years to not more than £293,000 annually: a sum in itself so small, in comparison with the great, additions which have necessarily been made to the taxes in each year, for the last fourteen years, that it can scarcely be felt, and cannot create any difficulty as to the means of providing for it :-But even this comparatively small amount may probably be much diminished by the increasing produce of the actual revenues, and by regulations for their further improvement.And thus provision is made, on the scale of actual expenditure, for ten years of war, if it should be necessary, without any additional taxes, except to the inconsiderable amount above stated. At the close of that period, taking the three per cents. at 60, and reducing the whole of the public debts at that rate to a money capital, the combined amount of the public debts will be £387,360,000, and the combined amount of the several sinking funds then existing will be 22,720,000; whereas the present amount of the whole public debt taken on the same scale of calculation is £352,793,000, and the present amount of the sinking fund is no more than £8,335.000.-If the war should still be continued beyond the ten years thus provided for, it is proposed to take in aid of the public burthens certain excesses to accrue from the present sinking fund, That fund, which Mr. Pitt (the great author of a system that will immortalize his name) originally proposed to limit to four millions annually, will, with the very large additions derived to it from this new plan, have accumulated in 1817 to so large an amount as 24 millions sterling. In the application of such a sum, neither the true principles of Mr. Pitt's system, nor any just view of the real interests of the public, or even of the stockholder himself, can be considered as any longer opposing an obstacle to the means of obtaining at such a moment some aid in alleviation of the burthens and recessities of the country. But it is not proposed in any case to apply to the charge of new loans a larger portion of the sinking fund than such as will always leave an amount of sinking fund equal to the interest payable on such part of the present debt as shall remain unredeemed. Nor is it meant that this or any other operation of finance shall ever prevent the redemption of a sum equal to the present debt in as short a period as that in which it would have been redeemed, if this new plan had not been brought forwards. Nor will the final redemption of any supplementary loans be postponed beyond the period of 45 years prescribed by the act of 1792 for the extinction of all future loans, While each

of the annual war loans will be successively redeemned in 14years from the date of its creation, so long as war shall continue; and whenever peace shall come, will be redeem, ed always within a period far short of the 45 years required by the above-mentioned Act. -In the result therefore of the whole measure, there will not be imposed any new taxes for the first three years from this time. New taxes of less than £300,000, on an average of seven years from 1810 to 1816, both inclusive, are all that will be necessary, in order to procure for the country the full benefit and advantages of the plan here described; which will continue for twenty years; during the last ten of which again no new taxes whatever will be required.— It appears, therefore, that Parliament will be enabled to provide for the prolonged expenditure of a necessary war, without violating any right or interest whatever, and without imposing further burthens on the country, except to a small and limited amount: and these purposes will be attained with benefit to the public creditor, and in strict conformity both to the wise principles on which the Sinking Fund was established, and to the several Acts of Parliament by which it has been regulated. It is admitted that if the war should be prolonged, certain portions of the war taxes, with the exception of the Property tax, will be more or less pledged for periods, in no case exceeding fourteen years. How far some parts of those taxes are of a description to remain in force after the war; and what may be the provision to be made hereafter for a peace establishment, probably much larger than in former periods of peace; are considerations which at present need not be anticipated.—It is reasonable to assume, that the means and resources which can now maintain the prolonged expenditure of an extensive war, will be invigorated and increased by the return of peace, and will then be found amply sufficient for the exigencies of the public service. Those exigencies must at all events be comparatively small, whatever may still be the troubled and precarious circumstances of Europe.-Undoubtedly there prevails in the country a disposition to make any farther sacrifices that the safety, independence, and honour of the nation may require; but it would be an abuse of that disposition, to apply it to unnecessary and overstrained exertions. And it must not pass unobserved, that in the supposition of a continued war, if the loans for the annual expenditure should be raised according to the system hithreto pursued, permanent taxes must be imposed, amounting in the period assumed, to 13 millions additional

