ART. V. Profe on feveral Occafions, accompanied with fome Pieces in Verfe, by George Colman. 8vo. 3 Vols. 12s. Boards. Cadell. 1787. IT T has often occurred to us, in reflecting on the various caufes which render literary reputation fo precarious, that thofe very authors, who have been eager, during their lives, in the pursuit of celebrity, have feldom eftimated with juftice the value of pofthumous fame; or at least have frequently neglected to adopt the proper measure, by which it might be fecured. How rarely are those, to whom papers are bequeathed, or who are intrusted with the arduous task of collecting the fcattered works of another, bleft with diligence and judgment fufficient for fuch an undertaking? It is perhaps true, that every person views his own productions with a partial eye, and may be betrayed into publifhing what ought to have been fuppreffed;-yet ftill, the taste of this chofen critic and editor may be equally fallible. While he flatters himself with the pleafing idea of conferring honour on the memory of his friend, he will be in great danger, without uncommon caution, of expofing it to difgrace. How often have we, in our official capacity, been under the neceffity of cenfuring collections of this nature? In how many of them have the omiffions been palpable and unpardonable? In how many have the indifcriminate admiffions called aloud for condemnation? Mr. Colman, therefore, feems to have been influenced by a due regard for his reputation, when he determined on being himfelf the EDITOR of his own fugitive pieces. These are now prefented to the Public; and when the bufy life in which the Author has long been involved, and his numerous and perpetual occupations, are duly confidered, this large addition to the compofitions which Mr. Colman has formerly published will not be perused without fome degree of furprise. In our review of the contents of thefe volumes, we shall enumerate every piece inferted in them; and we thall intersperse fome occafional remarks on those which have never before been published. VOL. I. confifts entirely of mifcellaneous effays, which have been published, in different periodical works, but were never collected. The ninetieth number of the Adventurer, with which we have long been much pleafed, though we were unacquainted with the author, takes the lead. It relates the vifion in which feveral principal writers are fuppofed to offer the exceptionable parts of their productions as a facrifice, that their names may defcend fpotlefs and unfullied to posterity. This paper is followed by fifteen numbers of THE GENIUS, originally published in the St. James's Chronicle. In these we can often trace that tafte and vivacity, which gave life to fo many REV. O&. 1787. U of of the CONNOISSEURS. At the conclufion of the eleventh is a poetical Epifle to a Friend, which the Preface informs us was written by Lloyd. To thefe fucceed fix numbers of THE GENTLEMAN, which first appeared in The London Packet. Of thefe, the Papers on Language are by far the beft; though, indeed, the merit of the whole intitles them to a place in this collection, notwithflanding "they were difcontinued," fays the Preface," as abruptly as they were begun." This volume concludes with four numbers of the TERRE FILIUS, publifhed daily, during the Encania at Oxford, in honour of the Peace 1763. Thefe, we are told, were written while the Author was on an excurfion to Oxford, with Thornton and Churchill, neither of whom, however, took any part in the publication. VOL. II. opens with twenty-one LETTERS and pieces of criticism, which were written to promote the intereft of the different publications in which they appeared. Many of them are ingenious, and feveral are very entertaining. After thefe, come the REFLECTIONS on the old English Dramatic writers, which, after their first publication as a feparate pamphlet, were prefixed as a Preface to an edition of Muffinger, of which an account was given in our Review, vol. xxi. p. 176, and vol. Ix. p. 480. To this fucceed the following pieces in profe and verfe: I. PREFACE to the edition of the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher-14. Review, vol. lxii. p. 417. ii. Ap. PENDIX to the fecond edition of the tranflation of the Comedies of Terence, 1768, with a Peftfcript (never before published) to this Appendix, in anfwer to the Prolegomena and Notes to the Variorum Shakespeare. Thefe relate to the queftion which has been fo frequently agitated, refpecting the learning of our great dramatic poet. Mr. Colman's opinion is directly oppofite to that of Dr. Farmer, and fome other critics. For our own part, we are inclined to think, that the point can never be so fully determined, but that arguments may be adduced to controvert any decifion which can be given. But we do not mean to interfere : ΟΥ ρ' αυτις