Accordingly, there is an awkward, and as it were, foreign air about the Latin language when applied to such subjects, which not even Cicero's unrivalled skill in composition could altogether change or conceal. This defect would, of course, be more felt by the poet than by prose writers. Varro, Catullus, Lucretius-these great names remind us that we are arrived at the most glorious era of Rome. In the midst of victory and conquest in the East and the West, on the banks of the Rhine, and the shores of the British Channel, as well as on those of the Euphrates and the Euxine, and while the spirit of republican liberty, though contaminated in many of her citi zens by licentiousness and corruption, was still as strong and glowing in the second Brutus and his compeers, as it had been in the first-all the elegancies of polished life adorned her manners and pursuits. Greek literature was universally and enthusiastically studied by her scholars, and there were some of them, who, having been bred in the schools of Athens, were as familiar with the use of that language, as with their own. Cicero, already the rival of Demosthenes in the Forum and the Senate, now emulated, in quite another sphere, the genius of Plato, and every thing announced the approach-we ought rather to say the presence of that perfect civilization and full and dazzling developement of literary genius, with which, under the name of the AUGUSTAN AGE, a cruel reverse of fortune has forever identified the fame of a usurper and a despot. ART. V.-Vita Danielis Wyttenbachii, Literarum humaniorum nuperrime in Academia Lugduno-Batava Professoris. Auctore GULIELMO LEONARDO MAHNE. Editio altera Gandavi, apud Max. Ant. Mahne, et Lugduni-Batavorum apud S. et J. Lutchmans, MDCCCXXIII. IT is not a little surprising, that in an age when classical literature forms a principal part of the education of every wellinformed gentleman, the critics and philologers who have devoted their lives to its advancement, should be almost entirely banished from periodical publications of the highest repute and most extensive circulation. No place is allowed to Ruhnkenius and Lennep, Heyne and Wyttenbach in collections, where graceless booksellers, Sinners-Saved, and similar terræ filii have found niches. Yet, surely, if classical learning possesses that high value which modern civilization has ever ascribed to it, the lives of those who have laboured to make us partakers in its treasures cannot be without interest, nor an insight into the methods by which it has been acquired by the individual, or diffused in society, be void of instruction. One great merit of the work placed at the head of this article, is the minuteness and distinctness with which the early life and studies of the hero are related. It is true, that matters of small importance are frequently described with rather a disproportionate amplification and gravity; but there is something extremely interesting in the downright sincerity and perfect naiveté with which the author details and dwells upon these trifles. Daniel Wyttenbach was born at Berne, in Switzerland, on the 7th of August, 1746, of a noble family. Unlike his predecessor Scaliger, however, he counted mere nobility of little importance, wisely adopting, as he assures us, the maxim "nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus."* He gloried much more, that two of his ancestors had deserved well of the Republic of Letters, viz. Thomas Wyttenbach, Professor of Theology at Tubingen, and his own father, who filled the same station at Berne with great reputation. He received the first rudiments of education at home with his sisters, from a private tutor, and was sent to the public school at Berne to study Latin, in the eighth year of his age. His first task was to learn and write off the declensions and conjugations. He then recited daily from memory, a certain number of words from the vocabulary of Marius, and translated the Colloquies of Erasmus, in all of which, with a docile diposition and good memory, he succeeded sufficiently well. But the most memorable event recorded of our future in this age of "mischievous emprize," was his jeoparding his neck by ascending the house-top, and the wholesome castigation which he thereupon received from his father, a man, it would seem, in all respects worthy of the best days of Sparta. The transaction is related in very good Latin, but especially with that minuteness and gravity befitting its importance, and to which we are afraid no translation of ours could do justice. "In summum culmen tecti paterni [says his biographer] ascendit atque inde ad suos clamat saltans, en, pueri, quam in alto sim! * Wyttenbach. Parent. Philomath. His ipsis, sed magis etiam aliis, qui forte advenerant, senioribus, ad puerum oculos convertentibus, -frigidus horror Membra quatit, gelidus que coit formidine sanguis. Ingemiscebant et hortabantur eum, ut sub tectum rediret. Ille ridens et sine metu sensim se introrsum insinuabat, et ad suam se cohortem recipiebat. Facinus vero istud temerarium mox ad parentum notitiam perferebatur, et ab utroque diverse ac suo more animadvertebatur. Pater cum solita sibi ironia et admodum Laconice, Audio inquit, te jam in tecto saltare posse. Filiolus statim intelligens, quorsum id spectaret, veniam rogabat, et cum lachrymis pollicebatur, se nunquam tale quid denuo perpetraturum esse. Verum ille, atqui, ait, prius in solo, quam in tecto, saltare discendum est: age nunc sulta in solo-interim alterà manu puerum, alterâ baculum tenens, aliquoties eum circumagebat verberans." The expostulations of his affectionate mother made a much more lasting impression on him than his father's severity. Wyttenbach next proceeded to writing themes or exercises in Latin. On account of his ignorance of construction, the want of books suited to his age, above all, the improper method of teaching employed by his master, who gave him exercises entirely beyond his strength, he toiled much but profited