of knowledge!' and 'the progress of liberal principles' is like that of a man too late for post-horses. A fall in stocks! and where are your London Universities and your Mechanics' Institutes, and your new Docks? Where your philosophy, your philanthropy, and your competition? National prejudices revive, as national prosperity decreases. If the Consols were at sixty, we should be again bellowing, God save the King! eating roast beef and damning the French."
"And you imagine literature is equally affected, Grey?"
"Clearly. We were literary, because we were rich. Amid the myriad of volumes which issued monthly from the press, what one was not written for the mere hour? It is all very well to buy mechanical poetry, and historical novels, when our purses have a plethora; but now, my dear fellow, depend upon it, the game is up. We have no scholars now—no literary recluses—no men who ever appear to
