crowd of nameless and unknown statesmen. It is only necessary to recal my Lord Sidmouth's famous rescript to the magistracy a few years ago— my Lord Londonderry's parliamentary effusions at all times, and to come nearer-but no, like the noble author of the letter to Dr. Curtis, whatever we may think, we will "bury the subject in oblivion." Yet these men had studied Latin and Greek,-could scan Horace at school, and possibly construe Livy, perhaps, without having ever read a line of any classic writer in English, in prose or verse, in Pope or Milton, in Hume, in Shaftesbury, in Locke, in Bolingbroke.

It is thus irrationally that we proceed: professing the blindest reverence for the ancients, we pursue a practice the very reverse of theirs. We repeat it, for it will bear, and it requires repetition, that apart from all considerations of use and nature, and considered as a mere accomplishment, there can be nothing so well worthy of our first and last attention, of our deepest study, if our situation allows us time for study, as the genius of our own tongue, through the medium of our best authors in history, in philosophy, in poetry,-in every department of which we have names equal to the first of the ancients,—if mere scholastic prejudice would permit us to make an impartial estimate; but it is this very prejudice which prevents it.

At the time when the study of ancient learning was revived in the fifteenth century, England, like the other countries of Europe, had no literature of its own. The finished productions of Greek and Roman genius being presented to it under circumstances which afforded no parallel, and it being easier at all times to admire than create, a very natural effect followed; to wit, an enthusiastic and boundless reverence for what could not then be imitated, and was, therefore, deemed inimitable. Those who had leisure to devote to literature were naturally led to the study of the dead languages, where they found models of composition of every kind, to which the native dialect could show nothing equal. The home manufacture being so rude, it was easier to import each man, for his own use, so much of polite literature from Rome and Athens as was necessary to the gratification of his taste in that new species of luxury but we might as reasonably continue to fetch our calico's from Calcutta, when we can produce better at Manchester, as persist in the uneconomical waste of life and labour bestowed upon Greek authors and Latin, when our own land and the language we lisp in, furnishes us, as we maintain it does, with productions of every description, of beauty quite equal, and of wisdom far superior, to any which we can bring from antiquity-richer, we say, in the material, and more finished in the workmanship.

It will, of course, be understood, that we urge this with reference chiefly to the general plan of education: and that it is not meant, by any means, to discourage a fair and enlightened, though not a blind and bigotted attention to the dead languages, in those whose profession or fortune, or leisure, may lead them to it. If they possess one tithe of the excellence ascribed to them, there can be no fear of their wanting such students, and to them be it left. We admire, we would second with our

whole power, the attempts that are made to extend our knowledge both of space and time. As we send Parry to the Pole, and Denham to the Equator, so we would commission some to explore the dead regions of antiquity;

not forgetting, however, that it would not be more absurd to commence our study of geography by tracing a north-west passage, or the shortest road to Timbuctoo, than it is to begin our study of literature through the medium of an unknown vocabulary and the intricacies of a foreign grammar. Knowledge, like charity, must begin at home; and surely, if any, the knowledge of language, and if it were to end there too, there would be no harm done.

The writer of this paper perfectly remembers, when a boy, about seven years of age, overhearing a conversation, of which he was himself the subject, concerning the education which it would be best to give him. His father observed, that he presumed it would be proper to begin with Latin and Greek in the usual way. To be sure, said his friend, to whom he appealed, what else can you teach him? So, indeed, it seems to be thought. It is utterly forgotten that since the introduction of the classics into modern Europe, along with the rise and progress of literature in our own and other modern languages, the sciences have also had a new birth, and that, therefore, independently of the use and value of a command over our own tongue, it has become the depository of a fund of actual and permanent knowledge in every department of science, natural, as well as moral; as far above the crude and visionary systems of Greece and Rome, as the enlightened philosophy of modern days is superior to the impure and imperfect theories in ethics and politics, which pervade and often times pollute the brightest pages of their genius.