revenue. Such an addition would add heavily to the public burthens, and would be more felt after the return of peace than a temporary continuance of the war taxes. In the mean time, and amidst the other evils of war, the country would be subjected to the accumulated pressure of all the old re venues, and of the war taxes, and of new permanent taxes.-The means of effectuating a plan of such immense importance, arise partly from the extent to which the system of the Sinking Fund has already been carried in pursuance of the intentions of its author; and partly from the great exertions made by Parliament, during the war, to raise the war taxes to their present very large amount. It now appears that the strong measure adopted in the last session, by which all the war taxes, and particularly the Property tax, were so much augmented, was a step taken not merely with a view to provide for present necessities, but in order to lay the foundation of a system which should be adequate to the full exigencies of this unexpected crisis, and should combine the two apparently irreconciliable objects, of relieving the Public from all future pressure of taxation, and of exhibiting to the enemy resources by which we may defy his impiacable hostility to whatever period it may be prolonged. To have done this is certainly a recompence for many sacrifices and privations. This is a consideration which will enable the country to submit with chearfulness to its present burthens, knowing that although they may be continued in part, for a limited time, they will be now no further increased.

66 LEARNED LANGUACES."
No. 3.

N. B. The letters from different persons, upon this subject, will be NUMBERED for the sake of easy reference. The letter, in page 118, is considered as No. 1, and that, in p. 119, as No. 2.)

SIR,- -I am sorry to see, in your Register of the 10th inst. that you are disposed to turn your attention from political subjects, in which you are no doubt qualified to instruct and amuse your readers, to others of a literary nature, in which you are not so competent to do either. The use of the words "uti possidetis" in the late debate on the negociation for peace, have to be sure thrown you into a most hideous rage; (though you, I think, on your own principles have least occasion to quarrel with them, inasmuch, as you allow they may be easily enough understood by the stupidest wretch upon earth), and from this you are led into

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a bitter phillippic against classical erudition in general, with which, by the way, the words have nothing to do, they being as you tell us a "relick of the mummery of monkery," which "mummery" it was the effect of classical erudition to abolish. Nor will any pedagogue or pedant" be easily inclined to compare you to the fox in the fable, inasmuch as he was conscious of the loss he had sustained, but your want of learning, though obvious enough to others, is not equally so to yourself: an overweening confidence in what you do possess, has blinded you to the value of attainments, which you do not: and, indeed, from the subject and manner of your late challenge to the two Universities, I am almost induced to join in an opinion which I heard suggested a short time ago, that the warnith of your feelings, and the insolence of success, were operating a gradual derangement of your intellects.The two Universities may probably never hear of your appeal to them, and it is still less likely that they should attend to it; but, I think it not difficult for one, who knows" but little of either of them, to disprove as much of your assertion respecting the inutility of the Greek and Latin languages, in a general plan of education, as has any thing of sense or meaning in it: I say, as much as has any thing of sense or meaning in jit;" for, as to your objection to their being called "learned," that can only be a cavil about words; they are not called so exclusively, they are as often termed the dead, or the ancient languages," and more usually described as I have done them above, by appellations taken from the country where they were spoken; and when you have shewn the world a more proper term than any or all of these, the world may, if it please adopt your improvement; but, it will be without any the slightest alteration in the intrinsic value of the learning and knowledge, their respective authors possess.

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Learning," you say, "consists in the possession of knowledge, and in the capacity. of communicating that knowledge to others:" And did the Greek and Roman writers

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possess the knowledge, or were they without the faculty of communicating it to. others," in apposite perspicuous and elegant language? If neither of these suppositions be true, the inference which you draw, viz. that the "learned languages operate as a bar to real learning," has no relation whatever to your premises, that "learning consists in the possession of knowledge, and in the faculty of communicating it."-But, if you really presume to say, that the ancients have written nothing, which it is not waste of

time for us to know, I shall not upbraid you. with the trite adage, "that no one ever despised learning, but those who had it not;” because, I still think you do not deserve such a reproo'; but, I will venture to say, that no man who ever wrote on any subject so much as you have done on that of politics, has been known to entertain a similar opinion; and, further, that you will find some difficulty in persuading mankind to sacrifice their faith in all authors, both ancient and modern, both foreign and domestic, at the shrine of your assurance. The most instructive of the Roman poets has enjoined his countrymen to take Greek patterns of fine writing into their hands, and to study them by night and by day;

