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AN IDYL.

LAST Long, when Frank and I were in the South
Beside the Channel, one sweet afternoon

While on a flowery ledge amid the cliffs

We lay, our elbows deep in thyme, and watch'd
The lazy ripple of the summer sea,

I ask'd him, "Tell me now the song you made
That day when on a certain hill you sat,
And read about the 'swallow flying South,'
With many a glance into the vale below."
So I, and urged my plea until at last

I gain'd my point, and smiling, he began.

"O happy, happy brooklet hastening down
From upland fountain to embrace her bower,
O tell her, happy brooklet, if she stay
To cast a glance upon thee, when she sees
Her fair face in thy mirror, say, O say
There is a heart that mirrors her as true;
But tell her that the wing of Time is swift,
O tell her that he passeth by like thee!

"O happy, happy shades, O twinkling leaves
That flutter all about her, as my heart
Flutters when I behold her; happy leaves,
O whisper to her as ye shade her there,
Breaking the ardent sunbeams, say to her,
That life without the shadow of sweet Love
Is dry and weary; tell her Love waits now
To shade her in the shadow of his wings.

"O happy, happy breeze, that from these hills
Blowest, and from green murmur-haunted gloom
Of linden grove and alley to her bower
Bearest sweet odours, haste! about her hair
Flutter and dance, and breathe upon her lips
The kisses that I send by thee, and bring
O bring ere long, far sweeter than thy breath,
Her kisses back again, sweet breeze, to me!"

So Frank; then laughing rose, and led the way
Along the lofty cliffs, whereon we went
With lengthening shadows: gently blew the breeze
O'er the broad bay, and, ere we reach'd the port,
The summer sun went down behind the hills.

CLASSICAL STUDIES.

FEW points connected with education have been the subject of fiercer debate, than the right of the Classics to engross so large a portion as they do of the training of the upper classes. Not to mention the disputes between Humanists and Philanthropists in Germany, and the tirades of French ecclesiastics against the pernicious influence of a heathen literature: we have many signs amongst ourselves, that if Classical Studies are to maintain their old position in this country, they must be defended on more valid grounds than have usually been advanced in their favour. It may be that much of the suspicion with which they are viewed deserves no more attention than a schoolboy's protest against his Latin Grammar, or Euclid, but we can hardly flatter ourselves that this is the case when we find traitors within our camp, editors of Aristotle, decrying Classical education as "the last idol of the Middle Classes,"* and when an authority like the Master of Trinity asserts, that the tendency of merely Classical Study is to make the student irrational. In these circumstances it is no longer safe for us to put our trust in a blind conservatism or in any of that vague declamation about cultivation of taste which forms the common place upon the subject. Nay, even supposing that the strong and growing feeling entertained. by influential classes in this country against Classical education, had been nothing but unreasoning prejudice; it would still have been the duty of every man who believed in their utility to do his best to clear away misconceptions to which they might be liable. But there are certain grounds of the feelings to which I allude, which I believe to be

* Congreve's Edition of Aristotle's Politics, p. 9.
† Of a Liberal Education, p. 107, 2nd Edn.

represented with tolerable fairness in the following state

ment.

Classical education is an heir-loom from times when the knowledge of facts and of laws was less extended and less profound than it was even amongst the Ancients; but we have now a far greater accumulation of facts, and these have been far better classified and explained by the application of inductive methods of which they were ignorant. The Teutonic and Christian elements of our modern civilization have so modified the nature of society and man's view of his own position, that the maxims and wisdom of a previous period are now of little value: they are the fruits of the childhood of the world compared with those of its ripe manhood. And again, how can a medley of unconnected bits of knowledge ever vie as an educational instrument with a science which is built up by a continuous train of reasoning, and enforces long attention and concentration of thought? Or viewing the question in a more special light, why study the sign rather than the thing signified; the laws of human speech rather than the laws of the Moral and Physical universe? A knowledge of the former may gratify curiosity, but knowledge of the latter has given man whatever dominion he possesses over himself and over nature.

Without attempting any direct answer to these objections, I hope I may be able to shew in the course of my observations, that a knowledge of Classics does really demand a very thorough acquaintance with logical method and with the laws of the human mind, and that it also leads up to and embraces in itself all subjects of the deepest human interest.

