The list of English mathematicians of llie fourteenth century, given by Montocla. among whom it Chaucer, shows the terms of Ihe text to be loo exclusive, and seems indeed, as he observes, lo presage ihe future success of the English nation in that department. Monlu.been saved, il might have been as speciously argued, that we owed our literature to the salvation of that great school and repository of learning, as it has been asserted for the last three centuries, lhat the cultivation of letters in the West is to be ascribed lo Ihe Hight of Grecian exiles into Italy. But, however that may be, the revival of letters is an epoch in the hisloryof philosophy.Literature, which lies much nearer to Ihe feelings of mankind than science, has Ihe most important elTect on the sentiments wilh which Ihe sciences arc regarded, the activity with which they are pursued, and tho mode in which Ihey are cultivated. Il is the instrument, in particular, by which ethical science is generally dilTused. As the useful arts maintain the general honour of physical knowledge, so polite letters allure the world inlo the neighbourhood of the sciences of Morals and of Mind. Wherever the. agreeable vehicle of literature does not convey their doclrines to Ihe public, they remain the occupation of a fow recluscs in the schools, with no root in Ihe general feelings, and liable to be deslroyed by the dispersion of a handful of doctors, and ihe deslruclion of Iheir unlamented seminaries. Nor is this all. l’olite literature is not only the true guardian of the moral sciences, and the sole instrument of spreading their benefits among men, but it becomes, from these Very circumstances, tho regulator of their cultivation and their progress. As long as they are confined lo a small number of men in scholastic retirements, Ihere is no restraint upon Iheir natural proneness to degenerate either inlo verbal subtleties or inlo showy dreams. It is peculiar to these vices, that, having no boundaries prescribed by reason, their course may be prolonged for ever. As long as speculation remained in Ihe schools, all ils followers were divided inlo mere dialecticians or mvslical visionaries, both alike unmindful of Ihe real world, and disregarded by its inhabitants. The revival of literature produced a revolution at once in the stale of sociely and in Ihe mode of philosophising. It attracted readers from the common ranks of society, who were gradually led on from eloquence and poetry lo morals and philosophy.