certain mystic meaning-if there is not a sympathy of intelligence between her and them-if they do not fully conceive of impressions, and cannot respond to mysterious communications, she holds them unworthy of intercourse with her. She does not so much insist on high moral excellence as the criterion of their worth, as on their own account of their internal feelings.'-(I. 60-63.)

Temples to friendship and virtue must be totally | though her friends may be correct, devout, and both doclaid aside, for many years to come, in novels. Mr. trinally and practically pious; yet, if they cannot catch a Lane, of the Minerva Press, has given them up long since; and we are quite surprised to find such a writer as Mrs. More busied in moral brick and mortar. Such an idea, at first, was merely juvenile; the second time a little nauseous; but the ten thousandth time it is quite intolerable. Calebs, upon his first arrival in London, dines out,-meets with a bad dinner,-suppo ses the cause of that bad dinner to be the erudition of the ladies of the house,-talks to them upon learned subjects, and finds them as dull and ignorant as if they had piqued themselves upon all the mysteries of house. wifery. We humbly submit to Mrs. More, that this is not humorous, but strained and unnatural. Philippics against frugivorous children after dinner are too common. Lady Melbury has been introduced into every novel for these four years last past. Peace to her

ashes!

The characters in this novel which evince the greatest skill are unquestionably those of Mrs. Ranby and her daughters. There are some scenes in this part of the book extremely well painted, and which evince that Mrs. More could amuse, in no common degree, if amusement was her object.

"At tea I found the young ladies took no more interest in the conversation than they had done at dinner, but sat whispering and laughing, and netting white silk gloves, till they were summoned to the harpsichord. Despairing of getting on with them in company, I proposed a walk in the garden. I now found them as willing to talk as destitute of any thing to say. Their conversation was vapid and frivolous. They laid great stress on small things. They seemed to have no shades in their understanding, but used the strongest terms for the commonest occasions; and admiration was excited by things hardly worthy to command attention. They were extremely glad and extremely sorry on subjects not calculated to excite affections of any kind. They were animated about trifles, and indifferent on things of importance. They were, I must confess, frank and goodnatured; but it was evident that, as they were too open to have any thing to conceal, so they were too uninformed to have any thing to produce; and I was resolved not to risk my happiness with a woman who could not contribute her full share towards spending a wet winter cheerfully in the country.'-(I. 54, 55.)

This trait of character appears to us to be very good. The following passage is still better.

one."

In the evening, Mrs. Ranby was lamenting in general, in rather customary terms, her own exceeding sinfulness. Mr. Ranby said, "You accuse yourself rather too heavily, my dear; you have sins to be sure." "And pray what sins have I, Mr. Ranby?" said she, turning upon him with so much quickness that the poor man started. "Nay," said he, meckly, "I did not mean to offend you; so far from it, that, hearing you condemn yourself grievously, I intended to comfort you, and to say that, except a few faults "And pray what faults?" interrupted she, continuing to speak, however, lest he should catch an interval to tell them. "I defy you, Mr. Ranby, to produce "My dear," replied he, "as you charged yourself with all, I thought it would be letting you off cheaply, by naming only two or three, such as "Here, fearing matters would go too far, I interposed; and, softening things as much I could for the lady, said, "I conceived that Mr. Ranby meant, that though she partook of the general corruption- Here Ranby, interrupting me with more spirit than I thought he possessed, said, "General corruption, sir, must be the source of particular corruption. I did not mean that my wife was worse than other women." "Worse, Mr. Ranby, worse?" cried she. Ranby, for the first time in his life, not minding her, went on, "As she is always insisting that the whole species is corrupt, she cannot help allowing that she herself has not quite escaped the infection. Now, to be a sinner in the gross, and a saint in the detail that is, to have all sins, and no faults-is a thing I do not quite comprehend."

After he had left the room, which he did as the shortest way of allaying the storm, she, apologizing for him, said, "he was a well-meaning man, and acted up to the little light he had;" but added, "that he was unacquainted with religious feelings, and knew little of the nature of conver

sion."

