her history to run its course in a very short period. From Solon to Alexander the Great is less than two centuries and a half; but it is wonderful how many different scenes were acted, how great a variety of political constitutions rose and fell, in this short compass. Dr. Arnold has observed, that Grecian and Roman history, in their later periods, may in the most important sense be called "modern"; because they depict a state of society far nearer to that of modern Europe, than can be found in our own past annals: and therefore, though all application of their experience must be modified by considering the grand points of distinction between them. and us, still there is peculiar instruction to us in their history. It may be said, with considerable truth, that for this it is not requisite to be acquainted with their languages. Happily it is not. The day appears to be fully arrived, when an English course of instruction on all these points should be made accessible to those, who are not able to give their time to the cultivation of the original tongues. We already see two of our most eminent scholars engaged in composing histories of Greece and Rome; and it is hoped that ere long, the learned men of England, as of Germany, will not leave the difficult work of translation to inferior hands, and that we may at length have worthy English representations of the best ancient authors. It would be no honor to the venerable productions of antiquity, to imagine that all their excellencies vanish with translation, and only a mean exclusiveness of spirit could grudge to impart as much as possible of their instruction to the unlearned. Still, it remains certain that to understand a nation fully, we must know their language. It is one great and characteristic difference of literature from science, that the former loses by translation, the latter does not. The propositions of Euclid or Archimedes, the works of Newton or Laplace, have no national hue; they can be represented with equal fidelity in the tongue of any civilized people. Science is strictly universal, and on that account is

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adapted to bring about a certain union between all the nations of the earth; but literature is special, peculiar; it witnesses, and it tends to uphold, national diversity. Its delicate coloring is always injured or lost by translation; its shades of meaning, its graceful allusions, which flash rapidly before the mind of a native reader, become tedious and insipid, when expanded enough to be intelligible to the foreigner.-But in fact, we have to confess at this moment, that few at all of the best classical writers have been so translated, as to give the English reader any vivid and adequate comprehension of the author's mind; and we are hitherto very far from attaining the state, in which the learned and unlearned are on an approach to an equality in this matter.

But there are peculiar reasons why the critical and accurate acquisition of some foreign tongue is to be prized for its own sake; and not solely as a key to certain treasures locked up in the language: and these reasons apply with eminent force to our study of the ancient idioms. I am disposed to think that some of the characteristic defects of the Greek mind might have been corrected, if their writers had been led, as we have been, by circumstances, through a grammatical training in foreign schools. The weak point of the Greeks was their disposition to verbal quibbles; their tendency to mistake exchange of grammatical forms for arguments, questions of words for controversy of fact: a weakness which was sufficiently apparent even in the dawn of their philosophy, and which in the later times of their slavery, when the national genius had declined, ruined intellect in metaphysical and theological controversies. No study so well corrects this defect of mind, as the habit of translating from language to language very diverse in idiom. Of all logical exercises, I venture to think this to be the most important. Very far am I from disparaging the utility of logical treatises: I admit the value of geometry, as an exercise of the mind in discriminating that part of our premisses which is essential to the conclusion, from

that which is accidental: not to speak of the lucid arrange ment for which it imparts the taste, and improves the faculty. I prize the inductive philosophy in its numberless applications. But useful as all these organs of reasoning are, none of them can supply the place which is so admirably filled by lexilogical study; none can so efficiently discipline us in habitual attention to the shades of meaning which our words express. When we translate from English into Latin, we have first to strip the thought of all that is accessory and unessential, and regard its naked meaning: we have next to consider on what parts the main emphasis is laid: we have then to re-invest it in a Latin dress, and arrange the words so as to correspond with the order in which a Roman would think and feel. In this process we become aware of many ambiguities in our own tongue, which before did not strike us. Every metaphor, and other figure of speech, is forced to confess its own nature; and all the commonest sources of logical deception are unveiled. So likewise, in the philosophical analysis of grammatical structure, and in tracing the successive meanings which the same word undergoes, we have to disentangle complex notions; we learn not only to apprehend them as wholes, but to discern their parts. A mind once well trained to such exercises, gains (if it can ever gain) a permanent habit of unconsciously, yet rigorously, investigating the meaning of its own words, and thus, of defining its own thoughts; which is of all things by far the most important for clear and sound reasoning. Now such benefits are in measure gained by learning French or German; for these languages differ considerably in idiom from our own. But the difference is small, compared to that which exists between modern and ancient tongues. The latter were produced by a more entire yielding up of the mind to the impulse of feeling and imagination while the modern are formed on a far more metaphysical and logically simple plan. The singular opposition of spirit between the two may be alluded to by a lecturer, but cau

only be realized by personal examination and study. Another difference exists between languages. Those which have been formed in isolation and as it were in stillness, with no rude interruption to the perfect development of their analogies by the intrusion of foreign idioms and grammar, attain generally a uniformity, perhaps a complexity of structure, which (as in the case of Greek and Latin) renders them most remarkable pieces of machinery, in themselves well worthy of contemplation. Equally important is the orderly unfolding of thought, exhibited in the successive meanings assumed by one word. And when it is considered that language is an invention for expressing the workings of the inner man, and is thus the impression of mind, it will at once appear that whoever is forced to the close investigation of a cultivated tongue is hereby made to a certain extent a student of mental philosophy; a fact which would admit of manifold illustration. So untrue is it, that the learning of language is a mere science of words, and not of things.

Now there are many reasons, familiar to all who have considered the subject, yet proper to be mentioned on this occasion, which justify the preference given by us to the study of Greek and Latin, as languages, above others, for the purpose of an accomplished and liberal education. Latin was for ages the instrument of communication to all Europe, being the tongue of religion, of law, of diplomacy, and afterwards of science. It has left indelible traces of itself in our own language, and it is the best key to those of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Without it, our own antiquities are unintelligible. Putting together then the value of learning an ancient language for its own sake, and the peculiar claims of the Latin upon us, it is hoped that no votary of modern science and modern literature will question the opinion above expressed, that a boy whose school education is to last till the age of fifteen, should by all means acquire this one dead language. By limiting him to this it would not be requisite

to sacrifice any of that peculiarly modern knowledge which is so justly valued. At the same time it must be remembered, that the demand for the latter is so great, the stimulus to its acquisition and the means of acquiring it so permanent, that those who have not gained it at school will often pursue it successfully in later life; the more successfully, because of the discipline which they have already undergone of a more rigid and less alluring kind: while those who have not acquired any ancient language in earlier years, are seldom likely to undertake the study at a later period.

This institution is intended to admit none until they have attained the age of fifteen, and it is presumed that such, intending to prolong their scholastic studies to the age of eighteen or upward, have laid a proportionately larger basis, and present themselves to us with some knowledge of Greek already attained. Were it otherwise, we could not hope to accomplish our task of fitting them for the degrees at London University, to which all our regular students may aspire. The course of study has been laid down by the University, not by us; but as it embraces the most celebrated works of the Greeks and Latins, we may here take some notice of the circumstances which give to that literature, and to the Greek especially, so great value.

I have already alluded to the fact, that the Greek litera ture was of home growth. It was in truth little affected by any thing beyond the sphere of Greece, and presents a complete circle of facts in itself. In no other known region, beside those of modern Europe, (where, as we said, the complexity and magnitude of phenomena are so great,) did men gradually advance towards national freedom; the political constitutions expanding with the growth of the community. But early Greece differs from us, in not having had a divinely revealed system of morals and religion; and viewed from one side, becomes hereby a more instructive study, as showing the course and progress of the mind when let alone: especially