Nocturna versate manu, versate diurnâ. HOR. And, there can be no doubt, but that the same advice is at present applicable both to Greeks and Romans. What was it that drew Europe from the sink of barbarism in which it had been plunged for so many ages, but the discovery of ancient manuscripts; the dispersion, and study of them? Every author who has treated of this subject, either professedly or incidentally, has ascribed the present improved state of society to this pri mary cause.

I am aware that the authority of great names does not weigh much with one, who is but little acquainted with the merits of their possessors; and quotations are superfluous, where they would be endless. I shall just, however, mention to you, that you will have to contend with Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Mosheim, Voltaire, Burnett, and the living author Roscoe. Neither do 1 mean to say, that a child of the 19th century will not grow up somewhat more enlightened, without the study of ancient literature, than one of the 14th; it will no doubt par take of the general diffusion of knowledge around it. But it comes into the world with no new faculties; it has no new senses. What has enlarged its mind, and increased its stock of ideas five hundred years ago, will do the same now. A man of eminence in literature, cannot at his decease place his posterity upon the summit to which he has chbed: if he could, it would be unneces. sary to tread the same ground over again, his children might go on ascending from the point where the.r father left them. But, no; every individual must tread the steep for himself, some may mount faster indeed, and some slower, but each must mount for himself. Aristotle told Alexander, there was no royal way of acquiring knowledge; and, I doubt much whether you can shew us any vulgar one. A ready child will find no material obstruction to his acquisition of know

ledge, in the merely learning any language in which knowledge may be contained. A slow one will attain to great learning in to way. Those in the intermediate stages will acquire each his proportionate degree of improvement; but, be assured that none canhope to slip out of the tried and beaten path, and arrive first at the goal.-So much as to the general plan of education; and now as to the effects resulting from it. "As far as my observation will enable me to spe k, what are called the learned languages operate as a bar to real learning." No sentence was, I believe, ever more preposterously dogmatical, more gravely ridiculous: nor, will I believe, for the honour of your understanding, that you ever made any observation on the subject till the moment you were writing the words. For, in reality, this notable sentence, this Pythagorean aphorism, this "ipse dixit."

Nay, don't start at the expression; there is the same reason for your being in amity with it, which you gave for quarrelling with other two harmless Latin words; "they may be understood by the stupidest wretch on earth, they may be taught a bullfinch, a tom-tit, &c. After all, I say, your only meaning can be, that the easiest way to acquire learning is, to neglect a part of it!!!Indeed, the matter may be easily enough ascertained, whether "the learned languages operate as a bar to real learning," by a reference to history and fact. There have been at all times since the revival of letters, men of classical erudition,, and men of no classical erudition; which have done most in the cause of science? Take. for example. the beginning of last century; the men of classical learning were, Steele, Addison, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, &c. Their earliest productions were translations from those languages, which you, by way of derision, and I, out of respect, call learned; every page of their more mature writings teems with recommendations of the study, or transfusions of the spirit of ancient authors. These are the men who with the avenues" to real learning" barred, as you suppose, against them, whose time and labour had been employed, as you tell us, in a manner worse than uselessly;" these are they, who have instructed and entertained mankind for the last century, and will probably continue to do so till the end of the world. Now, what were your friends of the same period doing, who had no such "bar operating in their way to real learning?" There might probably be then about seven millions of such in this kingdom; of these seven millions, one million might be able to read and write; an hundred thousand capable of wris