Mrs. Ranby, I found, seems to consider Christianity as a kind of free-masonry; and therefore thinks it superfluous to speak on serious subjects to any but the initiated. If they do not return the sign, she gives them up as blind and dead. She thinks she can only make herself intelligible to those to whom certain peculiar phrases are familiar: and D

The great object kept in view, throughout the whole of this introduction, is the enforcement of religious principle, and the condemnation of a life lavished in dissipation and fashionable amusement. In the pursuit of this object, it appears to us that Mrs. More is much too severe upon the ordinary amusements of mankind, many of which she does not object to in this or that degree, but altogether. Celebs and Lucilla, her optimus and optima, never dance, and never go to the play. They not only stay away from the comedies of Congreve and Farquhar, for which they may easily enough be forgiven-but they never go to see Mrs. Siddons in the Gamester, or in Jane Shore. The finest exhibition of talent, and the most beautiful moral lessons, are interdicted at the theatre. There is something in the word Playhouse which seems so closely connected, in the minds of these people, with sin and Satan, that it stands in their vocabulary for every species of abomination. And yet why? Where is every feeling more roused in favour of virtue than at a good play? Where is goodness so feelingly, so enthusiastically learnt? What so solemn as to see the excellent passions of the human heart called forth by a great actor-animated by a great poet? To hear Siddons repeat what Shakspeare wrote! To behold the child and his mother-the noble and the poor artisan-the monarch and his subjects-all ages and all ranks convulsed in one common passion-wrung with one common anguish, and, with loud sobs and cries, doing involuntary homage to the God that made their hearts! What wretched infatuation to interdict such amusements as these! What a blessing that mankind can be allured from sensual gratification, and find relaxation and pleasure in such pursuits! But the excellent Mr. Stanley is uniformly paltry and narrow, -always trembling at the idea of being entertained, and thinking no Christian safe who is not dull. As to the spectacles of impropriety which are sometines in a much stronger degree, to not driving along the witnessed in parts of the theatre, such reasons apply, Strand, or any of the great public streets of London, after dark; and, if the virtue of well-educated young persons is made of such very frail materials, their best resource is a nunnery at once. It is a very bad rule, however, never to quit the house for fear of catching

cold.

Mrs. More practically extends the same doctrine to cards and assemblies. No cards-because cards are employed in gaming; no assemblies-because many dissipated persons pass their lives in assemblies. Carry this but a little further, and we must say, no wine-because of drunkenness; no meat-because of gluttony; no use, that there may be no abuse! The fact is, that Mr. Stanley wants, not only to be religi ous, but to be at the head of the religious. These little abstinences are the cockades by which the party are known,-the rallying points for the evangelical faction. So natural is the love of power, that it sometimes becomes the influencing motive with the sincere advocates of that blessed religion whose very characteristic excellence is the humility which it inculcates.

We observe that Mrs. More, in one part of her work, falls into the common error about dress. She first blames ladies for exposing their persons in the present style of dress, and then says, if they knew their own interest,-if they were aware how much more alluring they were to men when their charms are less displayed, they would make the desired alteration from motives merely selfish.

'Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest, if they could guess with what a charm even the appearance of modesty invests its posessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice; the co

quette would adopt it as an allurement; the pure as her ap- | ourselves for the present with making a few such slight propriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most infal- observations as may enable the sagacious to conjec. lible art of seduction.'-(I. 189.) ture what our direct answer would be were we compelled to be more explicit.

We are glad to find in this work some strong compliments to the efficacy of works,-some distinct admissions that it is necessary to be honest and just, before we can be considered as religious. Such sort of Much less time, judiciously managed, would give them concessions are very gratifying to us; but how will an acquaintance with the classics sufficient for all useful they be received by the children of the Tabernacle? tlemen or professional men need to be. It is not requsite purposes, and would make them as good scholars as genIt is quite clear, indeed, throughout the whole of the that every man should make Latin or Greek verses; therework, that an apologetical explanation of certain re-fore, a knowledge of prosody beyond the structure of hexligious opinions is intended; and there is a consider-ameter and pentameter verses, is as worthless an acquisiable abatement of that tone of insolence with which tion as any which folly or fashion has introduced amongst the improved Christians are apt to treat the bungling the higher classes of mankind. It must indeed be acknowl specimens of piety to be met with in the more ancient churches.

