or a tale better contrived for communicating to the reader a lively idea of the importance of the mechanic arts, of the fweets of focial life, and of the dignity of independence. On the Utility of Claffical Learning; by the jame. TH HE mental faculties of children ftand as much in need of improvement, and confequently of exercife, as their bodily powers. Nor is it of fmall importance to devife fome mode of difcipline for fixing their attention. When this is not done, they become thoughtlefs and diffipated to a degree that often unfits them for the bufinefs of life. The Greeks and Romans had a juft fenfe of the value of this part of education. The youth of Sparta, when their more violent excrcifes were over, employed themfelves in works of fratagem; which in a ftate, where wealth and avarice were unknown, could hardly be carried to any criminal excefs. When they met together for converfation, their minds were continually exerted in judging of the morality of actions, and the expediency of public meafures of government; or in bearing with temper, and retorting with fpirit, the farcaims of good-natured raillery. They were obliged to exprefs themselves, without hefitation, in the feweft and plaineft words poffible. These inititutions muft have made them thoughtful, and attentive, and obfervant both of men and things. And accordingly, their good fenfe, and penetration, and their nervous and fen tentious ftyle, were no lefs the admiration of Greece, than their fobriety, patriotifm, and invincible courage. For the talent of saying what we call good things they were eminent among all the nations of antiquity. As they never piqued themfelves on their rhetorical powers, it was prudent to accuftom the youth to filence and few words. It made them modeft and thoughtful. With us very sprightly children fometimes become very dull men. For we are apt to reckon thofe children the sprightlieft, who talk the molt: and as it is not easy for them to think and talk at the fame time, the natural effect of their too much speaking is too little thinking. At Athens, the youth were made to study their own language with accuracy both in the pronunciation and compofition; and the meaneft of the people valued themselves upon their attainments in this way. Their orators must have had a very difficult part to act, when by the flighteft impropriety they ran the hazard of difgufting the whole audience: and we fhall not wonder at the extraordinary effects produced by the harangues of Demofthenes, or the extraordinary care wherewith those harangues were compofed, when we recollect, that the minutest beauty in his performance muit have been perceived and felt by every one of his hearers. It has been matter of furprise to fome, that Cicero, who had fo true a relifh for the fevere fimplicity of the Athenian orator, fhould himfelf in his orations have adopted a style fo diffufe and declamatory. But Cicero knew what he did. He had a people to deal with, who, compared with the Athenians, might be called illiterate; and to whom Demofthenes would have appeared as cold and uninterefting, as Cicero would have feemed pompous and inflated to the people of Athens. In every part of learning the Athenians were ftudious to excel. Rhetoric in all its branches was to them an object of principal confideration. From the ftory of Socrates we may learn, that the literary fpirit was keener at Athens, even in that corrupted age, than at any period in any other country. If a perfon of mean condition, and of the loweft fortune, with the talents and temper of Socrates, now to appear, inculcating virtue, diffuading from vice, and recommending a right ufe of reafon, not with the grimace of an enthufiaft, or the rant of a declaimer, but with good humour, plain language, and found argument, we cannot fuppofe, that the youth of high rank would pay him much attention in any part of Europe. As a juggler, gambler, or athcit, he might perhaps attract their notice, and have the honour to do no little mifchief in fome of our clubs of young worthies; but from virtue and modefty, clothed in rags, I fear they would not willingly receive improvement. were The The education of the Romans, from the time they began to afpire to a literary character, was fimilar to that of the Athenians. children were taught to fpeak their own language with purity, and made to ftudy and tranflate the Greek authors. The laws of the twelve tables they committed tɔ memory. And as the talent of public fpeaking was not only ornamental, but even a neceffary qualification, to every man who wilhed to diftinguish himself in a civil of military capacity, all the youth were ambitious to acquire it. The ftudy of the law was alfo a matter of general concern. Even the children ufcd in their diverfions to imitate the procedure of public trials; one accufing, and another defending, the fuppofed criminal: and the youth, and many of the moft refpectable ftatefmen, through the whole of their lives, allotted part of their leifure to the exercife of declaiming on fuch topics as might come to be debated in the forum, in the fenate, or before the judges. Their domeftic difeipline was very ftrict. Some antient matron, of approved virtue, was