alone. The confequence is, that when the term of education has elapsed, the greater number find themselves utterly def titute and helpless; without an outline which they can afterwards agreeably employ themselves in filling up, and with few or no acquifitions which they can apply to the fervice of others. The few, who feel the pride of fuperior powers, have nothing upon which to pique themselves, but certain pretenfions to taste.

These pretensions, I believe, fhew, on the one hand, how, according to Mr. Locke, men, after efpoufing certain well-endowed or fashionable opinions, "feek argu

66

66

66

ments, either to make good their beau

ty, or varnish over and cover their deformity;" while, on the other, they furnish an inftance, where more than ordinary penetration is required to make a discovery, or more than ordinary ingenuoufnefs

oufnefs to produce a confeffion; one may expect indeed, that a man will keep such a fecret as long as he can from himself as well as from others; for however much he may have laboured, and however regularly he may have paffed through the forms, he muft either fummon up refolution to begin anew, or perpetually carry about with him a most humiliating conscioufnefs.

Where the tafte has been almoft exclufively cultivated, the character will be without energy, and its most prominent feature will be that delicacy of feeling, against which Mr. Hume has entered fo just a protest. Gray, ftripped of his genius, is a tolerably fair model of a man of mere tafte; and nothing can be well imagined lefs defireable, than Gray's fickly conftitution of mind. Nothing, I think, affords a more lively representation of intellects thus puny and paf

five

five than those maffes of animated jelly, which one fees at times scattered along the sea shore, without bone or tendon, that quiver to every blast and fhrink at every touch.

The futility of this plea in defence of a method, according to which more time is confumed and more drudgery undergone, than would be fufficient to learn half the Encyclopedia in addition to all that is really acquired, plainly appears from the afsociation of the moft exquifite taste with the greatest proficiency in phyfical knowledge. Such an affociation has frequently been seen in our times; in Haller, Born, Buffon, Murray, Darwin, and twenty others *. It will more and more frequently

be

* Mr. Heyne, whose taste and judgment will not be difputed, fpeaks always in as high terms of real or phyfical knowledge, as Bacon himself." Naturæ vero cognofcendæ ftudium, omnis veræ philofo

phiæ

be feen, as we difcard more and more of the inveterate errors and inadequate inftitutions of our ancestors. It is impoffible to doubt that out of every hundred of liberally educated persons, whatever be the extent of their capacity, ninety might have acquired as correct a taste and infinitely more knowledge than they poffefs.

As claffical literature is not the whole, nor the most important part of that which ought to be taught in the course of a good education, fo even to acquire this, fome better method than that which we at prefent follow is wanting *. In fact, many of

thofe,

phiæ fundus, humanæ mentis fax certiffima-ad ea quoque, quæ extra fenfibilem naturam pofita esse dicuntur.:” Opufc. iii. 204.

* Hemfterhufius, fays Mr. Ruhnken, commentitias anomalias, quibus grammatici omnia perturbaffent, explofit, denique tenebras lingua (Graca nempe) per tot fæcula of

fufas

thofe, who are made to devote years to the

pursuit, approach no nearer to the object,

than

fufas ita difcuffit, ut qua linguâ nulla eft neque verbis neque formis copiofitor, eâdem JAM nulla reperiatur ad difcendum facilior.

Our school boys, I am much afraid, know nothing of the confummation announced by Mr. Ruhnken's JAM, however devoutly they may wish for it. They feel what Lennep fays will be the cafe, as long as the Greek language is taught according to our barbarous grammars-nihil triftius ejus ftudiis invenietur; nihil quod poffit juventutem ab ejus linguæ culturâ, deterrere magis. We are unacquainted with thofe few and fimple rules, ad quas omnia in linguis, tanquam ad normam certiffimam, exigi poffint; quas ex ipfâ linguæ naturâ ductas, & ratione fuffultas, memoriæ infigere, & infixas confervare diutiffime possis (p. 4.).

Affuredly, if the spirit of the claffics be fo falutary to the youthful mind, we fhould infufe it as effectually as poffible. Now, befides those quoted above, there is other high authority for fuppofing, that our methods are not fo effectual as thofe practifed elsewhere.

I

Some