ful images, the striking illustrations, the sketches of character, in which the ancient classics abound, as well as of the regular structure of the language in which these things are conveyed, that they possess such power to engage the attention, and constitute so useful an exercise to the powers of the juvenile understanding."

Taking this in connexion with the observations contained in the Inaugural Address, we consider the argument in favour of this discipline to be fairly stated. It is well observed that the very language of science has incorporated into it a large body of the ancient tongues. It was the venerable and witty

Dr Nesbit (if we remember aright) who used to say to his pupils, that if they would understand scientific discussions in English, they must either learn the Greek and Latin, or be content to carry a folio of Johnson's dictionary in each coatpocket. We have access to a manuscript letter of Dr Nesbit, addressed to the late Rev. James Waddell of Virginia, in which he advances, in substance, the same opinion. Speaking of his pupils, he says "Without the knowledge of these languages, not only every branch of philosophy, but almost every book that has been written in the English language, will be utterly unintelligible to them. In order to understand any science whatever, we must comprehend the terms which are made use of in teaching it; and you know very well that the very names of the sciences, and every term used in them, are Greek and Latin; that the sciences can speak no other tongues than these. Besides, the knowledge of human nature and the history of the human mind, are to be learned to the greatest advantage in the classic authors. They make us acquainted with a race of men, in comparison with whom the moderns are mere insects. They contain many maxims of morals and good sense, and contribute equally to the improvement of the understanding, the imagination, and the heart. They likewise contain the rules of just criticism, and the best examples of composition. The very terms in which they have delivered the history of human nature are the best and fittest that have hitherto been discovered. In my philosophical selections, I make great use of their testimony, and I know no books in the world, the holy scriptures only excepted, which contain more just notions of men and things. There is the more need of recommending the classics in this country, on account of the alarming progress of infidelity and scepticism, which have become the established irreligion of the leaders of the people. Almost all the infidel writers are smatterers; and those who

are not, are enemies to the study of the classics, and the diffusion of moral knowledge and good sense among the people.

Some allowance is to be made for the classic enthusiasm of a veteran in this department, of whom tradition tells us that he had, in his very boyhood, committed to memory the whole Æneid of Virgil: yet the sentiments are such as bear a rigid scrutiny, and are no less seasonable now than they were in 1790. Upon the same subject, and with the same views, Dr Wylie observes:

"People complain of public instructors in the arts and sciences for writing and speaking a language which nobody but the learned can understand: whereas, in truth, the difficulty lies in the things to be taught, not in the terms by which a knowledge of them is communicated. The ideas are uncommon: they lie beyond the range of ordinary thought, and the terms by which they are indicated must lie, consequently, out of the compass of ordinary language. Philosophy, which, in its most extensive signification, means all kinds of knowledge that are valuable, except that which pertains to the common concerns of life, and which nobody has any occasion to learn, has, and must have, a language of its own. If the appropriate terms in which it is now taught were laid aside, others must be invented to fill their place, or ordinary words must be used in a new significa tion. Such a mode of communication would be tedious, doubtful and embarrassing to the learner in a much higher degree than that which adopts the beautiful, terse, and comprehensive language in which philosophy delights. To use learned terms on common topics is pedantry. But learned themes it is next to impossible to discuss in colloquial style."

Next to the folly of totally rejecting the ancient writers, we deprecate the hasty and time-saving methods of communicating them which are gaining public favour. It is not merely the systems of instruction which turn out polished scholars in eight, sixteen, or forty-eight lessons, and which are advertised in the same column with the lozenges, panaceas, and catholicons of pseudo-pharmacy, against which we exclaim. Our academies and colleges are not exempt from the Utopian scheme of thus building without a foundation, and forsaking the beaten path of safe experience. Professors and instructors have been found to advocate the easy modes of over-leaping dry grammars and laborious rules, and skipping into learning by the aid of translations, interlineary or oral, or the rapid and perfunctory reading of works without syntactical analysis. It would seem to have escaped the notice of these neophytes in classical literature, for we hesitate not to say that among their

ranks is found no practised scholar, that the principles of grammar which they thus undervalue must, necessarily, be acquired at some period of the literary progress. The understanding of a given sentence depends upon the dissection of its clauses and the knowledge of its construction, and this upon the accurate discrimination of those particular inflections which occur; and this is what the principles of grammar inculcate. In the art of war it is a maxim, that fortresses are never to be left unsubdued in the rear. Mutatis mutandis, it is a maxim in every walk of life. The question then arises, shall the principles which are necessary to the enucleation of every sentence be learned at the outset, or shall they be acquired by piecemeal at the moment when they are needed? Shall the grammar be mastered in its simple form, with its parts in beautiful connexion, or the scattered members of its harmonious arrangement be picked up by the way disconnected, with the inevitable evil of mistaking exceptions for rules, and anomalies for established usage? This is to revert to the condition in which learners were placed before the formation of grammars. It reduces the scholar to the labour of doing for himself, at immense pains, and with doubtful success, what able philologists have long since provided to his hand. Under pretence of saving toil, it rejects the labour-saving machine, and returns the learner to the sorrowful process of unassisted nature. For although the new system purports to be in analogy with the mechanical improvements of modern physics, it is every thing else, and upon close inspection the lucid, brief and symmetrical grammar is the very appliance which we need.

