arriage, he gratified himself in constantly collecting them,
so that he ultimately possessed one of the finest private libraries in
France. For very many years his life passed peaceably and happily amid
his books and his duties, when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
drove him from his country. His noble library was scattered at
waste-paper prices, "thus in a single day was destroyed the labour,
care, and expense of forty-four years." He died seven years afterwards
at Brandenburg.]

LITERARY JOURNALS.

When writers were not numerous, and readers rare, the unsuccessful
author fell insensibly into oblivion; he dissolved away in his own
weakness. If he committed the private folly of printing what no one
would purchase, he was not arraigned at the public tribunal--and the
awful terrors of his day of judgment consisted only in the retributions
of his publisher's final accounts. At length, a taste for literature
spread through the body of the people; vanity induced the inexperienced
and the ignorant to aspire to literary honours. To oppose these forcible
entries into the haunts of the Muses, periodical criticism brandished
its formidable weapon; and the fall of many, taught some of our greatest
geniuses to rise. Multifarious writings produced multifarious
strictures; and public criticism reached to such perfection, that taste
was generally diffused, enlightening those whose occupations had
otherwise never permitted them to judge of literary compositions.

The invention of REVIEWS, in the form which they have at length
gradually assumed, could not have existed but in the most polished ages
of literature: for without a constant supply of authors, and a refined
spirit of criticism, they could not excite a perpetual interest among
the lovers of literature. These publications were long the chronicles of
taste and science, presenting the existing state of the public mind,
while they formed a ready resource for those idle hours, which men of
letters would not pass idly.

Their multiplicity has undoubtedly produced much evil; puerile critics
and venal drudges manufacture reviews; hence that shameful discordance
of opinion, which is the scorn and scandal of criticism. Passions
hostile to the peaceful truths of literature have likewise made
tremendous inroads in the republic, and every literary virtue has been
lost! In "Calamities of Authors" I have given the history of a literary
conspiracy, conducted by a solitary cri