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. (EDINBURGH RE- kept by private tutors, who might, during the hours when

complaints we have to make are at least as old as the time of Locke and Dr. Samuel Clarke; and the evil which is the subject of these complaints has certainly rather increased than diminished since the period of those two great men. An hundred years, to be sure, is a very little time for the duration of a national error; and it is so far from being reasonable to look for its decay at so short a date, that it can hardly be expected, within such limits, to have displayed the full bloom of its imbecility.

There are several feelings to which attention must be paid, before the question of classical learning can be fairly and temperately discussed.

We are apt, in the first place, to remember the immense benefits which the study of the classics once conferred on mankind; and to feel for those models on which the taste of Europe has been formed, something like sentiments of gratitude and obligation. This is all well enough, so long as it continues to be a mere feeling; but, as soon as it interferes with action, it nourishes dangerous prejudices about education. Nothing will do in the pursuit of knowledge but the blackest ingratitude; the moment we have got up the ladder, we must kick it down;-as soon as we have passed over the bridge, we must let it rot;-when we have got upon the shoulders of the ancients, we must look over their heads. The man who forgets the friends of his childhood in real life, is base: but he who clings to the props of his childhood in literature, must be content to remain as ignorant as he was when a child. His business is to forget, disown, and denyto think himself above every thing which has been of use to him in time past-and to cultivate that exclusively from which he expects future advantage: in short, to do every thing for the advancement of his knowledge which it would be infamous to do for the advancement of his fortune. If mankind still derive advantage from classical literature proportionate to the labour they bestow upon it, let their labour and their study proceed; but the moment we cease to read Latin and Greek for the solid utility we derive from them, it would be a very romantic application of human talents to do so from any feeling of gratitude, and recollection of past service.

To almost every Englishman up to the age of three or four and twenty, classical learning has been the great object of existence; and no man is very apt to suspect, or very much pleased to hear, that what he has done for so long a time was not worth doing. His classical literature, too, reminds every man of the scenes of his childhood, and brings to his fancy several of the most pleasing associations which we are capable of forming. A certain sort of vanity, also, very naturally grows among men occupied in a common pursuit. Classical quotations are the watch-words of scholars, by which they distinguish each other from the ignorant and illiterate; and Greek and Latin are insensibly become almost the only test of a cultivated

mind.

Some men through indolence, others through ig. norance, and most through necessity, submit to the established education of the times; and seek for their children that species of distinction which happens, at the period in which they live, to be stamped with the approbation of mankind. This mere question of convenience every parent must determine for himself. A poor man, who has his fortune to gain, must be a quibbling theologian, or a classical pedant, as fashion dictates; and he must vary his error with the error of the times. But it would be much more fortunate for mankind, if the public opinion, which regulates the pursuits of individuals, were more wise and enlightened than it at present is.

All these considerations make it extremely difficult to procure a candid hearing on this question; and to refer this branch of education to the only proper criterion of every branch of education-its utility in future life.

There are two questions which grow out of this subject: 1st, How far is any sort of classical education useful? 2d, How far is that particular classical education adopted in this country useful?

Latin and Greek are, in the first place, useful as

they inure children to intellectual difficulties, and make the life of a young student what it ought to be. a life of considerable labour. We do not, of course mean to confine this praise exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek; or to suppose that other diff culties might not be found which it would be useful to overcome: but though Latin and Greek have this merit in common with many arts and sciences, still they have it; and, if they do nothing else, they at least secure a solid and vigorous application at a period of life which materially influences all other periods.

To go through the grammar of one language thoroughly is of great use for the mastery of every other grammar; because there obtains, through all languages, a certain analogy to each other in their grammatical construction. Latin and Greek have now mixed themselves etymologically with all the languages of modern Europe-and with none more than our own; so that it is necessary to read these two tongues for other objects than themselves.

'The two ancient languages are, as mere inventions as pieces of mechanism, incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern languages of Europe: their mode of signifying time and case by terminations, instead of auxiliary verbs and participles, would of itself stamp their superiority. Add to this, the copiousness of the Greek language, with the fancy, majesty, and harmony of its compounds; and there are quite suffi cient reasons why the classics should be studied for beauties of language. Compared to them, merely as vehicles of thought and passion, all modern languages are dull, ill-contrived, and barbarous.

