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The argument could not be better stated; yet something remains to be said. Language, it is now known, exhibits perpetual change and growth; the agencies of that change and growth are the only competent lawgivers. Of these agencies literature is the least original; its success and vitality are due to the invasion of new ideas, and new forms of speech, from the life of a complex society. The perfection of stability, if it could be attained, would mean the arrest and death of language. The business of an academy is therefore to govern change; and for this business an academy is ill fitted. It must inevitably consist of men of letters who have already won their way to public esteem. These men might perhaps preserve the great literature of bygone ages and foster its influence; they would be more likely to pay undue honour to yesterday, and to shut the gate against to-morrow. They would certainly be men of mature years, and the chief of their duties would be the choice of younger associates. But an older man is commonly more willing to befriend a younger man than to learn from him; the recruits would, for the most part, be disciples, imitators, and admirers of the reigning dynasty, while the rebels, to whom the future belongs, would be left to form their own societies. No academy has yet conquered this difficulty, or found the secret of a perpetuity of influence. Those that have managed to keep their names in repute have done so by carefully watching the movements of public opinion, and by employing their rewards to ratify honours that have been gained on a wider field. The members of academies, like the Chinese, grant decorations to their ancestors. The incorporation of men of letters may serve to lend a touch of ceremonial colour to the close of a lonely