and customs of different races is a study which is receiving considerable attention. This can only be got from the classics so far as it may effect Greece and Rome, along with their adjacent kingdoms. On this head they are entitled to receive a little consideration. A knowledge of former days is always desirable, as it shows the changes which have been brought about in the world by the march of science, the contests of the sword, the spread of religion, and the rise and fall of kingdoms and states. In fact, it is acting on the experience of the past that the individual elements of a nation can arrive at any degree of perfection in the arts of war or peace. Without such a knowledge they would never attain to civilization, and would remain or be in a far inferior position to the nations of antiquity. It is therefore plain enough that the habits and policies of the present kingdoms are guided and developed to a certain degree by the knowledge and experience of former ages. History shows that since the beginning of the Christian era, and more especially after the landing of William the Conqueror, our own people rose step by step by the aid of others, until they attained to that state of perfection which enabled them to make inventions, &c., for themselves. The classics, therefore, contain the elements which have more or less modified or guided the opinions of almost every kingdom in the civilized world, and are therefore entitled to be maintained and held as branches of a truly liberal education. The elementary branches require more immediate attention in schools, and the time spent on the classics in comparison to these is perfectly trifling, especially when the conditions of the learners depend on certain circumstances. The idea is, however, absurd to suppose that an hour or two every day during the later portion of a schoolboy's career, spent on an acquirement of the classics, is too much waste of time. If the scholar be diligent and attentive himself, he will reap the fruit of his industry. But the parties who are certainly not to be recommended in studying the classics are those who study when at school, and pay no attention to them when they leave school. It is certainly by this conduct that a person can derive no benefit from them. And this rule applies with equal force to other branches of an education. Unless one intends to follow any study upon which he has spent considerable time at school, after he leaves, it was useless indeed to have commenced it. The generality of scholars only use their powers of perception and memory to get their lessons, and do not reflect on what they have passed over. But the chief pleasure which any one has in anything he has gone over is when he has developed himself thereon; and unless this process of development be considerably determined, the study of the classics, like that of any other branch of learning, must be entirely lost. In conclusion, we maintain that from the great influence which the philosophy and teaching of the classics have, as well as the knowledge to be derived from bygone events, the study of the classics ought to be upheld in British education. And even at this day such a study is limited to a very small number of the population. We do so, however, on the ground that it be kept within reasonable bounds to the other branches of education which more or less affect the welfare of individuals as subjects of the realm, and we believe that the present system of classical education can neither hurt nor injure if kept within its present prescribed limits. G. M. NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-III. TEAR and wear of mind, and rightly enough endowed for good results, then the results justify the means employed. Classical letters are altogether cut away from modern life-except by the narrow thread of traditionary respect for the wisdom of our ancestors which we profess to entertain. We learn classics because our forefathers learned them, and because educational habits and customs are not easily changed. Those who have studied them are unwilling in general to admit how their lives have been thrown away upon these studies; and those who have not, regarding all things unknown as grand, imagine that had they been so taught they would have been vastly improved. These are both in error. We have only to ask of all those who have spent the precious years of their youth in such studies as are given in school-time to the literature of Greece and Rome, how much time they now willingly employ in enjoying these productions of the genius of the ancient world, and how much of their daily thoughts they give to classical recollections, to learn by a palpable experiment that they do not really believe in the utility of classical learning to gladden or invigorate the mind. How general the study of classics is in our schools we know; we know as well how small is the place they occupy in every-day thought, conversation, literature, &c. In Parliament a Latin quotation is rarely used, a Greek one scarcely ever; and even when employed they are far from recondite,-they are more frequently the mere residuum of memory-hack quotations found in every collection. The pulpit eschews them, and we stare_when, even in a bishop's charge, a few illustrative lines appear from Roman historian or Greek philosopher. Our newspapers seldom or never include a specimen of the wisdom of the ancients; and even our books scarcely indulge in quotations from classical fountains. On the hustings we never hear a sentence of Greek or Latin, except from a pedant, and he who at a dinner-table would quote Greek would be thought a barbarian. In fact, in some books-among others see Todd's "Student's Manual "-Latin is employed to say things which cannot without a blush be spoken in plain English. From these facts we infer that classics do not hold their proper place in British education, but are either too inefficiently taught or occupy too large a space in our curriculum for their utility. Compare the use made of our classic lore with that made by us of our arithmetic, of our mathematics, of our scientific knowledge. Put a scholar even to the test, and if he understands German and French, you will find that, in reality, he prefers the language of present life to that of dead antiquity, and that he will much