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sations of disgust, either by the poverty of their conceptions and diction, or by an awkward affectation of sublimity and pathos, or by an unskilful selection and confused arrangement of their materials. I am so far from lamenting the years which are usually passed in a grammar-school, that I consider them, if well employed, as the most important period of life. The peculiar exercise of the understanding, which is requisite to investigate and ascertain the precise meaning of an ancient author, is the best, if not the only method of training up the juvenile mind to form just conclusions on more momentous subjects. If, on the other hand, boys are permitted or encouraged to wander from one pursuit to another, and to remain satisfied with a superficial knowledge of each, we shall in vain look forward to those mature fruits without which it will be impossible to establish a character. When I have once found a sciolist, who, on any topic whatever, can manifest the same cogency of argument, which Dr. Bentley displayed in his dissertation on Phalaris; or the same energy of language which Dr. Parr has lately exhibited in his republication of the tracts of a Warburtonian;" (or, let me add, the same comprehension and sagacity in adjusting evidence and

detecting ignorance and imposture discovered by Professor Porson in his letters to Archdeacon Travis) "then, and not till then, I will relinquish verbal criticism as pedantic and useless."

With these masterly observations, which leave me nothing to add upon the subject, I shall conclude this disputation on classic learning.

In general, a great deal too much, beyond what either experience or philosophy will authorize, has been undertaken to be done in a little time, at some of our academical institutions. The mind of the pupil is bewildered, and his attention palled, by an endless multiplicity of pursuits.

Instead of baiting for the public with a bill of fare, which engages for the digestion of the whole Encyclopædia in three years, the very quintessence of empiricism! parents should honestly be told, what experience dictates to be just, and what the human faculties will bear. The rider's speed must be regulated by the abilities of his horse. If you expect more than this, the tutor should say, you expect what is impossible. We have no strong food in our literary larder, that will nourish up your puny bantling in so short a compass into a son of

Anac. We might make loud and confident pretensions; but we should wrong you and deceive the public.

In my ardour I have overstepped the barriers of chronological succession,

"And panting Time toils after me in vain."

I must carry my reader back to the latter end of the year 1790, to mention that the second part of my "Silva Critica" then appeared,

through the continued affection of my everhonoured Alma Mater, the university of Cambridge. In this volume I was occupied, more than in the former, in my illustration of the phraseology and the explication of the sense of the New Testament. I proceeded to the end of the Acts of the Apostles, reserving the remainder of the Scriptures for my third volume.

As to my works in general, and this work in particular, more extensive reading and maturer judgment have enabled me to discover various inaccuracies; such indeed as are incident to human productions of more learning and genius than I can boast. What is good I shall be found tolerably able to defend; what

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is faulty, I shall be the first to abandon and retract. To commit an error is no dishonour, but to defend it pertinaciously when detected is a folly, which no man shall lay to my charge; nor that of pretending to accomplishments which I do not possess.

I am very sensible that every accession of knowledge is only like mounting an eminence, which gives a farther prospect of the immensity of science, and of our own insufficiency; I never fail to inculcate this important truth, that intellectual acquirements are only valuable as they promote and recommend religion, virtue, and amiable manners; and that, in competition with pure and benevolent affections, knowledge is but conspicuous dishonour.

CHAP. XVIII.

Translation of the New Testament-Essay on Public Wor ship-Observations on a Debate in the House of Commons

Conclusion,

1791, 1792.

TOWARDS the conclusion of the year 1791, appeared my "Translation of the New Testament, with Notes," in three vols. 8vo.

This work, on many accounts, cost me a great deal of trouble, particularly in the comparison of the Oriental versions with the received text. I had proceeded beyond the Epistle to the Romans before I left Nottingham; when the interruption of my studies and a long suspension of the work occasioned some mistakes in this edition as to a few references, and in other respects; such indeed as must be expected in every human undertaking.

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"Where some slight carelessness we find,

Or frailty common to mankind."

BOSCAWEN.

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