appointed to fuperintend the children in their earliest years; before whom every thing criminal in word or deed was avoided as a heinous enormity. This venerable perfon was careful both to infil good principles into her pupils, and alfo to regulate their amufements, and, by preferving their minds pure from moral turpitude, and intellectual depravation, to prepare them for the ftudy of the liberal arts and fciences.It may also be remarked, that the Greeks and Romans were more accurate ftudents than the moderns are. They had few books, and those they had were not eafily come at: what they read, therefore, they read thoroughly. I know not, whether their way of writing and making up their volumes, as it rendered the perufal more difficult, might not alfo occafion a more durable remembrance. From their coovertation-pieces, and other writings, it appears, that they had a fingular facility in quoting their favourite authors. Demothenes is faid to have tranfcribed Thucydides eight times, and to have got a great part of him by heart. This is a degree of accuracy which the greater part of modern readers have no notion of. We feem to think it more creditable to read many books fuperficially, than to read a few good ones with care; and yet it is certain, that by the latter method we fhould cultivate our faculties, and increase our stock of real knowledge, more effectually, and perhaps more fpeedily, than we can do by the former, which indeed tends rather to bewilder the mind, than to improve it. Every man, who pretends to a literary character, must now read a number of books, whether well or ill written, whether instructive or infignificant, merely that he may have it to fay, that he had read them. And therefore I am apt to think, that, in general, the Greeks and Romans must have been more improved by their reading, than we are by ours. As books multiply, knowledge is more widely diffused; but if human wifdom were to increase in the fame proportion, what children would the ancients be, in comparifon of the moderns! of whom every fubfcriber to the circulating library would have it in his power to be wifer than Socrates, and more accomplished than Julius Cæfar. I mention thefe particulars of the Greek and Roman difcipline, in order to show, that, although the ancients had not fo many languages to ftudy as we have, nor fo many books to read, they were however careful, that the faculties of their children fhould neither languish for want of exercife, nor be exhaufted in frivolous employ ment. As we have not thought fit to imitate them in this; as moft of the children in modern Europe, who are not obliged to labour for their feftenance, muft either fludy Greek and Latin, or be idle; (for as to cards, and fome of the late publications of Voltaire, I do not think the ftudy of either half fo useful or fo innocent as shuttlecock). I fhould be apprehenfive, that, if claffical learning were laid afide, nothing would be fubftituted in its place, and that our youth would become altogether diffipated. In his refpe, therefore, namely, as the means of improving the faculties of the human mind, I do not fee how the ftudies of the grammarfchools can be dispensed with. It may be observed that the ftudy of a fyftem of grammar, fo complex and fo perfect as the Greek or Latin, may, with pecufiar propriety, be recommended to children; being fuited to their underftanding, and having a tendency to promote the improvement of all their mental faculties. In this science, abftrafe as it is commonly imagined to be, there are few or no difficulties which a master may not render intelligible to any boy of good parts, before he is twelve years old. Words, the matter of this fcience, are within the reach of every child; and of thefe the human mind, in the beginning of life, is known to be fufceptible to an aflonifhing degree and yet in this fcience there is a fubtelty, and a variety, fufficient to call forth all the intellectual powers of the young ftudent. When one hears a boy analyfe a few fentences of a Latin author; and show that he not only knows the general meaning, and the import of the particular words, but but alfo can inftantly refer each word to its clafs; enumerate all its terminations, fpecifying every change fenfe, however minute, dies. From Sullivan's Lectures on the Laws of England. that may be produced by a change A drew a general sketch of the of inflexion or arrangement; explain its feveral dependencies; diftinguish the literal meaning from the figurative, one fpecies of figure from another, and even the philofophical use of words from the idiomatical, and the vulgar from the elegant recollecting occafionally other words and phrafes that are fynonymous, or contrary, or of different though fimilar fignification; and accounting for what he fays, either from the reafon of the thing, or by quoting a rule of art, or a claffical authority-one muft be fenfible, that, by fuch an exercife, the memory is likely to be more improved in ftrength and readiness, the attention better fixed, the judgment and tafte more fuc cessfully exerted, and a habit of reflection and fubtle difcrimination more easily acquired, than it could be by any other employment equal ly