true, we will enquire from what unfriendly cauſes
it has proceeded, that the other countries of
Europe and quarters of the earth ſhall not have
inſcribed any name in the roll of poets.[1] But
neither has America produced ‘one able mathematician,
one man of genius in a ſingle art or a ſingle
ſcience.’ In war we have produced a
Waſhington, whoſe memory will be adored while liberty
ſhall have votaries, whoſe name will triumph over
time, and will in future ages aſſume its juſt
ſtation among the moſt celebrated worthies of the
world, when that wretched philoſophy ſhall be
forgotten which would have arranged him among
the degeneracies of nature. In phyſics we have
produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the
preſent age has made more important diſcoveries,
nor has enriched philoſoplhy with more, or more
ingenious ſolutions of the phenomena of nature.
We have ſuppoſed Mr. Rittenhouſe ſecond to no
aſtronomer living: that in genius he muſt be the
firſt, becauſe he is ſelf-taught. As an artiſt he has
exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as
the world has ever produced. He has not indeed
made a world; but he has by imitation approached
nearer its Maker than any man who has lived
- ↑ Has the world as yet produced more than two poets, acknowledged to be ſuch by all nations? An Engliſhman, only, reads Milton with delight, an Italian Taſſo, a Frenchman Henriade, a Portugueſe Camoens, but Homer and Virgil have been the rapture of every age and nation: they are read with enthuſiaſm in their originals by thoſe who can read the originals, and in tranſlations by thoſe who cannot.
