termination.

The diffusion of literature is perfectly distinguishable from its
advancement; and whatever obscurity we may find in explaining the
variations of the one, there are a few simple causes which seem to
account for the other. Knowledge will be spread over the surface of a
nation in proportion to the facilities of education; to the free
circulation of books; to the emoluments and distinctions which literary
attainments are found to produce; and still more to the reward which
they meet in the general respect and applause of society. This cheering
incitement, the genial sunshine of approbation, has at all times
promoted the cultivation of literature in small republics rather than
large empires, and in cities compared with the country. If these are the
sources which nourish literature, we should naturally expect that they
must have become scanty or dry when learning languishes or expires.
Accordingly, in the later ages of the Roman empire a general
indifference towards the cultivation of letters became the
characteristic of its inhabitants. Laws were indeed enacted by
Constantine, Julian, Theodosius, and other emperors, for the
encouragement of learned men and the promotion of liberal education. But
these laws, which would not perhaps have been thought necessary in
better times, were unavailing to counteract the lethargy of ignorance in
which even the native citizens of the empire were contented to repose.
This alienation of men from their national literature may doubtless be
imputed in some measure to its own demerits. A jargon of mystical
philosophy, half fanaticism and half imposture, a barren and inflated
eloquence, a frivolous philology, were not among those charms of wisdom
by which man is to be diverted from pleasure or aroused from indolence.

In this temper of the public mind there was little probability that new
compositions of excellence would be produced, and much doubt whether the
old would be preserved. Since the invention of printing, the absolute
extinction of any considerable work seems a danger too improbable for
apprehension. The press pours forth in a few days a thousand volumes,
which, scattered like seeds in the air over the republic of Europe,
could hardly be destroyed without the extirpation of its inhabitants.
But in the times of antiquity manuscripts were copied with cost, labour,
and delay; and if the diffusion of knowledge be measured by the
multiplication of books, no unfair standard,