have not been excelled. To form, therefore, a correct taste, one effectual mode, at least, is by a well directed study of these estimable compositions, and by occasionally comparing them with the excellencies and defects of modern productions. If in any department of polite literature, which they have cultivated, the ancients have particularly failed, it is in the drama; but of this I have said sufficient in the preceding letters. There are some other branches of literature, in which I think the moderns have excelled, and some which have not at all been cultivated by the ancients; but this does not, in any view, militate against the utility of classical literature, since an accomplished person ought to be acquainted with the most perfect productions, both of ancient and modern times. From a fair consideration of the real uses of classical literature, some practical conclusions result, which appear of no inconsiderable importance in the education of youth. Impressed as I am with a full sense of the advantages resulting from a classical education, I cannot help thinking, that an unreasonable and enthusiastic regard has sometimes been paid to the writings of the ancients. Instead of considering them as useful assistants, as guides to knowledge, they have been extolled, as containing within themselves all that is worthy of being known, and men have mistaken the rudiments of science, for science itself. How many have devoted their lives to the study of the classics, as if there were no other duties to be performed, no other advantages to be obtained, no other laurels to be reaped? How many have continued, during their existence, in the clements of science, without extending their views to any thing beyond them, without indeed making use of their own understanding. I should wish to see the ancients studied for their matter, as well as for their language; but the information which they convey, is too commonly made a sccondary consideration. The attention of youth is di reeted to the elegant latinity of Cæsar and of Horace, not to the facts, observations, or precepts, which are contained in these valuable authors. If the tutors of our youth condescend to remark even upon the beauties of the classics, it is not on the beauty of sentiment, it is not on the vigour of imagination, it is not on the poetical ornaments. Their attention is at the utmost extended to a choice of words, to a curious grammatical connexion, or to the nice intricacies of idiomatical phraseology. At the revival of letters a race of commentators were useful, if not necessary; they were the pioneers of literature, who cleared the way for more respectable adventurers. But in the present state of literature, can we behold without regret a man of genius dedicating a life to a few barren and fruitless verbal criticisms, to the regulating of a few phrases, or correcting in a few instances the quantity and metre of an obscure author; when, had he applied his talents as they ought to have been applied, he, perhaps, would have produced an original composition, more valuable than the production on which he has so unworthily bestowed his labour? To write Latin decently and intelligibly, may occasionally prove a convenience to a literary man; chiefly in facilitating his commerce with foreign literati; but surely the attempt (for it is but an attempt) to compose poetical productions in Greek and Latin, is, at best, only á species of elegant trifling. If life is short, and science of unbounded extent; if our duties are many, and but few our opportunities of qualifying for them, and performing them as we ought, are we justified in neglecting solid and useful branches of knowledge; are we to pursue straws, and leaves, and gossimer, while we leave the grain and fruits, which should be the support of life, to perish and to rot? The example of some of our enlightened neighbours on the continent, may, perhaps, be worthy of our imitation. They study the ancients, but they study them to read and imitate them. They are not devoted to this study alone; they make themselves masters not only of the ancient, but of the modern languages; they can converse with the well-informed of other nations, and they can read their works. Thus an infinite extent of knowledge is opened to their view; and they are less likely to be the slaves of prejudice than the cloistered pedant, who expects to find the whole of knowledge in the blind reveries of ancient scholiasts; whose philosophy is locked up in Plato, whose morals and politics are only derived from Aristotle, and who regards the tales of Pliny as the perfection of natural science. It is by estimating truly the advantages of classical learning, and not by over-rating its importance, that we can give it respect, or promote its cultivation. ter; I think an acquaintance with the ancient languages, essential to the formation of an accomplished characbut if a man would be accomplished he must not stop there; he must not expect to find in the ancients what they do not contain; or see in Homer more than Homer knew." In a word, without neglecting the ancients, we may derive much wisdom, much taste, and much pleasure from the productions of modern writers; the study of both is compatible, if we study both as we ought. THE END, |