Let us suppose, that, in addition to an introduction to the classic writers in our own language, part of the time which is commonly lost with application to Latin and to Greek, was devoted to the elements of physics; to some acquaintance with the great laws of nature, not as they were laid down in the dreams of Aristotle, or Plato, or Pliny, but as they have been made manifest in the works of Newton, and Bacon, and Boyle, sufficient, at least, to render interesting and intelligible the phenomena which are daily exhibited to our senses; for though we have quoted Milton, we agree not with Milton in cultivating the natural and physical sciences at the expense of moral and political knowledge, and we desire not more to make every man a chemist, a botanist, or a mineralogist, than a critic in particles, Greek aorists, and metre. Or suppose that a course of the constitutional and municipal law of England was first taught, connected and illustrated as it must be by historical deduction, showing the rise and progress of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions and forms which pervade the whole fabric of society; and suppose that, when leisure allowed, it was made part of general education for every man to learn so much of anatomy and the structure and unctions of the body, of the laws of life, and the first principle of surgery and medicine, as might be sufficient for general purposes, and to preserve from ordinary accidents or useless alarm or suppose that part of the time which "is steeped in port and prejudice among the monks of Oxford," was spent in visiting the works and shops of artizans and mechanics; † yea, even in acquiring the rudi

*Gibbon.

Perhaps this suggestion may seem less extraordinary, when it is remembered to have been a saying of Locke, that he had learned more from observations in the shops of mechanics than from all the volumes he had ever read.

ments of some of the craft, or, if this should be deemed vulgar, in acquiring the elements of the finer arts of drawing, of painting, of gardening, of music:-or let us suppose, if instead of any or all of these vanities, for they are alike vain and unprofitable for the one great and primary object of man's existence as a social and a moral being; suppose, in devising a mode of education for man, we consider, not how he may pass the first years of his life in collecting words, or facts, or fancies, but how he may best cultivate those moral powers and faculties-those sentiments and habits which have such essential and immediate reference to his own happiness and that of his fellows. What then would be the course we should pursue? Would the study of a dead language be the first thing that would present itself? Would language itself, would any language, philologically considered, and not as a medium of instruction, appear to deserve any particular attention whatever. The Spartan's retort to the Athenian who, at an advanced age, was inquiring into the nature of virtue, is still more applicable here. The active duties of life as men and as citizens, in the great mass of the species, have nothing to do with the studies in which our youth is employed-they have not even the dignity or the utility of the Athenian's, for we quit and turn aside from the wisdom that is already amassed, to contemplate the machinery by which it has been pro→ duced. The earth has been opened, and its choicest treasures lie at our feet: but instead of using and appropriating them with an economy suited both to the period and the purpose of our existence, we wilfully descend into the mind, to delve and to grope in the dark; not so much in search of fresh treasures as for the mere wanton pleasure of delving and groping. In the mean time, the heart and the intellect are left equally uncultivated: not a single moral, social, or political truth, is ever inculcated; a creed or a dogma, which may pervert or vitiate, is occasionally forced upon the memory: "but the conduct of the understanding is all along neglected, and the free exercise of it is, in effect, forbid in places, and in terms in some."*

In administering to society, a philosopher would prescribe, first, for those evils which most afflict its peace, and disturb the goodwill that was intended to reign among men. The great object of his plan of instruction would be, to enlarge and liberalize the mind, to correct the prejudices which arise from accidental associations-to impart a few of those simple yet important principles which, either in his own conduct, or in his judgment of others doing or suffering, he is every moment of his life called upon to apply.

The great error we commit is, that our education is merely technical; a business, or an accomplishment is taught singly and alone all that is essential comes, if it comes at all, by chance and of itself. We repeat it, that there is no plan of instruction in modern times which involves within it the inculcation of the elements of the only important sciences, those which, by teaching man his duty, concern every man alike, whether his station be high or low; no discipline in which provision is made for imparting to the mind one moral or political truth, or even preparing it for its reception.

* Bolingbroke on the true use of retirement and study.

Let us consider, in one instance only, the importance of this. Let us suppose, that the time which is usually bestowed on studies foreign to every practical purpose in life, was occupied in acquiring and digesting the great truth which, in the language of Mr. Brougham (whose voice makes that of others sound but as an echo,) "has, finally, gone forth into all the ends of the earth, that man shall no longer be accountable to man for his belief over which he has himself no controul." And as a corollary to this, that all distrust, and strife, and suspicion, and ill-will; much more so, all penalty and persecution, direct or indirect, social or political, yea, even the slightest difference in our treatment or our judgment of our fellow creatures, founded upon an assumption of heresy or irreligion, except in so far as may be evidenced by unjust or immoral conduct, is a violation of the very first principle of charity-is a rebellion against nature, and an invasion of those sacred rights with which God has equally invested at his birth every human being.

