do nothing which will not bear daylight and strict
investigation. The magistrates also are closely observed by this self-
constituted censorship; and the inferior officers cannot escape exposure
for any perversion of justice, or undue exercise of authority. Public
nuisances are abated by the same means, and public grievances which the
Legislature might else overlook, are forced upon its attention. Thus, in
ordinary times, the utility of this branch of the press is so great that
one of the worst evils to be apprehended from the abuse of its power at
all times, and the wicked purposes to which it is directed in dangerous
ones, is the ultimate loss of a liberty, which is essential to the public
good, but which when it passes into licentiousness, and effects the
overthrow of a State, perishes in the ruin it has brought on.

In the fine arts, as well as in literature, a levelling principle is
going on, fatal, perhaps, to excellence, but favourable to mediocrity.
Such facilities are afforded to imitative talent, that whatever is
imitable will be imitated. Genius will often be suppressed by this, and
when it exerts itself, will find it far more difficult to obtain notice
than in former times. There is the evil here that ingenious persons are
seduced into a profession which is already crowded with unfortunate
adventurers; but, on the other hand, there is a great increase of
individual and domestic enjoyment. Accomplishments which were almost
exclusively professional in the last age, are now to be found in every
family within a certain rank of life. Wherever there is a disposition
for the art of design, it is cultivated, and in consequence of the
general proficiency in this most useful of the fine arts, travellers
represent to our view the manners and scenery of the countries which they
visit, as well by the pencil as the pen. By means of two fortunate
discoveries in the art of engraving, these graphic representations are
brought within the reach of whole classes who were formerly precluded by
the expense of such things from these sources of gratification and
instruction. Artists and engravers of great name are now, like authors
and booksellers, induced to employ themselves for this lower and wider
s