ABSTRACT
A Decree has passed in the National Assembly instituting-rewards for literary merit. The proposal met with great opposition from one of the members, I do not with to remember his name, who said the state flood in need of husbandmen, not poets; as if the state would be encumbered by having both. This gentleman thinks, that, provided wheat and oats flourish, the culture of mind may be dispensed with; and that, if the spade end harrow are sharpened, the quill of genius nay be (hipped of all its feathers.* Mais, Vive l’Assemblee Nationale!—they have determined never to abolish the nobility of the muses, or deprive the fine-arts † de-leurs droits honourifiques.
