Page:Biographical and critical miscellanies (IA biographicalcrit00presrich).pdf/27



class of professed men of letters, if we exclude from the account the conductors of periodical journals, is certainly not very large, even at the present day, in our country; but before the close of the last century it was nearly impossible to meet with an individual who looked to authorship as his only, or, indeed, his principal means of subsistence. This was somewhat the more remarkable, considering the extraordinary development of intellectual power exhibited in every quarter of the country, and applied to every variety of moral and social culture, and formed a singular contrast with more than one nation in Europe, where literature still continued to be followed as a distinct profession, amid all the difficulties resulting from an arbitrary government, and popular imbecility and ignorance.

Abundant reasons are suggested for this by the various occupations afforded to talent of all kinds, not only in the exercise of political functions, but