""

ting their native language correctly: a twentieth part of these, to acquire "real learning" without the obstruction of the ancient languages; what have these five thousand men done in the cause of literature compared with their five cotemporaries mentioned above? Nay, if there were but five hundred of them, or only fifty in the whole kingdom, what "knowledge did they possess?" How and where "have they communicated it to others?" How has the world benefited by their attainments? Some such men there must have been, except you mean to maintain that there were no men of natural parts and leisure to improve them, but those whom I have mentioned above, and that those were such misled creatures, that they immediately began to clog the talents God had given them by an application to such learning as was worse than useless." Where then are the works of their rivals, who were free from this clog and obstruction? What are their opinions? Refer me to their writings.-The same observations will apply to every other period, both of British and European history. I shall just as a farther proof select one more, where probably at first sight, the comparison may appear more favourable to your opinions; I mean the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The men of classical erudition in her time were, Sidney, Raleigh, Hooker, "Bacon," &c. Will any man in his senses deny to these il lastrious persons, the " possession of knowledge, and the faculty of communicating it to others?" Yet not only all of them were excellently versed in the "learned langnages," but the three latter could not have moved one step in their respective walks of science, without the most extensive knowledge of them. Opposed to these, and to many more, whom I could mention, you may perhaps be inclined to place Shakespeare. But, there are many reasons why he can be of no service to your cause; for, in the first instance, your position is, that the "learned languages operate as a bar to real learning." Now, of Shakespeare it is allowed on all hands, that whatever he did, was by dint of genius only; Johnson calls it "intuition;" so that where learning is the subject he is quite out of the question. Hume considers him as a person without any instruction, either from the world cr from books: (vol. vi appendix) and Dryden describes him as " too lofty to need being raised by the stilts of learning," or something to that effect. But even were this not the case; and supposing him to have derived great advantages from the study of whatever English authors might exist in his day; yet

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what such a genius can do forms no general rule for a general plan of education" or of any thing else: Corelli, I believe it was, could play an air on the violin with all the strings loose, yet few musical professors would recommend the want of pegs and rosin on that account.--In this manner I might go on, and shew that all the knowledge which the world possesses, (except perhaps in some of the mere mechanic arts, and the phoenomena of nature) has sprung from the same source, from men of great talents, cultivated by learning of every kind, but more especially, classical. One advantage derived from the study of ancient literature, is so appropriate to the nature of your employment, that I am tempted to give it you in the words of the enlightened author; " In England the love of freedom, "which unless checked, flourishes extremely in all liberal natures, acquired new "force, and was regulated by more enlarged views, suitably to that cultivated understanding, which became every day more common among men of birth and "education. A familiar acquaintance with "the precious remains of antiquity excited, "in every generous breast a passion for a "limited constitution, and begat an emula"tion of those manly virtues, which the "Greek and Roman authors, by such ani

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mating examples, as well as pathetic ex"pressions, recommend to us." Hame, vol. vi. ch. 45.)-You havemade a reference to Milton in the column bllowing these your remarks on education Have you never heard of his reading he ancient authors "till his mind was ful fraught?" Of his employing his daughters in the same task? Of his warming his imagination from them before he sat down to compose? From you he might have learned that such labours were "useless;" that his time was than misspent in them;" in short, that

worse

learning was not rea! learning," if it was not written in plain English ---It will be some testimony of the esteem in which I hold your talents, if I venture to recommend the application of them; confine your remarks to the Jenkinsons and Roses of the present time, and have nothing to do with the Patos and Xenophons of antiquity: you have shewn that you can express with energy the feelings which are excited in ingenuous breasts by the passing occurrences of the day, and that ought to satisfy you. Thucydides and Tacitus were men of generous na tures, they have bequeathed their gathered stores as an eternal inheritance to posterity, while the **** and **** are sucking the blood of the present generation; the former

would enrich the world after their decease, the latter are plundering their country during their lives. Lest I should appear to pay an úndue respect to classical literature, an exclusive deference to ancient authors, I shall conclude with Petrarch's recommendation of books in general; it is taken to avoid the pedantry of a "learned language" from the Abbé de Sade's life of that elegant Poet, and great restorer of letters. But the biographer was not aware that Petrarch had himself borrowed the ideas from his English friend Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham. "Ce 66 sont des gens de tous les pais, et de tous "les siècles distingués à la guerre, dans la "robe, et dans les lettres; aisés à vivre, "toujours à mes ordres; je les fais venir "quand je veux, et je les renvoye de même: ils n'ont jamais d'humeur, et repondent à "toutes mes questions."-P. F.- -Jan. 20, 1807.