We have recently had occasion to experience the force of this, and to form something like an estimate of how far above all price and all other acquisitions would be the general conviction of this single truth. An attempt has been made, we may now say, that a measure has been carried, of simple, political justice; a restoration of rights to an immense portion of our fellow citizens, deprived of them for a long period, because society, which has cultivated arts, and arms, and science, and letters to an extent unprecedented, had neglected what was of far higher importance to its own peace and well-being. It has been carried, it is true; but with what an exhibition of some of the worst and vilest passions of human nature! What an array has been brought to bear against the benefactors of their species, of outrage and insult, and of hypocrisy and fraud,—of falsehood, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, by those whose ignorance alone can have induced them to make war against truth and freedom. And be it remembered too, whilst we are pondering on the undue importance attached to classic studies, and the little they have to do with the progress of sound and liberal knowledge, that it was at Oxford, the most renowned of the academies for ancient learning, that during the recent contests, the cause of bigotry and intolerance obtained the greatest triumph.

But we must conclude: it is the heart, we say again, and the affections thereof, that in every mode of education should have our first and our last attention; and to requite our readers in some measure for all we have said so imperfectly, and all we have omitted to say, we will close our observations with the following passage from the writings of one whom we have quoted before, and in whom the world has recently lost one of the brightest and purest minds that ever yet lived to enlighten and adorn it. "Our daily experience may convince us, how susceptible the tender mind is of deep impressions, and what important and permanent effects are produced on the characters and the happiness of individuals by the casual associations formed in childhood among the various ideas, feelings, and affections with which they were habitually occupied. It is the business of education not to counteract this constitution of nature, but to give it a proper direction; and the miserable consequences to which it leads, when under an improper regulation, only show what an important

instrument of human improvement it might be rendered in more skilful hands. If it be possible to interest the imagination and the heart in favour of error, it is, at least, no less possible to interest them in favour of truth. If it be possible to extinguish all the most generous and heroic feelings of our nature, by teaching us to connect the idea of them with those of guilt and impiety; it is surely equally possible to cherish and strengthen them by establishing the natural alliance between our duty and our happiness. If it be possible for the influence of fashion to veil the native deformity of vice, and to give to low and criminal indulgences the appearence of spirit, of elegance, and of gaiety, can we doubt of the possibility of connecting in the tender mind these pleasing associations with pursuits that are truly worthy and honourable. There are few men to be found, among those who have received a liberal education, who do not retain through life that admiration of the heroic ages of Greece and Rome, with which the classical authors once inspired them. It is, in truth, a fortunate prepossession on the whole, and one of which I should be sorry to counteract the influence. But are there not others of equal importance to morality and to happiness with which the mind might, at the same period of life, be inspired? If the first conceptions, for example, which an infant formed of the Deity, and its first moral perceptions were associated with the early impressions produced on the heart by the beauties of nature or the charms of poetical description, those serious thoughts, which are resorted to by most men merely as a source of consolation in adversity, and which, on that very account, are frequently tinctured with some degree of gloom, would recur spontaneously to the mind in its best and happiest hours, and would insensibly blend themselves with all its purest and most refined enjoyment."

[51]

THE DUEL.

It is now some years since I left the University of Dublin; my cotemporaries are scattered over the globe, and many of those who were linked to me by the closest ties of friendship are parted from me, probably for ever. Yet accident, sometimes, brings me in contact with some of my former companions: then time is annihilated, the hours of youthful pleasure are lived over again in memory, and the world with its cares is forgotten. But all the recollections of past events are not pleasurable; though college be "the greenest spot in my desert of life," yet is it sullied and blighted by the remembrance of one sad scene, of which I was the helpless witAmong all my associates there was none whom I valued so highly as Charles Mahony. The abilities which he displayed in early life induced his father to educate him for the legal profession, and, after having passed with great credit through the preparatory branches of education, he was sent to College, where several literary distinctions soon rewarded his abilities and exertions. The father of Charles was a man of moderate fortune and expensive habits; he was, or fancied himself descended from

ness.

* Dug. Stewart: Phil. Hum. Mind, vol. I. p. 40. Third Edit.