Destitute as I am of every talent which, by securing your approbation, is certain to secure a seat at your illustrious board; I am nevertheless impressed with the most lively sense of the eminent service which a Monarch, dear to our hearts, has done to the cause of polite literature, by fixing upon you, Gentlemen, as the proper instruments for raising it to perfection. Incapable of affording any example in myself, I have the singular felicity, of being numbered in the society of such, as are most amply endowed with every requisite, to make them models of excellence. Charmed with the prospect, my fancy anticipates the height, to which those soaring geniuses will attain, who, following the light of your instructions, will hereafter exalt the reputation of our literature by a purity of diction, added to elevation, and energy of thought. Already, invigorated by your precepts, poetry prepares to transmit to posterity, in the most brilliant and glowing colours, a picture of the opinions and polished manners of an enlightened age. Already solicitous to immortalize in the language of our country the memory of its great men, eloquence discovers in the persons of those, who have enriched her with the choicest ornaments of speech, the most deserving objects of her praise. With admiration I contemplate the protector of the belles lettres condescending to enrol his illustrious name with the names of those whom he has directed to promulgate and maintain the rules which genius avows, and of which his own is an eminent example.