In these strictures, we do not wish to be understood as including the many ingenious methods which faithful teachers and private scholars have found useful in varying the monotony of philological pursuits, or exciting the enthusiasm of the learner, or adapting the mode of special inculcation to the subject. The minds of men differ, and a thousand minor systems have been devised, all, let it be observed, founded on a sense of the indispensable necessity of labouring the preliminary discipline. Erasmus acquired his knowledge of Greek by laborious translations into Latin. The ancient grammarians recommended the practice of translating and retranslating into the original; a method recommended and adopted by Sir William Jones. Henry de Nismes tells us, that he could, while at school, "repeat Homer from one end to the other." Wyttenbach repeated each paragraph of the author whom he stu

These

died, and then each book, and finally each volume. and various methods which might be cited are not unlikely to be useful to individuals; but how far do they agree with the newly-discovered plan of giving by wholesale what the laborious scholars of other times took years to accomplish by wearisome steps?

It is, therefore, much to be desired, that those under whose auspices the education of the next race of men is to be conducted, should be above the danger of mistaking these specious lights of false learning for their guides in the path of instruc

tion.

Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, and Palestine, in 1824, 1825, 1826 and 1827. By R. R. Madden, Esq. M.R. C.J. In two volumes. London, 1829.

Voyages and travels, unlike most other books, are becoming every day more interesting. Mere curiosity might, perhaps, have been sated long ago; but the character and circumstances of the age have created a demand for information not so easily supplied. The great schemes of philanthropy, which form so prominent a feature in the present aspect of the Christian world, give an importance to the most minute details respecting distant countries, which intrinsically they do not possess. Every new light that is thrown upon the character and manners of Mohammedans and Pagans, facilitates the access of religion and civilization, and puts new instruments into the hands of those who are employed in pulling down the strong holds of the adversary. Neither missionaries nor their patrons, nor the christian public appreciate aright, before experiment, the infinite importance of an accurate acquaintance with the state of society in heathen lands, the specific influence of different false creeds, and the methods of attack upon their prejudices most likely to produce effect. Many a well meant effort has been met with disappointment, and many a promising design abandoned in despair, from an unfortunate neglect of these minutiæ, on the part of those who formed the plan or under

took to execute it. One error of this kind, which has produced such effects in particular abundance, it may be well to specify. The habit of despising those less civilized, becomes so fixed in all the natives of enlightened countries, that they come at last to imagine that the objects of their scorn entertain the same views. Our own understandings are so strongly impressed with the advantages which we enjoy, that we scarcely think it possible for those less favoured not to feel their humiliating distance. We go among them, therefore, with an expectation that they will at once recognize us as superiors, and accept of us as masters. Mortifying experience soon undeceives the traveller. He soon becomes acquainted with the obvious fact, that those among whom he finds himself, not only feel no disposition to do him reverence, but despise him heartily. When the first paroxysm of wonder is subsided, he discovers that the degree of their contempt is greater even than his own for them, and is indeed in exact proportion to their inferiority in knowledge and refinement. It is in vain that he sets before their eyes the circumstances which to his mind are demonstrative of their inferiority. He learns too late that the value of such advantages can be estimated only by those who have enjoyed them, and that the exhibition of his gifts and graces to the semi-barbarian or savage, is a wasteful casting of pearls before swine.

Such, we believe, has been the mortifying experience, more or less, of all ancient and modern travellers, whatever may have been their character and previous preparation, or the scene of their adventures. In no part of the world, however, has this mishap befallen travellers with such provoking uniformity and to so galling an extent, as among the Mohammedans, Arabs, Moors, Persians, and particularly Turks. Besides the contempt for foreigners already spoken of, as characteristic of all nations, in proportion to their ignorance and want of cultivation, there comes in this case into play, religious prejudice and the very quintessence of bigotry. The Gentoo worshipper of Juggernaut, and the African adorer of the Devil, may regard the Christian as heretical, because he will not join them in their orgies; but he bears this stigma in common with all others who dissent from their religion. The Moslem, on the contrary, is taught contempt and hatred of the Christians as an article of faith, and learns to curse them when he learns to pray. He execrates them, not because they are not Moslems, but because they are Christians; his antipathy is not a