That a great part of the Scriptures has come down to us in the Greek language, is of itself a reason, if all others were wanting, why education should be planned so as to produce a supply of Greek scholars. The cultivation of style is very justly made a part of education. Every thing which is written is meant either to please or to instruct. The second object it is difficult to effect, without attending to the first; and the cultivation of style is the acquisition of those rules and literary habits which sagacity anticipates, or experience shows to be the most effectual means of pleasing. Those works are the best which have longest stood the test of time, and pleased the greatest number of exercised minds. Whatever, therefore, our conjectures may be, we cannot be so sure that the best modern writers can afford us as good models as the ancients; we cannot be certain that they will live through the revolutions of the world, and continue to please in every climate-under every species of government-through every stage of civilization. The moderns have been well taught by their masters; but the time is hardly yet come when the necessity for such instruction no longer exists. We may still borrow descriptive power from Tacitus; dignified perspicuity from Livy; simplicity from Cæsar; and from Homer some portion of that light and heat which, dispersed into ten thousand channels, has filled the world with bright images and illustrious thoughts. Let the cultivator of modern literature addict himself to the purest models of taste which France, Italy, and England could supply, he might still learn from Virgil to be majestic, and from Tibullus to be tender; he might not yet look upon the face of nature as Theocri tus saw it; nor might he reach those springs of pathos with which Euripides softened the hearts of his audience. In short, it appears to us, that there are so many excellent reasons why a certain number of scho lars should he kept up in this and in every civilized country, that we should consider every system of edu cation from which classical education was excluded, as radically erroneous and completely absurd.

That vast advantages, then, may be derived from classical learning, there can be no doubt. The advantages which are dirived from classical learning by the English manner of teaching, involve another and a very different question; and we will venture to say, that there never was a more complete instance in any country of such extravagant and overacted attachment to any branch of knowledge as that which obtains in this country with regard to classical knowledge. A