fuited to the capacity of childhood. A year paffed in this falutary exercise will be found to culti vate the human faculties more than seven spent in prattling that French which is learned by rote: nor would a complete courfe of Vol taire yield half fo much improvement to a young mind, as a few books of a good claffic author, of Livy, Cicero, or Virgil, ftudied in this accurate manner. On the Conftitution of Feudal Monarchy-The Dignity and Revenues of the King-and of his power as to the raising of Tuxes and SulfVOL. XX. nature and form of the governments that prevailed among the northern nations whilft they remained in Germany, and what alterations enfued on their being removed within the limits of the Roman empire, it will be now proper to fhew, in as brief a manner as may confift with clearness, the nature and conftitution of a feudal monarchy, when eftates were become hereditary, the feveral conftituent parts thereof, and what were the chief of the peculiar rights and privileges of each part. This refearch will be of ufe, not only to understand our present conftitution, which is derived from thence, but to make us admire and esteem it, when we compare it with that which was its original, and observe the many improvements it has undergone. From hence, likewise, may be determined that famous queftion, whether our kings were originally abfolute, and all our privileges only conceffions of theirs ; or whether the chief of them are not originally inherent rights, and coeval with the monarchy; not, indeed, in all the fubjects, for that, in old times, was not the cafe, but in all that were freemen, and, as all are fuch now, do confequently belong to all. To begin with the king, the head of the political body. His dignity and power were great, but not abfolute and unlimited. In. deed, it was impoffible, in the nature of things, even if it had been declared fo by law, that it could have continued in that fate, when N he he had no ftanding force, and the fword was in the hand of the people. And yet it must be owned his dignity was fo high, as to give a fuperficial obferver fome room, if he is partially inclined, to lean to that opinion. All the lands in his dominions were holden of him, For, by degrees, the allodia had been changed into, and fuppofed to have been derived from, his original grant, and confequently revertible to him. But then, the land proprietors had (on fulfilling the conditions they were bound to) a fecure and permanent intereft in their poffeffions. He could neither take them away at pleasure, nor lay taxes or talliages on them by arbitrary will, which would have been little different. Since, in Magna Charta, we find the people infifting that the king had no right to affefs the quantity of efcuage, which was a pecuniary commutation for military fervice, nor to lay talliages on his other fubjects, but that both must be done in parliament. He was a neceffary party to the making new laws, and to the changing and abrogating old ones; and from him they received their binding force, infomuch that many old laws, though paffed in parliament, run in the king's name only. For, in those days, perfons were more attentive to fubflance than forms; and it was not then even fufpected, in any nation in Europe, that any king would arrogate to himself a power fo inconfiftent with the original freedom of the German nations. Nay, in France, to this day, the king's edicts are not laws until registered in parliament, which implies the confent of the people, though that confent is too often extorted by the violent power that monarch has affumed over the perfons and liberty of the members of that body. The dignity of the king was fupported, in the eyes of the people, not only by the fplendor of his royalty, but by the lowly reverence paid him by the greatest of his lords. At folemn feafts they waited on him on the knee, or did other menial offices about his perfon, as their tenures required, and did their homage and fealty with the fame lowly and humiliating. circumftances that the meanest of their vaffals paid to them. His perfon likewife was facred, and guarded by the law, which inflicted the most horrible punishment for attempts against him; neither was he to be refifted, or accountable, for any private injury done perfonally by himself, on any account whatsoever. For the state thought it better to fuffer a few perfonal wrongs to individuals, than to endanger the fafety of the whole, by, rendering the head infecure. But the greatness of the kingly power confifted in his being entirely entrusted with the executive part of the government, both at home and abroad. At home juftice was adminiftered in his name, and by officers of his appointment. He had, likewife, the difpofal of all the great offices of the ftate, with an exception of fuch as had been granted by his predeceffors in fee, and of all other offices and employments exercifed in the kingdom immediately under him. Abroad he made war and peace, treaties and truces, as he pleased. He led his armies in perfon, or ap. pointed commanders; and exercifed, in time of war, that abfolute power over his armies that is effential to their preservation and difcipline. But how was he en abled |