Indian, and in the polished member of an establish ed community. Perhaps these similar powers would be equally fit for exertion, and these propensities equally importunate for gratification, if the savage were not constantly engaged in providing for that necessary sustenance, which, without his own interposition, is commonly secured to the philosopher.

The pupil of nature, under all his disadvantages, feels the impulse of a species of literary curiosity, and seeks its satisfaction. He possesses the faculty of memory; he must, therefore, without the co-ope ration of his will, remember many of the impressions received by the senses; he has a power of reflection, which will teach him to reason and draw inferences, without designing it, from the objects of his experience and observation. He feels within himself an imagination, capable of recalling past ideas of pleasure and pain, and apt to be delighted by beauty, novelty, and grandeur. Every natural exertion of natural faculties, is attended with satisfaction. He feels it from the unpremeditated exertions of the mental powers; he tacitly acknowledges it to be congenial to his mind, and of course endeavours to repeat, to extend, and to prolong it: but the objects which fall under the notice of his own senses, and his personal experience, are insufficient in number and importance to satisfy his capacity. He is led to inquire what passed among his forefathers, and in his return is requested by his progeny to communicate his own remarks, or recitals, superadded to the information of his ancestors.

Such, probably, is the origin of tradition; a mode of communicating knowledge, once universal, and

still, perhaps, subsisting in the newly discovered islands of the Pacific Ocean, on the banks of the Senegal, and at the foot of the Andes. Beneath the shade of his plantain, the patriarch Indian still re cites the divine origin of his tribe or family, the warlike actions of his ancestor, and of his own personal prowess. The attentive audience carry away the tale, and supply the defects of memory by the aid of imagination. The story spreads, time gives it a sanction, and at last it is found to constitute the most authentic history, however obscure and fabulous, of the origin of a nation, after it has emerged from barbarism, and is become the seat of arts and learning.

In the earliest and rudest state of literature, if we may give that appellation to the efforts of the intellectual faculties where letters are unknown, is often produced the most animated, and perhaps most per 'fect, though least artificial, poetry. Historie truth. is, indeed, little regarded, as it is addressed to reason, rather than to fancy; but poetic composition appears with marks of genius approaching to inspiration. From his memory, or his invention, or from both, the savage is heard to pour forth the song of war, and to warble the notes of love, warm. with the sentiments of a feeling heart, and compensating the want of regularity and grace, by the strength and vivacity of natural expression.

If we believe the representations of some writers, poems equal in length to the most celebrated epopeas of Greece and Rome, have been handed down, with out the aid of letters, from the remotest antiquity to the present day; and in our own country and times,

traditionary tales, poetic and prosaic, are known to abound in that lowest class among us, who are yet unacquainted with the elements of learning. The tenant of the cottage, stupid and incurious as he may appear to the polite observer, has his fund of entertaining knowledge, and knows how to enliven the winter evening with tales of fairies, giants, and enchantments, which he believed on the word of his progenitors, and which his hearers receive with equal pleasure and credulity, intending to transmit them to the rising generation.

The early appearance, and the universality of traditional learning, seems to establish the opinion, that the love of knowledge is among the first and most importunate desires inherent to the human heart. We see it believing absurdity, and admiring nonsense; we see it bearing one of the strongest characteristics of natural inclinations, a proneness to neglect reason in pursuit of gratification.

This ardent love of knowledge, which gave rise to tradition, 'soon invented improvements which superseded its general necessity. Tradition was soon found to be attended with great inconveniencies, and to be defective in its most perfect state. A thousand important circumstances must necessarily elude the most retentive memory; and, beside the evils resulting from the weakness of that faculty, and from the general inclination to exaggerate and embellish the simplicity of truth, the want of written standards to appeal to, afforded constant opportuni❤ ties for imposition. Uprightness of intention, and strength of memory, were not always united in those who undertook the recital of events. Accuracy and justness of representation were rare; and the civil

history of every people, without a single exception, is, in its first periods, dark and incoherent; such, indeed, as might be expected from oral authority.

The inventor of means to supply the defects of memory, and to preclude the opportunity of deceit, it is obvious to conclude, would be considered as a great benefactor to mankind, and elevated by the exuberant gratitude of a rude age, above the rank of humanity. To Theuth, the inventor of letters among the Egyptians, and to the same personage, under the name of Hermes among the Greeks, divine honours were paid; an apotheosis surely more justifiable on principles of reason, than that of Bacchus the cultivator of the vine, or of Hercules the cleanser of a stable.

To communicate their discovery, the inventors of literary symbols found it necessary to mark them on some substance susceptible of impression or penetration. What that substance was, is a subject of curious, but unimportant inquiry. The original mode of inscribing the newly discovered characters, however conducted, was probably very imperfect; but, as it happens in all discoveries of momentous consequence, the idea of it, once started, was pursued with that general ardour and attention, which never fails to produce a great improvement. The stone, the palm leaf, the biblos or bark of the linden tree, the leaden tablet, the papyrus manufactured into the charta, the parchment, and the pugillares, respectively served, as progressive advancement suggested, or as convenience required, to receive the written lucubrations of the ancient poet, philosopher, Legistator, and historian.

That many of the noblest efforts of ancient ge

nius, though committed to writing on substances so fail as the papyrus, and so subject to erasure as the waxen tablet, should have reached the present age, is an event only to be accounted for by supposing, that their conspicuous beauties occasioned uncom mon vigilance and solicitude in their preservation.

At a very late period, a substance formed of macerated linen, was found superior in beauty, convenience, and duration, and better adapted to the purposes of literature, than all the prior devices of mechanical ingenuity. It derived its name from the flag that grew on the banks of the Nile, which, though it in some degree resembled, it greatly excelled. Porous, yet of firm contexture, it admitted the inscription of characters with a facility, equalled only by the retention with which it preserved them. By the ease with which it is procured and inscribed, it rescued the ancient authors from the possibility of oblivion, and may strictly be said to have formed that monument more durable than brass, which a celebrated poet prophesied to himself with a confidence, justified at length by the accomplishment of his prediction.

NO. CXXXVII. ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE ART OF PRINTING, WITH MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS ON IT.

THE business of transcribing the remains of Grecian and Roman literature, became an useful, an innocent, and a pleasing employ to many of those who, in the dark ages, would else have pined in the listless languor of monastic retirement. Exempt