forts and accommodations of society have been wonderfully increased by them-but is it seriously pretended, that such things are calculated to make men more eloquent than the Greek janguage, a stormy democracy, and an Attic audience? Are the reasoning powers improved, merely by having more to reason about, and has the invention of the modern analysis and the application of mathematics to mechanical philosophy, made the Greek geometry less a model of simple and elegant demonstration? Are our future statesmen and jurists-our Cannings and D'Aguesseaus-to be formed in the chemist's laboratory, and to be armed for the forum and the deliberative assembly, with a retort and a crucible, or a supply of alkalis and acids?— Could such a history as that of Thucydides be bettered in the least by the mariner's compass or gunpowder, the telescope and microscope, the steam-engine and the time-piece? Is there any thing either sublime or beautiful in the convulsions-of a frog's leg under the operation of galvanism, (see Mr. Adams) or that most edifying and instructive spectacle, the death of a mouse, for want of air, in an exhausted receiver? Besides, we do not exactly perceive how the contemporaneous state of science can be made to appear in a work of art, either directly or indirectly, without violating the rules of good taste-for instance, by exaggerated and scarcely intelligible metaphors, or, as in Good's Lucretius, by smothering a text of ordinary verses, under a load of notes stuffed with cumbersome pedantry. But if Painting is to come in for her share of "the materials of thought"-as there is no reason why she should not-we really should like to know how those who are hereafter to surpass the Transfiguration, will contrive to shew (admitting for a moment such an extravagance) that their superior excellence has been due, not to greater genius, but to the "march of mind." Would it be expected, for example, of Washington Alston, that, by way of letting posterity see that he lived in this philosophic age, he should fill the back ground of an historical picture with globes and quadrants, and

* We are glad on this part of the subject to be able to vouch such an authority as the late venerable Professor Playfair-whose prælections came more nearly up to our idea of the conversations of a Greek sage, than any thing we have ever listened to in that kind. He was the very personification of truth and science, in all their modesty, simplicity and sanctity.

"In nothing, perhaps, is the inventive and elegant genius of the Greeks, better exemplified than in geometry. The elementary truths of that science were connected by Euclid, into one great chain, beginning from the axioms and extending to the properties of the five regular solids; the whole digested into such admirable order, and explained with such clearness and precision, that no similar work of superior excellence has appeared, even in the present advanced state of mathematical science."-Dissertation for the Supplem. Encyclopæd. p. 9.

We will add to this high authority, what Cicero says, Tusc. Qu. 1. i.—In summo apud illos, (Græcos) honore geometria fuit. Itaque nihil mathematicis illustrius. At nos ratiocinandi, metiendique utilitate hujus artis terminavimus modum.

telescopes and electrical machines-or haply, with human sculls, not as a memento mori, but for a sign that the mysteries of phrenology had been brought to light? As for Poetry, which delights in wonders and prodigies-which seeks out its subjects where it catches its loftiest inspirations, in fabulous periods, in a heroic or feudal age, among argonauts and demi-gods, or pilgrims and crusaders,

And if aught else great bards beside,
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,

Of forests and enchantments drear :

What she is to gain by the conquests of her arch enemy Truth, is really more than we can divine. In the progress of knowledge, the idols of fancy and the forms of enchantment that once covered the whole earth, have disappeared one by one. Look at the effect of the modern improvements in geography. Take the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco de Gama for an example; what have they done for the muse? So long, indeed, as a mist still hovered over the shores they had touched upon, so long they afforded scope for the marvellous, and haunts for fiction. Accordingly, the first adventures of the Portuguese gave us the Lusiad; and some time after the discovery of America, men dreamed of an El Dorado in its unknown climes. But now that the sea and the land have been so thoroughly explored, and such an immense accession of "materials of thought" (not to mention certain materials of a still more substantial kind) made to the stock of the geographer, the statist, the natural historian, the merchant, &c. what is become of the Poetry? So far, her stores, at least, seem to have been sorely diminished by these great discoveries. Thus, we have exchanged the Hesperian gardens for the Tooth Coast, and the Gold Coast, and the Slave Coast, and the young ladies themselves, and their dragon, for the Emperor of Morocco and the Mandingos, and the Congoes and the Hotten

tots.

The Canary Islands or the Azores are scarcely a fit substitute for those Fortunate Islands of which poets sung, and which a hero sighed for, amidst the crimes and troubles of war and conquest; or, unless we take it to have been a prefiguration of the happiness we enjoy under our government of laws, we should not look with better success in the swamps and pine-barrens of the South, or on the rocky shores of New-England, for the place of that Elysium beyond the ocean, where the spirits of the just made perfect were to live forever amidst fragrance and flowers, and be refreshed by soft vernal airs. These illusions, at least,

*Plutarch in Sertorio.

have been dissipated, as all such illusions necessarily are, by severe science—and those airy and fantastic images that "played in the plighted clouds" of fiction and popular credulity, taking so many pleasing shapes, and so many bright and beautiful and variable hues to the eyes of inventive genius, are utterly melted away in the broad and garish light that has filled the whole hemisphere.

After all, it is some consolation to reflect, that, if we are mistaken in our notions upon this subject, and if the increase of the "materials of thought" is, indeed, to produce such wonderful effects upon the creative powers of genius, Shakspeare and Milton must, ere long, cease to be talked of as unrivalled, as we own, considering "the march of mind," it is high time they were. The mention of these great names, however, reminds us of what appears to be very much against this new theory, viz. that not only in England, but in all the other nations of Europe, except Germany, and in truth, throughout the whole history of letters, the æra of literature has preceded, sometimes by a vast interval, that of science. What have our philosophers to say to such a work as the Divina Commedia-on the very threshold of modern learning-three whole centuries before the age of Galileo and Bacon?

