fluence shall be felt, though the channels, that conducted it, may from disuse have become obscure, and no longer to be traced.

Hear the crude opinions, that are let loose upon society in our table conversations; mark the wild and wandering arguments, that are launched at random without ever hitting the mark they should be levelled at; what does all this noise and nonsense prove, but that the talker has indeed acquired the fluency of words, but never known the exercise of thought, or attended to the developement of a single proposition? Tell him that he ought to hear what may be said on the other side of the question-he agrees to it, and either begs leave to wind with a few words more, which he winds and wire-draws without end; or having paused to hear, hears with impatience a very little, foreknows every thing you had further to say, cuts short your argument and bolts in upon you-with an answer to that argument? No; with a continuation of his own gabble, and, having stifled you with the torrent of his trash, places your contempt to the credit of his own capacity, and foolishly conceives he talks with reason be

up

cause he has not patience to attend to any reasoning but his own.

What are all the quirks and quibbles, that skirmishers in controversy catch hold of to escape the point of any argument, when pressed upon them? If a laugh, a jeer, a hit of mimickry, or buffoonery cannot parry the attack, they find themselves disarmed of the only weapons they can wield, and then, though truth should stare them in the face, they will affect not to see it: instead of receiving conviction as the acquirement of something, which they had not themselves and have gained from you, they regard it as an insult to their understandings, and grow sullen and resentful; they will then tell you they shall leave you to your own opinions, they shall say no more, and with an air of importance wrap themselves up in a kind of contemptuous indifference, when their reason for saying nothing is only because they have nothing more to say. How many

of this cast of character are to be met with in the world every man of the world can witness.

There are also others, whose vivacity of imagination having never felt the trammels of a

syllogism is for ever flying off into digression and display

Quo teneam nodo mutantem Protea formas ?

To attempt at hedging in these cuckows is but lost labour. These gentlemen are very entertaining as long as novelties with no meaning can entertain you; they have a great variety of opinions, which, if you oppose, they do not defend, and if you agree with, they desert. Their talk is like the wild notes of birds, amongst which you shall distinguish some of pleasant tone, but out of which you compose no tune or harmony of song. These men would have set down Archimedes for a fool when he danced for joy at the solution of a proposition, and mistaken Newton for a madman, when in the surplice, which he put on for chapel over night he was found the next morning in the same place and posture fixed in profound meditation on his theory of the prismatic colours. So great is their distaste for demonstration, they think no truth is worth the waiting for; the mountain must come to them, they are not by half so complaisant as Mahomet. They are not easily reconciled to truisms, but have no particular objection to

impossibilities. For argument they have no ear; it does not touch them; it fetters fancy, and dulls the edge of repartee; if by chance they find themselves in an untenable position, and wit is not at hand to help them out of it, they will take up with a pun, and ride home upon a horse laugh; if they can't keep their ground, they won't wait to be attacked and driven out of it. Whilst a reasoning man will be picking his way out of a dilemma, they, who never reason at all, jump over it, and land themselves at once upon new ground, where they take an imposing attitude, and escape pursuit. Whatever these men do, whether they talk, or write, or act, it is without deliberation, without consistency, without plan. Haying no expanse of mind, they can comprehend only in part; they will promise an epic poem, and produce an epigram: In short, they glitter, pass away and are forgotten; their outset makes a show of mighty things, they stray out of their course into bye-ways and obliquities, and when out of sight of their contemporaries, are for ever lost to posterity.

When characters of this sort come under our observation it is easy to discover that their le

vities and frivolities have their source in the errors and defects of education, for it is evident they have not been trained in any principles of right-reasoning. Therefore it is that I hold in such esteem the academical studies pursued at Cambridge, and regard their exercises in the mathematical schools, and their examinations in the theatre, as forming the best system, which this country offers, for the education of its youth. Persuaded as I am of this, I must confess I have ever considered the election of scholars from the college of Eton to that of King's in Cambridge, as a bar greatly in their disfavour, forasmuch as by the constitution of that college they are not subjected to the same process for attaining their degrees, and of course the study of the mathematics makes no part of their system, but is merely optional. I leave this remark to those, who may think it worthy of their consideration. Under-graduates of Trinity College, whether elected from Westminster or not, have no such exemptions.

Having now, at an age more than commonly early, obtained my Bachelor's degree, with the return of health I resumed my studies, and without neglecting those I had so lately been