dsen, are in this view real authors, as undoubtedly as Homer or
Dante, Sallust or Racine; and to rise highest in this argument, the
heavens and the earth are but mighty scrolls of an Omniscient Author,
fairly written in a universal tongue of grandeur and beauty, of skill,
poetry, philosophy, and love.

But let me not seem to prove too much, and so leap over my horse instead
of vaulting into the saddle: though authorship may claim thus
extensively every master-mind, from the Adorable Former of all things
down to the humblest potter at his wheel fashioning the difficult
ellipse; still, in human parlance, must we limit it to common
acceptations, and think of little more than scribe, in the name of
author. Nevertheless, let such seeds of thought as here are carelessly
flung out, nurtured in the good soil of charity, and not unkindly forced
into foolish accusations of my own conceit, whereas their meaning is
general, (as if forsooth selfishly dibbled in with vain particularity,
and not liberally broadcast that he may run that reads,)--let such crude
considerations excuse my own weak and uninjurious invasion of the
provinces of other men. The wisdom for social purposes of infinitesimal
division of labour, may be proved good by working well; but its lowering
influences on the individual mind cannot be doubted: that an intelligent
man should for a life-time be doomed to watch a valve, or twist
pin-heads, or wind cotton, or lacquer coffin-nails, cannot be improving;
and while I grant great evil in my desultory excesses, still I may make
some use of that argument in the converse, and plead that it is good to
exercise the mind on all things. Thus, in my assumed metier of
authorship, let notions be extenuated that popularly concern it little,
and yield admittance to any thought that may lead to that Athenian
desideratum, "some new thing."

While the echoes of the name of Alfred still linger on the mind, and our
patriotism looks back with gratitude on his thousand virtues unsullied
by a fault, (at least that History, seldom so indulgent, has
recorded,)--while we reflect that in him were combined the wise king,
the victorious general, the enlightened scholar, the humble Christian,
the learned author, the excellent father, the admirable MAN in
all public and private relations, in domestic alike with social duties,
I cannot help wishing that forgetful England had raised some
architectural trophy, as a worthy testimonial of Alfred the