LEARNED LANGUAGES."
No. 4.

"In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies." SIR, As you have avowed the intention of deferring until Lady-Day, the arguments you have to adduce, to prove that the "learned languages" are an useless branch of education; I shall take the opportunity in the interim, of skirmishing a little with your learned competitor from the university of Oxford, if that genleman will condescend to listen to any thing such a Tyro as myself can have to offer upoi the subject. I know. Mr. Cobbett, that mne is an hazardous enterprise, and I should certainly not enter the lists, were I not emboldened with the hope, that as you will be a spectator, you will ensure fair play, and hat when I am fallen, you will kindly interpose your invulnerable armour to prevent me from being completely annihilated. However, Sir, to act with all due prudence, I here humbly implore the literati (I believe the university gentlemen so denominate themselves), that when I am vanquished (for fear your timely interference, Mr. Cobbett, should be prevented by any unforeseen occurrence), that they will allow me a short respite, just long enough to see your promised arguments, and then I shall give up my literary ghost with chearfulness and satisfaction. I have one other favour to beg of that illumined phalanx, namely, that they will have the goodness not to discipline themselves in the use of those books, they call Greek and Latin Lexicons; as a friend of mine informs me, that if they batter and bruise me with hard uncouth words, as they are a species of cabalistic weapons with which I am entirely

unacquainted, I shall stand no chance whatever alone, and that such will be the preju dice against me, that not one learned man will be found, however slender his purse, who can be bribed to assist me: I therefore, here publicly declare, that, as I shall use only such words as are to be met with in the Dictionary of our old friend Dr. Johnson, I expect to be dealt with in a like liberal, civil, and gentlemanly manner. I shall now take my ground, Mr. Cobbett, by enquiring into the meaning, or definition (the university term), of a couple of words or so, which I think it will be very material should be well understood before we grow too warm in this learned combat. First, then, I ask, what is meant by the word LEARNING? Because I observe, it is frequently said, that some men learn vice, some vir tue; and I have even heard it said, that some men learn nothing at all: now these are plainly contrary species of learning, differing materially both in quantity and quality. But the learning that will come under our observation will have attached to it, I apprehend, the same sense we mean when speaking of "learned men;" and which I shall define, until I see a better interpretation, to be wisdom; just as if we were to say, a man was wise, instead of learned; and I am fortified in this definition, because I take the word learning to be the scholar's modest substitution for wisdom: he would blush to say barefacedly he was a wise man, but he does not hesitate to say he is a learned one; and to have learnt any thing less than wisdom, would be rather, I presume, a subject of censure than of praise; so that I take learning in the univer◄ sity sense of the word, clearly to mean wisdom. I shall next beg to consider the word wisdom; and that I shall define, until I hear something more satisfactory, to be in a religious sense, a knowledge of the duty we owe to God, and in a moral one, the duty we owe to ourselves and to society; and any thing having a complexion contrary to this, I submit, with deference, is not entitled to the appellation of wisdom.

-Assuming, therefore, that these definitions are correct, I mean to lay down this position, viz. that the man who has ten distinct moral ideas, and has only one word applicable to, and by which he can express the meaning of each idea, is ten times as wise, as the man who possesses but one distinct idea, but who has ten words to express it in. I draw, therefore, this inference; that if I, John Bull, ignorant of all outlandish tongues, have, either by converse with my brother John Bulls, or by reading of their productions, or by both methods, ac