πολεμον τε κακον, και φύλοπιν αινήν Ορσομεν, Οι Φιλληλα μετ' αμφοτέροισι βαλωμεν. Homer, Il. A. REMARKS on Shylock's reply to the Senate of Venice: never before publifhed. The paffage which Mr. Colman here examines, is in the famous judgment fcene in the Merchant of Venice: "Some men there are, love not a gaping pig; In the old books, this paffage has been univerfally allowed to be corrupt. Different commentators have prefcribed different modes of cure, but, in Mr. Colman's opinion, cui nos qualefcumque fumus, adfentimur, not one of them with fuccefs. He therefore propofes, after enumerating the corrections of former critics, to add a line, in order to remove the difficulty, reads the paffage thus: Others, when the bagpipe fings i'th'nofe, Cannot contain their urine for affection. Sovereign antipathy, or sympathy, Miftrefs of pallion, fwayes it to the mood Of what it likes and loathes." and he This is furely very ingenious, as, indeed, are the whole of thefe remarks; but we mult confefs, that we are not fatisfied with this method of removing the difficulty, however it may remove the defect in the construction. ORTHOPÆDIA, or Thoughts on public Education. These THOUGHTS, which were never before publifhed, form a moft valuable part of the collection; and are written profeffedly in answer to Mr. Locke's tract on Education. Mr. Locke was an enemy to public education: Mr. Colman is a declared friend to it, and, in our opinion, has, by many degrees, the best of the argument. He is more candid than his opponent, to whom he is not inferior in observation or powers of fatire; and though his remarks are loofe and defultory, they are by no means fo immethodical as thofe of Mr. Locke; whose conftant practice, in this work, is to resume in one part of it the very fubject which he appeared to have difmiffed in another. We would willingly give a fummary, or fynoptical view of this Effay, if our limits were not too circumfcribed; but we must feriously recommend the perufal of it to every parent and guardian, whofe candid attention it well merits. We fhall, however, prefent to our Readers the following extracts; as they will ferve to explain Mr. Colman's fentiments on this moft important fubject, to those who may not have an opportunity of perusing the whole of the remarks: It must be confeffed, that Public Education, as well as Domeftic Tuition, has its faults: but many of the corruptions of fchools are brought by the fcholars from home. At home are the foolish, the idle, and vicious fervants, fo mach dreaded by Locke. At home indulgence takes the place of difcipline, and from home they often bring fums of money far beyond their little occafions, by which artificial wants are created, and diforders introduced. This laft evil, wholly owing to the indifcretion of friends and parents, has been particularly noxious to Public Schools. Mafters can only controul and check its influence. Friends and parents alone can prevent and extirpate it. Public Schools ought to cultivate the mathematics, as well as the claffics. Both might be taught fufficiently, for the initiation of pupils, U 2 pupils, during their stay at a Public School; from whence they ought to be fent to the Univerfities, equally prepared to purfue their philofophical as their claffical ftudies. Public Schools alfo generally detain their pupils too long. Youths fhould be difmiffed from schools at the age of fixteen or feventeen at the latest. They are afterwards commencing young men, and will not patiently fubmit to the corrections of children.' In general it is unadvifable for parents to fend their fons to a Great Public School, fooner than at the period of nine or ten years of age; not that I would wish the preceding period to be loft and buried in ignorance and idleness. Let their children in the mean while be fent to fome preparatory academy, where they may be taught to write, to read, to speak French, to dance, to draw, and the rudiments of Latin according to the grammar of, the school for which they are afterwards intended. A mafter who cannot, by himfelf and his affiftants, fupply his little ftudents with thefe helps, is unfit to govern fuch an academy. One great reafon for preference of Public to Private Education is this. Schoolboys, being at intervals called home, partake occafionally of the enjoyments and fociety of a family. Private pupils, conftantly confined within one narrow circle, acquire none of the freedom and fpirit of a Public Education. Travel, where it can be afforded, cannot be accompanied with the benefit that ought to attend it from the first stage of life, one of the periods to which Locke deftines it: but being certainly improper at the ufual time and in the ufual mode, may be referved to Locke's laft ftage, and therefore properly fucceeding to a removal from the Univerfities; when