little. From this drudgery he was happily relieved by his father. He was one day labouring at his task, solidly entrenched behind a pile of dictionaries, grammars and phrase books "Lexica cum glossis, analecta, theatra, medullæ the old professor happened to enter, and casting his eye on this huge literary suppellex, asked his son if he was learning all those books, to which the boy replied, that he needed them to compose his exercise. The father then looked at the exercise, and perceiving almost as many faults and erasures as words, observed, as he turned away, "I will teach you to write exercises before long." Accordingly, to put his plan in execution, he proposed to his son to go with him to his farm during the winter vacation of the University, to the no small terror of the mother, who well knew the accordance of her husband's life "with the holy dictate of spare temperance," and was apprehensive that the hardships would be too great for her son's tender age. The father, "rigidus in omnes, omnium verus parens," however, allured his son by kind words, promising him not only that he would teach him to compose exercises, so as to excel his school-fellows, but would allow him to catch birds with the sons of his hind, (villicus) which latter was, probably, a much stronger inducement than the temptation of learning to write Latin without breaking Priscian's head. On their way to the farm, the father began to reduce his method of instruction to practice, by asking young Wyttenbach the Latin names of the different objects before them, and then proceeding to sentences, in which those names were employed. The boy was delighted at his own ready apprehension, and his ambition was excited by success. But to encourage him still more, his father superadded a pecuniary reward. "At the farm," said he, "we will make themes, and for every theme, I will give you a sesterce, and, to begin, here's one for you on account of what you have learned upon our journey." After three weeks spent in this manner, Wyttenbach returned rich in lore and lucre "doctus et dives." It is a wonder that this natural and easy way of teaching, is not more frequently put in practice. Would not a stranger have as speedily acquired Latin at Rome, as French is now acquired at Paris? We know that Galland, the translator of the Arabian Nights, once proposed to open a school to teach Latin entirely by conversation. It does not fall to the lot of every one to be blessed with a father as learned as Wyttenbach's-but, at least, in schools, the masters could employ a portion of each day in this manner, with pleasure and profit to the scholars. This plan is analogous to the early education of Montaigne, according to his own account of it, which is too well known to be more than referred to here.* Robert Gentilis was also taught to speak Latin by his father in the same way, and literary history furnishes many other examples. The learned biographer of Wyttenbach, in a dialogue called "Crito," published by him in 1816, observes in reference to this subject "If I had to teach a boy, I should begin to talk Latin with him from the first, in order that he might learn that language from me, the vernacular from others, and both at the same time. For as we see well grown boys and girls, taken out of their own country to a foreign one, acquire a new language merely by the habit of speaking it, so may the * Essays, b. i. p. 194. Latin language be learned as easily as any modern tongue, by practice only." p. 83. We have always lamented that Latin has been disused in lecturing in most Universities, at least on those subjects connected with classical literature. Peter Burman in his indignation at this innovation, exclaims "Quis non indignetur, gravissimam et severam Germanorum nationem ita jam ab aliquo tempore in delendo Latini sermonis usu laborare cœpisse, ut publicæ Academiarum Cathedræ et privatarum subsellia tremendo illo et insuavi vernaculæ linguæ mugitu reboare audiantur ?"* The bellowings of the German language, to be sure, may be so intolerable to the musical ears of a Dutch critic, as to make him desire, on all occasions, the more mellifluous accents of the Latin tongue; but we, whose natures are not so nicely attuned to the concord of sweet sounds, are well enough content with the vernacular in its place. We are merely inquiring as to the utility of a method by which our labor may be lightened in a study, to which so great a portion of our youthful days are devoted. The facility evinced by even the young men in the Low Countries in speaking Latin, is, no doubt, mainly to be attributed to the lectures in that language, which they attend in their universities-"quotidiano usu discunt, etsi discere sese igno rant."t When Wyttenbach returned from the farm, his mother received him with scarcely less transport than if he had been saved from a shipwreck. And it must be owned, that her foresight had been fully justified; for although the father had relaxed a good deal from his usual severity, yet when we come to consider their style of living, it will be.confessed, we think, that they did not fare very daintily. The father "nimirum homo sobrius, durus, adstrictus," not only extolled the temperance and frugality of the olden time, but gave an example in his practice of the principles he professed-indeed, his life would have served as a model for Owen of Lanark, who affirms that sixpence per week is quite sufficient to keep body and soul comfortably in the bonds of unity. Neither tea nor coffee did he use; "no flocks that ranged the valley free," did he condemn to slaughter. Milk boiled with bread formed their breakfast and supper; for dinner, dried apples sodden in water, vegetables, "et nescio quid pultis ;" and then in lieu of sweetmeats, by way of bonne bouche, our epicureans regaled themselves with bread, butter and cheese-like two survivors of some patriarchal race or of the Golden Age. * Orationes. Hage Comitis, 1759. p. 286. + Mahne's Crite. |