more readily open a modern German or French book than an ancient Greek or Roman classic-if he has no other end in view than his amusement or instruction. If, of course, he has his bread to earn or his fame to widen, he may like laborious nights, and lead most studious days over the letters of Rome and the products of Greece. But that is introducing an influence into the experiment which destroys its value. On the whole, then, it seems that classics Occupy a place in education which it would be far better for them to be deprived of. We ought to endeavour to bring our education into harmony with our wants, and to engage in studies that may help to delight the life and adorn the intellect of the mass of the people. Commerce is widening around us the area of its conquests, and we require to study more the languages it calls into requisition. Science is building around us a palace of illuminated wonders, and is making all Nature transparent of causation, and we have much need to learn more from her of the wonders of creation. Modern literature is multiplying so rapidly around us, that even a tithe of the products of our own printing-presses cannot be perused by the hastiest or ablest of students, and we are losing so much of this living thought for the dull gratification of holding in our possession what becomes too often a handful of unmeaning symbols and indistinct remembrances-communicating neither information nor delight. Let us look the whole matter honestly in the face, and we shall not fail to see that our traditions in education are wrong, and to come to the conclusion that classics hold a place in British education which they ought not to hold, either as a discipline or as a treasury. C. L. TOILING UPWARD: CHARLES LAMB.-Charles Lamb was born almost in penury, and he was taught by charity. Even when a boy he was forced to labour for his bread. In the first opening of manhood a terrible calamity fell upon him, in magnitude fit to form the mystery or centre of an antique drama. He had to dwell all his days with a person incurably mad. From poverty he passed at once to unpleasant toil and perpetual fear. These were the sole changes in his fortune. Yet he gained friends, respect, a position, and great sympathy from all, showing what one poor unbeneficed man, under grievous misfortune, may do, if he be active and true and constant to the end.-Proctor's Memoir of Charles Lamb." 66 The Essayist. JOHN MILTON. THE subject of our present essay is England's great epic poet, the British Homer (or more properly, as Henry Hallam suggests, Dante), as he might perhaps not inaptly be designated. A poet who for grandeur, vastness, and sublimity, stands unrivalled, "above all Greek, above all Roman fame," John Milton, author of that immortal work, "Paradise Lost." Before entering upon the immediate subject of his poetry, a sketch of his life may be neither uninteresting nor uninstructive. John Milton was the son of a gentleman of the same name, by profession a scrivener. He was born in London, Dec. 9th, 1608, nine years after the death of Spenser, eight years before the demise of Shakspere, and three years prior to the publication of the authorized translation of the Bible. The light of heaven then hallowed the great poetic lights of England, blending in harmonious beauty to determine the sublime bent of Milton's genius, allegory, and dramatic conception with gospel light. He was sent to school in London, to college at Cambridge. Wordsworth, an admirer and rival, as he fondly aspired to be, of Milton, describing his own early impressions while resident at that college, thus pictures the youthful poet as he there appeared to his retrospective mental vision:* "Yea, our blind poet, who in his later day Milton soon made himself remarkable for superior versification in Latin and in English. He thus speaks of his power in these capacities in his "Literary Musings: "It was found that whether aught was imposed upon me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken to of my own choice, in English or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly this latter, the style, by * "Prelude," book iii., " Residence at Cambridge." certain vital signs it had, was likely to live." One of his earliest English poems is that "On the Death of a Fair Infant," beginning,"O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted," 66 written in his seventeenth year, and which, according to Professor Craik, gives abundant promise of the future great poet. Still more, as the same learned author observes, is this promise shadowed forth in the " College Exercise," written in his nineteenth year, and opening with the invocation,— "Hail, native language! that by sinews weak Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak," &c. This poem is remarkable for its containing a kind of prophetic intimation of his future and sublimer works. At a later period he openly expresses the hope that, "by labour and intense study, which I take," he nobly says, "to be my portion in this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature," he "might perhaps leave something so written in after times, as they should not willingly let it die." His highest aim, as he goes on to say, is "to be an interpreter and relater of the best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this island, in the mother dialect; that what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old, did for their country, I, in my proportion, with this over and above of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British islands as my world." Of his future great design ("Paradise Lost"), "of highest hope and hardiest attempting," he thus speaks:-"Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs. Till which in some measure be accomplished, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard as much credulity, upon the best pledges that I can give them." We should not too hastily charge intellectual pride on such declarations; they may have flowed from laudable aspirations, and from ingenuous consciousness of ability to perform what he had the wit to plan. It was in no vain-glorious mood that the sweet psalmist of Israel said, 'Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world. Both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth shall speak 66 |