young Englishman goes to school at six or seven years | mastered the wisdom of the ancients, that is valued, old; and he remains in a course of education till as he who displays his knowledge of the vehicle in twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. In all that which that wisdom is conveyed. The glory is to show time, his sole and exclusive occupation is learning Lat-I am a scholar. The good sense and ingenuity I may in and Greek:* he has scarcely a notion that there is gain by my acquaintance with ancient authors is matany other kind of excellence; and the great system of ter of opinion; but if I bestow an immensity of pains facts with which he is most perfectly acquainted, are upon a point of accent or quantity, this is something the intrigues of the Heathen gods: with whom Pan positive; I establish my pretensions to the name of slept?-with whom Jupiter?-whom Apollo ravished? scholar, and gain the credit of learning, while I sacriThese facts the English youth get by heart the mo- fice all its utility. ment they leave the nursery; and are most sedulously Another evil in the present system of classical eduinstructed in them till the best and most active part of cation is the extraordinary perfection which is aimed life is passed away. Now, this long career of classi- at in teaching those languages; a needless perfection; cal learning, we may, if we please, denominate a foun- an accuracy which is sought for in nothing else. There dation; but it is a foundation so far above ground, that are few boys who remain to the age of eighteen or there is absolutely no room to put any thing upon it. nineteen at a public school, without making above ten If you occupy a inan with one thing till he is twenty-thousand Latin verses;-a greater number than is confour years of age, you have exhausted all his leisure tained in the Eneid: and after he has made this quantime: he is called into the world, and compelled to tity of verses in a dead language, unless the poet act; or is surrounded with pleasures, and thinks and should happen to be a very weak man indeed, he nev reads no more. If you have neglected to put other er makes another as long as he lives. It may be urged, things in him, they will never get in afterwards;-if and it is urged, that this is of use in teaching the del you have fed him only with words, he will remain a icacies of the language. No doubt it is of use for this narrow and limited being to the end of his existence. purpose, if we put out of view the immense time and The bias given to men's minds is so strong, that it trouble sacrificed in gaining these little delicacies. It is no uncommon thing to meet with Englishmen, whom, would be of use that we should go on till fifty years but for their grey hairs and wrinkles, we might easily of age making Latin verses, if the price of a whole mistake for schoolboys. Their talk is of Latin verses; life were not too much to pay for it. We effect our and it is quite clear, if men's ages are to be dated from object; but we do it at the price of something greater the state of their mental progress, that such men are than our object. And whence comes it that the exeighteen years of age, and not a day older. Their penditure of life and labour is totally put out of the minds have been so completely possessed by exagge- calculation, when Latin and Greek are to be attained? rated notions of classical learning, that they have not In every other occupation, the question is fairly stated been able, in the general school of the world, to form between the attainment, and the time employed in the any other notions of real greatness. Attend, too, to pursuit ;-but in classical learning, it seems to be suf the public feelings-look to all the terms of applause. ficient if the least possible good is gained by the greatA learned man!-a scholar!-a man of erudition! est possible exertion; if the end is anything, and the Upon whom are these epithets of approbation be- means every thing. It is of some importance to speak stowed ? Are they given to men acquainted with the and write French; and innumerable delicacies would science of government? thoroughly masters of the be gained by writing ten thousand French verses: but geographical and commercial relations of Europe? to it makes no part of our education to write French pomen who know the properties of bodies, and their ac-etry. It is of some importance that there should be tion upon each other? No: this is not learning: it is good botanists; but no botanist can repeat, by heart, chemistry, or political economy-not learning. The the names of all the plants in the known world; nor is distinguishing abstract term, the epithet of Scholar, any astronomer acquainted with the appellation and is reserved for him who writes on the Eolic reduplica- magnitude of every star in the map of the heavens. tion, and is familiar with the Sylburgian method of ar- The only department of human knowledge in which ranging defectives in w and . The picture which a there can be no excess, no arithmetic, no balance of young Englishman, addicted to the pursuit of knowl-profit and loss, is classical learning. edge, draws-his beau ideal, of human nature-his top and consummation of man's powers-is a knowledge of the Greek language. His object is not to reason, to imagine, or to invent; but to conjugate, decline, and derive. The situations of imaginary glory which he draws for himself, are the detection of an anapæst in the wrong place, or the restoration of a dative case which Cranzius had passed over, and the never-dying Ernesti failed to observe. If a young classic of this kind were to meet the greatest chemist or the greatest mechanician, or the most profound political econmist of his time, in company with the greatest Greek scholar, would the slightest comparison between them ever come across his mind?-would he ever dream that such men as Adam Smith and Lavoisier were equal in dignity of understanding to, or of the same utility as, Bentley and Heyne? We are inclined to think, that the feeling excited would be a good deal like that which was expressed by Dr. George about the praises of the great King of Prussia, who entertained considerable doubts whether the king, with all his victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek verb in με,

Another misfortune of classical learning, as taught in England, is, that scholars have come, in process of time, and from the effects of association, to love the instrument better than the end;-not the luxury which the difficulty encloses, but the difficulty;-not the filbert, but the shell;-not what may read in Greek, but Greek itself. It is not so much the man who has

* Unless he goes to the University of Cambridge; and then classics occupy him entirely for about ten years; and divide

him with mathematics for four or five more.

The prodigious honour in which Latin verses are held at public schools, is surely the most absurd of all absurd distinctions. You rest all reputation upon that which is a natural gift, and which no labour can attain. If a lad won't learn the words of a language, his degra dation in the school is a very natural punishment for his disobedience, or his indolence; but it would be as reasonable to expect that all boys should be witty or beautiful, as that they should be poets. In either case it would be to make an accidental, unattainable, and not a very important gift of nature, the only, or principal test of merit. This is the reason why boys, who make a very considerable figure at school, so very often make no figure in the world; and why other lads, who are passed over without notice, turn out to be valuable important men. The test established in the world is widely different from that established in a place which is presumed to be a preparation for the world; and the head of a public school, who is a perfect miracle to his contemporaries, finds himself shrink into absolute insignificance, because he has nothing else to command respect or regard, but a talent for fugitive poetry in a dead language.

The present state of classical education cultivates the imagination a great deal too much, and other habits of mind a great deal too little; and trains up many young men in a style of elegant imbecility, utterly unworthy of the talents with which nature has endowed them. It may be said there are profound inves tigations, and subjects quite powerful enough for any understanding, to be met with in classical literature. So there are; but no man likes to add the difficulties of a language to the difficulties of a subject; and to study metaphysics, morals, and politics in