The primary tangible result of Classical training, as shewn in a Cambridge first-class man, is a power of turning English into Latin and Greek, prose and verse, of a particular style; and again, of translating into English, Latin and Greek authors of a particular period, together with a sufficient knowledge of the life and history of these nations to explain any allusions which may occur in such authors. That this requires memory, accuracy, and a certain command of language all will allow; what more is required in those who attain the highest standard, or rather what is contained in the pattern of the scholar which all aim at so far as they are scholars at all, and which each approaches more nearly as he is more worthy of the name, I shall now do my best to explain.

1

The root and foundation of our scholarship is a knowledge of the laws of language; this which has been thrown in our teeth by adversaries, appears to me its most admirable characteristic; this gives to us what is perhaps wanting elsewhere, a firm basis on which to rest our more general criticism it is as it were the fixed centre from which we

may sweep the whole field of thought. Written speech is the immediate object upon which we have to operate. In order to understand this, we have to investigate a twofold symbolism; that of letters standing for sound, that of sound standing for thought. Omitting the consideration of the first, though it embraces many highly interesting problems, historical and philosophical, as may be seen from Dr. Donaldson's New Cratylus, or Professor Max Müller's treatise on a Missionary Alphabet; I confine my attention to the second symbolism, of sound standing for thought. Here as in all partially inductive sciences, we come upon a mass of facts suggesting infinite problems: our science has to find a reason for the former and an answer to the latter. We may pursue a double method: starting with the definition Language is the expression of that which passes in the mind by means of the organs of speech;" we may go on to examine these organs, classify the sounds which they are capable of producing, and thus obtain our physiological data for a scheme of language a priori; we have an arrangement that is of all possible articulate sounds exhibiting their natural resemblances or differences. Similarly we may obtain our psychological data; we classify the objects and the modes of thought, and determine the laws by which one thought suggests another. Nor is this all which the student of language borrows from the sciences of psychology and physiology. He learns from them what are the natural accompaniments of the normal state of the typical man, but he also learns how these may be modified by circumstances. The organs of speech are liable to various affections, each of which has a tendency to deflect language from its primitive standard. Similarly and to a far greater extent the mental faculties are liable to be stunted or perverted under unfavourable conditions.

So far the workings of mind and body are considered separately, but supposing our classification of sounds and thoughts to be each in itself complete, how are we to bring the two into connection? Why is any sound tied to one mental act rather than to another? To a certain extent we may here also employ the a priori argument. Since man is to use speech as a token

G

common to himself and to others, when he wishes to recall any object to another by speech, he must employ some sound which is associated with that object in the mind of each; e.g. the exclamation which nature forces from both at the presence of the object, or imitative words ("onomatopeias" as they are called) such as the word cuckoo to recall the bird which produces that sound. And this principle of natural association operates very widely; sound imitates sound, but sound of a certain quality may also imitate in a more subtle manner anything which possesses that quality in a marked degree. And the greater ease or difficulty in pronunciation as well as the actual quality of the sound produced, may cause a sound to stand for a corresponding attribute. Here however it is still more evident than in the two former cases (where the physiological and psychological data were considered separately) that the extreme complexity of the causes at work, prevents our arriving at any results which shall agree with the facts by this deductive method. We must have recourse therefore to the second process alluded to above.

Taking any book, we find it made up of sentences of various kinds, but with certain uniformities running through them all. We are able to distinguish certain classes of words according to their formal uses; and we discover certain laws which govern the combinations and orders of these "parts of speech." Further we may frequently trace these laws to psychological principles, and so fasten them to the results already obtained by the deductive process, in one consistent scheme. Supposing now we turn to any other language, we shall find our principal laws still holding good, but many of the subordinate are broken through, others being substituted in their place, for which we have again to account. We are thus led inductively to the belief in one universal syntax, the natural product of the human mind, which has undergone various modifications, as that mind has passed from its normal state under the various influences of education. And this department of our science will be complete when not only the universal but each particular syntax shall have been traced back to its origin in human nature.

But induction has more than this to do. We find each language to be made up of groups of words, each group consisting of modifications of a certain sound and a certain thought; we get down to the simplest form both of the sound and of the thought which have appeared thus variously modified, and we attach the one to the other, styling it the crude-form or base. Again, observing these constant