than the former are eager in their endeavours to draw neglect on the polished languages of antiquity. With this second class, if an adept in Greek and Latin, you are a learned and a great man; but without those languages, your ignorance is contemptible. They think it impossible to inspire the youthful mind with generous or virtuous sentiments, to teach the boy wisdom, or to animate him with courage, without the assistance of the ancient philosophers, historians, and poets.-Now, with which of these parties shall we agree? or shall we mediate between them? Is it improper to call youth to the study of the languages? Is it impossible to communicate useful knowledge without them? or are they, though highly useful, not always indispensably necessary? To give satisfactory answers to these queries it may be necessary to examine a little into the real utility of acquaintance with the dead languages, and what is called classical learning.

To begin then, it may be observed, that the cultivation of classical learning has a favorable influence on the living languages themselves; it has a tendency to preserve their purity from debasement, and their analogy from irregularities. In studying the dead languages it is necessary to give more attention to the principles of grammar than in acquir ing our mother-tongue. We learn our native language without attending much to its analogy and structure. Of the numbers who speak English throughout the British dominions, but few, comparatively speaking, are skilled in the formation of its nouns and verbs, or able to distinguish between adverbs and conjunctions. Desirous only of being mutually understood, they are not anxious about purity or correctness of speech: they reject not an expression which occurs to them, because it is barbarous or ungrammatical: as they grow up they learned to speak from their parents, their nurses, and others about them; they were soon able to make known in words their wants, their wishes, and their observations:

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observations: satisfied with this, or called at a very early period to a life of humble industry, they have continued to express themselves in their mother-tongue, without acquiring any accurate knowledge of its general principles. Should these persons be called upon to state their ideas in writing, they are scarcely more studious of correctness and elegance in this way, than in speaking; or if they aspire at these properties, rarely do they attain them. Such speakers and writers, however, can never be expected to refineany language, or reduce it to a regular system; neither can they be qualified to distinguish themselves as the guardians of the purity and regularity of their native tongue, if it should before have attained a high degree of perfection. But those who, in learning a language different from their native tongue, have found it necessary to pay particular attention to the principles of grammar, afterwards apply the knowledge they have thus acquired, in using their own language; and thus be-coming better acquainted with its structure, they learn to speak and write it with more correctness and propriety. The languages of Greece and Rome are besides so highly distinguished for their copiousness, their regular analogy, and various other excellencies, that the study of them must naturally tend to the improvement and enrichment of all modern languages.

If we look backwards to the fifteenth century, when learning began to revive in Europe, and that species of learning which began first to be cultivated was classical literature, we find that almost all the languages of Europe were wretched ly poor and barbarous. No knowledge could be communicated, no business transacted, without the aid of Latin: classical learning, of course, soon came to be cultivated by all ranks with enthusiastic eagerness. Not only those intended for learned professions, and men of fortune whose object was a liberal education, but even the lower ranks, and

the

the female sex keenly applied to the study of the languages, and the wisdom of Greece and Rome.

This avidity for classical learning produced the happiest effects; but its influence was chiefly remarkable in producing a vast change on the form of the living languages: these soon became more copious and regular, and many of them have consequently attained such perfection, that the poet, the historian, the philosopher, may now clothe his thoughts in these modern tongues, to the greatest advantage. Were we therefore to derive no new advantage from the study of ancient languages, yet would they be deserving of our care and study, as having contributed so much to raise modern languages to their present improved state. The inter course of nations, the affectation of writers, the gradual introduction of provincial barbarisms, and various other causes, have a tendency to corrupt and debase even the noblest tongues. By such means were the languages of ancient Greece and Rome gradually corrupted, till the language used by a Horace, a Livy, a Xenophon, a Menander, was lost in jargon unfit for the purposes of composition. If we would not, therefore, disdain to take advantage of them, the classical writings in those languages might prevent our own from experiencing such a decline and subversion. He who knows and admires the excellencies of the dead languages, and the beauties of those writers who have rendered them so cele brated, will be the firm enemy of barbarism, affectation, and negligence, whenever they attempt to debase his mothertongue. It may, therefore, be asserted, that, when the polished languages of antiquity cease to be studied among us, English will then lose its purity, regularity, and other excellencies, and gradually decline until it be no longer known for the language of Pope and Addison; and this consideration ought certainly to be of great weight in favor of the study of what are called the dead languages.

But,

But, further, in those plans of education of which the study of the dead tongues forms no part, proper means are seldom adopted for impressing the youthful mind with habits of labour and industrious perseverance; nor do the judgment, the memory, and the other faculties, receive equal improvement, as they are not led through the same exercises as in classical education. Hence, when the pupils who have been educated according to such plans, come to enter the world, and engage in active life, they are found deficient in many qualifications requisite to form a manly character. Though they have grown up to the size of manhood, their understandings are still childish and feeble, they are capricious, unsteady, incapable of industry or fortitude, and unable to pursue any particular object with keen unremitting perseverance. That long series of study and regular application which is required in order to become a proficient in dead languages, produces much happier effects on the youthful mind. He who is permitted to trifle away the earliest part of his life in idleness or in frivolous occupations, can scarcely be expected to display many manly or vigorous qualities, when he reaches a more mature age; in the same way he whose earlier days have been employed in exercising his memory, and furnishing it with valuable treasures, in cultivating his judgment and reasoning powers, by calling the one to make frequent distinctions between various objects, and the other to deduce many inferences from the comparison of such objects; and also in strengthening and improving the acuteness of his moral powers, by attending to human actions and characters, and distinguishing between them as vicious, or virtuous, mean or glorious :-he who has thus cultivated his faculties may surely be expected to distinguish himself when he comes into the world, by prudence, activity, firmness, perseverance, and most of the other noble qualities which can adorn a human character. But it is perhaps in the course of a classical education alone

that

that the mind receives this cultivation and discipline; and from it in general these effects are to be expected. The repetitions which are required afford improving exercise to the memory, and store it with the most valuable treasures; the understanding is employed in observing the distinction be tween words, in tracing words to the substances and qualities in nature, which they are used to represent, in comparing the terms and idioms of different languages, and in observing the laws of their analogy and construction; while the moral faculties are at the same time improved by attending to the characters described, and the events and actions related in those books which we are directed to peruse, in order to gain a skill in the ancient languages.

If, after all, however, the study of classical learning is to be given up, where shall we find the same treasures of moral wisdom, of elegance, of useful historic knowledge, which the celebrated writers of Greece and Rome afford? Shall we content ourselves with the modern writers of Italy, France, and Britain? or shall we be satisfied to survey the beauties of Homer, and Virgil, of which so much has been said by men of learning and taste of all ages, through the medium of a translation? Surely no; but let us at once penetrate to those sources from which modern writers have derived most of the excellencies which recommend them to our notice.

Classical learning has besides been long cultivated among us, and both by the stores of knowledge it has conveyed to the mind, and the habits it has impressed, has contributed in no small degree to form many illustrious characters. In reviewing the annals of our country, we will scarcely find an eminent politician, patriot, general, or philosopher, during the two last centuries, who did not spend his earlier years in the study of the classics.

Yet, although these things are mentioned, and many other circumstances might be enumerated in favor of classical