As regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend the hill of life naturally looks backward as well as forward, and we must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future times as a splendid literary age.  The elder among us have lived in the lifetime of many great men who have passed to their rest—­the younger have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their hands as I trust they will continue to be in the hands of all generations.  I am afraid we can not hope for literature—­it would be contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of 1815.  That was a great period—­a great period in England, a great period in Germany, a great period in France, and a great period, too, in Italy.

As I have said, I think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a perfect level at so high an elevation.  Undoubtedly the cultivation of literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must remember what is literature and what is not.  In the first place we should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature.  The business of bookmaking I have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a constantly extending scale from year to year.  But that we may put aside.  For my own part if I am to look a little forward, what I anticipate for the remainder of the century is an age not so much of literature proper—­not so much of great, permanent and splendid additions to those works in which beauty is embodied as an essential condition of production, but rather look forward to an age of research.  This is an age of great research—­of great research in science, great research in history—­an age of research in all the branches of inquiry that throw light upon the former condition whether of our race, or of the world which it inhabits; and it may be hoped that, even if the remaining years of the century be not so brilliant as some of its former periods, in the production of works great in themselves, and immortal,—­still they may add largely to the knowledge of mankind; and if they make such additions to the knowledge of mankind, they will be preparing the materials of a new tone and of new splendors in the realm of literature.  There is a sunrise and sunset.  There is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon.  There is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations.  And so with all the great operations of the human mind.  But do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great.  Our sun is hidden only for a moment.  It is like the day-star of Milton:—­

     “Which anon repairs his drooping head,
     And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore,
     Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.”