assent which they expressed in reply, have sufficiently convinced me that the countrymen of David Hume are not over-fond of taking any thing upon trust. The language of their looks being interpreted, is, "Yes-yes-it is all very well to speak about feelings, and so forth; but is it not sad folly to waste so many years upon mere words?"Of all the illogical, irrational sorts of delusion, with which ignorance ever came to the consolation of self-love, surely this is the most palpably absurd-The darkness of it may be felt.-During the few short and hasty months in which the young gentlemen of Seotland go through the ceremonious quackery which they are pleased to call learning Greek, it is very true that they are occupied with mere words, and that, too, in the meanest sense of the phrase. They are seldom very sure whether any one word be a noun or a verb, and therefore they are occupied about words. The few books, or fragments of books, which they read, are comprehended with a vast expense of labour, if they be comprehended at all-with continual recurrence to some wretched translation, English or Latin, or still more laborious recurrence to the unmanageable bulk and unreadable types of a LexiIt is no wonder, that they tell you all their

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time was spent upon mere words, and it would be a mighty wonder if the time so spent were recollected by them with any considerable feeling of kindliness. I must own, I am somewhat of my Lord Byron's opinion, concerning the absurdity of allowing boys to learn the ancient languages, from books the charm of which consists in any very delicate and evanescent beauties-any curiosa felicitas either of ideas or expressions. I also remember the time, when I complained to myself (to others I durst not) that I was occupied with mere words-and to this hour, I feel, as the noble Childe does, the miserable effects of that most painful kind of exercise, which with us is soon happily changed for something of a very different nature-but which here in Scotland gives birth to almost the only idea connected with the phrase studying Greek.

But that a people so fond of the exercise of reason as the Scotch, should really think and speak as if it were possible for those who spend many years in the study of the classics, to be all the while occupied about mere words, this, I confess, is a thing that strikes me as being what Mr Coleridge would call, "One of the voonders above voonders."-How can the thing be done? It is not in the power of the greatest index-making or

bibliographical genius in the world to do so, were he to make the endeavour with all the zeal of his vocation. It is not possible, in the first place, to acquire any knowledge of the mere wordsthe vocables-of any ancient language, without reading very largely in the books which remain to us out of the ruins of its literature. Rich above all example as the literature of Greece once was, and rich as the pure literature of Greece is even at this moment, when compared with that of the Romans, it so happens that all the classical Greek works in the world occupy but a trifling space in any man's library; and were it possible to read philosophers and historians as quickly as novellists or tourists, they might all be read through in no very alarming space of time by any circulating-library glutton who might please to attack them. Without reading, and being familiar with the whole of these books, or at least without doing something little short of this, it is absolutely impossible for any man to acquire even a good verbal knowledge of Greek. Now, that any man should make himself familiar with these books, without at the same time forming some pretty tolerable acquaintance with the subjects of which they treat-not even a Scotchman, I think, will ven

ture to assert. And that any man can make himself acquainted with these books (in this sense of the phrase,) without having learned something that is worthy of being known-over and above the words submitted to his eyes in their pages-I am quite sure, no person of tolerable education in Christendom will assert, unless he be a Scotchman.

To follow the history of great and remarkable nations, as narrated by the clear and graphic genius of their own writers-and so to become acquainted with human nature as displaying itself under the guise of manners very different from our own,-learning thereby, of necessity, to understand both our own manners, and our own nature, better than we could otherwise have done -this is one of the first exercises in which the mind of the classical student must be engaged, and this alone, were this all, might be more than enough to redeem him from the reproach of being a mere hunter of words. There are only three great objects which can ever draw to them in a powerful manner the spirits of enlightened men, and occupy with inexhaustible resources the leisure that is left to them by the State of which they are members, and the Society with which their days are linked;-the Philosophy of life,

the enjoyment arising from the Fine Arts, and the study of History. All the three are well fitted to exalt, and enrich, in many ways, the internal and eternal parts of our nature. But neither of the two first-mentioned can be compared in this respect with the study of history, the only study which presents to all our endeavours and aspirations after higher intellectual cultivation, a fast middle-point, and grappling-place,-the effects, namely, the outward and visible effects, which the various modifications of society and education have already produced upon man, his destinies, and his powers. Without the knowledge of this great and mighty past, the philosophy of life, with whatever wit she may enchant, with whatever eloquencè she may charm us, can never effectually lift our view from the ground on which our feet tread-the presentfrom the narrow and limited circle of our own customs, and those of our immediate neighbours and contemporaries. Even the higher philosophy, the boldest, and in a certain measure, therefore, the most remarkable of all the exertions of human intellect, would in vain, without the aid of history, attempt to explain to us the formation and developement of our own faculties and feelings; because without it, she could not fail