We now approach, with more confidence, the second question: how far it is worth our while to study the writings of the Ancients as models, and to make them a regular part of an academic course. We shall be obliged to be more brief upon this branch of the subject than we could wish to be, but will endeavour to urge some of the strongest grounds in favor of the established system.

And first, it is, independently of all regard to their excellence, a most important consideration, that our whole literature in every part and parcel of it, has immediate and constant reference to these writings. This is so true, that no one, who is not a scholar, can even understand-without the aid of laboured scholia, which, after all, can never afford a just, much less a lively idea, of the beauties of the text-thousands of the finest passages, both in prose and poetry. Let any one who doubts this, open Milton where he pleases and read ten pages together, and we think he will confess that our opinion is well founded. Indeed, a knowledge of Latin and Greek is almost as much presupposed in our literature, as that of the alphabet, and the facts or the fictions of Ancient History and Mythology, are as familiarly alluded to in the learned circles of England, as any of the laws or phenomena of nature. They form a sort of conventional world, with which it is as necessary for an educated man to be familiar

as with the real. Now, if there is no sort of knowledge which is not desirable and scarcely any that is not useful-if it is worth the while of a man of leisure to become versed in the Chinese characters, or the Sanscrit, or to be able to decypher the Ægyptian hieroglyphics, what shall we say of that branch of learning which was the great fountain of all European literature— which has left its impress upon every part of it, of which we are every moment reminded by its beauties, and without which, much that is most interesting in it is altogether ænigmatical? It is vain to say, that good translations are at hand, which supersede the necessity of studying the originals. Works of taste, it is impossible to translate; and we do not believe there is any such thing in the world as a faithful version, that approaches to the excellence of the original work. They are casts in plaster of Paris of the Apollo or the Venus-and, indeed, not near so good, inasmuch as eloquence and poetry are far less simple and more difficult of imitation than the forms of sculpture and statuary. There remains nothing but the body-and even that, not unfrequently, so altered in its very lineaments, that its author would scarcely recognize it-while all "the vital grace is wanting, the native sweetness is gone, the colour of primeval beauty is faded and decayed." It will not be so easily admitted, that the same objection holds in works of which utility, merely, is considered as the object, such as histories, &c. Yet it certainly does.The wonderful, the magical power of certain expressions, cannot by any art of composition be transfused from one language into another. The associations connected with particular words and phrases, must be acquired by long acquaintance with the language as it came warm from the hearts of those who spoke it, or they are frigid and even unmeaning. What translation can give any idea to the English reader of the bitter and contemptuous emphasis, and the powerful effect with which Demosthenes pronounces his Maxed amp, or of the force of that eloquent horror and astonishment with which Cicero exclaims against the crucifixion of a Roman citizen?+

In this connexion, we would insist upon the stores of knowledge which are sealed up to all who are not conversant with the learned languages. This is a trite topic, but not the less important on that account. By far the most serious and engrossing concern of man-revealed religion-is built upon this foundation. The meaning of the Scriptures, which it is so important to un

*

Pope's Imitations of Horace are better translations than his Iliad. They are just what Horace would have done in English.

On this subject we refer once more to the admirable remarks of Bishop Lowth's Lecture on Hebrew Poetry.-Lect. 8.

derstand, can be explained only by scholars, and the controversies of the present day, turn almost exclusively upon points of biblical criticism, &c. How can a divine, whose circumstances allow him any leisure, sit down in ignorance of such things?How can he consent to take the awful information which he imparts to the multitudes committed to his care, at second hand? Surely here, if any where, it may emphatically be said tardi ingenii est consectari rivulos, fontes rerum non videre. Indeed, this single consideration is weighty enough, to maintain the learned languages in their places in all the Universities of Christendom.

But it is not to theologians only that this branch of study is of great importance. How is the Jurist to have access to the Corpus Juris Civilis, of which Mr. Grimké expresses so exalted an opinion?-(page 26.) We agree with him in this opinion,* and while we deem with a mysterious reverence of our old and excellent Common Law-uncodified as it is-still we would have our lawyers to be deeply versed in the juridical wisdom of antiquity. Why? For the very same reason that we think it desirable that a literary man should be master of various languages, viz: to make him distinguish what is essentially, universally and eternally good and true, from what is the result of accident, of local circumstances, or the fleeting opinions of a day. That most invaluable of intellectual qualities-which ought to be the object of all discipline, as it is the perfection of all reason—a sound judgment, can be acquired only by such diversified and comprehensive comparisons. All other systems rear up bigots and pedants, instead of liberal and enlightened philosophers. Besides, every school has its mannerism and its mania, for which there is no cure but intercourse with those who are free from them, and constant access to the models of perfect and immutable excellence, which other ages have produced, and all ages have acknowledged. To point the previous observations, which are of very general application, more particularly to a topic touched upon before; even admitting that modern literature were as widely different from the ancient as the enemies of the latter contend, yet that would be no reason for neglecting the study of the Classics, but just the contrary. Human nature

Mr. Grimké subjoins to the remarks referred to, an extraordinary one, and says, he rejoices in being able to make it, viz: that the excellence of the Civil Law was owing to Justinian's being a Christian. We are sorry to say, this opinion has to encounter the following difficulties. 1st. That the Golden Age of that Jurisprudence was three centuries before Justinian's reign; the age of Papinian, Paullus, Ulpian, &c. 2d. That Ulpian, so far from being a Christian, was a most bigoted Pagan, and did all he could to poison the mind of Alexander Severus, with the maxims and the spirit of persecution.-Gravin. Origin. I. C. l. i. p. 125. 3d. Julius Cæsar had it in contemplation to "codify" the Roman Law.-Sueton: in Divo Julio. c. 44.