the young traveller, if not fit and able to go alone, had better not go at all. Milton has given A tractate on Education, containing a plan of a fchool and university in one, intended to annihilate all other schools and univerfities, by inftituting as many of fuch academies as might be neceffary in different parts of the kingdom. Yet in this plan, romantic as he almoft himself feems to think it, he has proceeded on principles very different from those of Locke, and fhewn himself the friend and advocate of Public Education. He rather follows the principles of Plato and Xenophon, than adopts the fyftem of Locke. His propofed number of pupils is an hundred and fifty, more or lefs. He directs the teaching of languages, not by rote, but by grammar, and thofe not only modern but ancient, and of the ancient not only Latin, but Greek and Hebrew, with the Chaldean and Syrian dialects. So far from objecting to repetitions, that he enjoins Grammar leffons to be got by heart, and poems, and orations not merely to be read, but "put to memory, and folemnly announced with right accent and grace. "And though, like Locke, he regrets the time thrown away in learning one or two languages, yet himself appropriates no lefs time than nine years, from twelve to twenty-one, to education. He alfo fixes the age of twenty-three or twenty-four as the proper time for travel, if travel be neceffary. So that on the whole, though I have been hardy enough to enter the lifts with fuch a giant antago nift as Locke, I have Milton to fupport me. It appears indeed, on the face of Locke's tract, that the prefent plan of education is highly preferable to the fyftem that prevailed at the time of his writing. The medical management of children is fo much improved, that many things which he recommends, as contrary to the practice of thofe times, are now in general use: and as to the cultivation of their minds, were he now living, he would no longer lament the want of a fixpenny Hiftory of the Bible, or an Efop with pictures to every fable. The bookfellers have provided the little ftudents a Lilliputian library, and every toy fhop and ftationer will fupply them with polygons for the vowels, or the whole alphabet in cards or ivory, unless they fhould rather chufe to fwallow it in gingerbread. Geography is learnt by the dice, like the Game of the Goofe; maps are diffected into kingdoms and provinces; and perhaps to Locke himself we owe many of thofe valuable atchieve ments. Universities, thofe dry-nurfes that fucceed to the first feminaries of education, are alfo much improved in their principles and practice fince the æras of Milton and Locke: and if the ftudents do not at their departure make due progrefs in their feveral purfuits and profeffions, the failure must be imputed to themfelves, who have fo ill applied the time they have paffed there. At one univerfity fince the time of Milton, a great and tranfcendent genius has advanced the career of science, as Milton himself carried the flights of poetry, beyond the visible diurnal Sphere. At the other an acute and able jurifprudent, whofe early lois we ftill lament, inftituted a courfe of lectures of established authority to the profeffional reader, as well as affording, in the most elegant terms, a code of law neceffary for the inftruction and perufal of every private gentleman. The ftudents too are now lefs bewildered in the labyrinths of logic and metaphyfics. To their original refiftance to the principles of Locke perhaps we owe much of his prejudice to Public Education. His prejudices, were he now a living witness of the cordial reception of his doctrines, would perhaps vanish: though he might still infift, and not without justice, according to the Tirocinium of my worthy and ingenious friend Mr. Cowper, that Difcipline should ftand as porter at the gate of every college. The ftudy of Geography, Chronology, Hiftory, the Elements of Natural Philofophy and Geometry, may eafily be reconciled to the plan of the early part of Public Education, and fhould be incorporated with it. As to dancing, fencing, and accounts, these are generally taught by feparate mafters, according to the direction of the parents, without need of particular injunction or ferious differtation. Painting and mufic are indeed not in fo general requeft, and the truth is, that gentlemen practitioners either mifapply much of their time, or fall infinitely below the most common artists of either profeffion. If a trade is abfolutely neceffary to a ftudent and a gentleman, that of a gardener feems to be the most healthy and agreeable, * ‹ The Tirocinium forms part of a collection of poems by W. Cowper, Efq. one of which poems is The Tafk, a most admirable work in blank verse, which gives a most promifing earnest of the Author's intended Tranflation of Homer in that measure.' |