in some degree the slave of language. From the imperfectness of his knowledge, he will feel himself at one time seduced to say the thing he did not mean, and at another time will fall into errors of this sort without being aware of it. It is impossible he should understand the full force of words. He will sometimes produce ridicule, where he intended to produce passion. He will search in vain for the hidden treasures of his native tongue. He will never be able to employ it in the most advantageous manner. He cannot be well acquainted with its strength and its weakness. He is uninformed respecting its true genius and discriminating characteristics. But the man who is competent to and exercised in the comparison of languages, has attained to his proper elevation. Language is not his master, but he is the master of language. Things hold their just order in his mind, ideas first, and then words. Words therefore are used by him as the means of communicating or giving permanence to his sentiments; and the whole magazine of his native tongue is subjected at his feet.

The science of etymology has been earnestly recommended, as the only adequate instrument for effecting the purpose here described; and undoubtedly it is of high importance for the purpose of enabling us more accurately to judge of the value of the words we have occasion to employ.

But the necessity and the use of etymology have perhaps been exaggerated. However extensive are our researches, we must stop somewhere; and he that has traced a word half-way to its source, is subject to a portion of the same imperfection, as he that knows nothing of it beyond the language in which he has occasion to use it. It is here perhaps as in many other intellectual acquisitions; the habit of investigating, distinguishing and subtilising, is of more importance than any individual portions of knowledge we may chance to have accumulated. Add to which, that the immediate concern of the speaker or writer, is not with the meaning his words bore at some distant period or the materials of which they are compounded, but with the meaning that properly belongs to them according to the purest standard of the language he uses. Words are perpetually fluctuating in this respect. The gradations by which they change their sense are ordinarily imperceptible; but from age to age their variations are often the most memorable and surprising. The true mode therefore of becoming acquainted with their exact force, is to listen to them in the best speakers, and consider them as they occur in the best writers that have yet appeared.

Latin is indeed a language that will furnish us with the etymology of many of our own words; but it has perhaps peculiar recommendations as a

praxis in the habits of investigation and analysis. Its words undergo an uncommon number of variations and inflections. Those inflections are more philosophically appropriated, and more distinct in their meaning, than the inflections of any language of a more ancient date. As the words in Latin composition are not arranged in a philosophical or natural order, the mind is obliged to exert itself to disentangle the chaos, and is compelled to yield an unintermitted attention to the inflections. It is therefore probable that the philosophy of language is best acquired by studying this language. Practice is superior to theory; and this science will perhaps be more successfully learned, and more deeply imprinted, by the perusal of Virgil and Horace, than by reading a thousand treatises on universal grammar.

Example seems to correspond to what is here stated, Few men have written English with force and propriety, who have been wholly unacquainted with the learned languages. Our finest writers and speakers have been men who amused themselves during the whole of their lives with the perusal of the classics. Nothing is generally more easy than to discover by his style, whether a man has been deprived of the advantages of a literary education.

A further argument in favour of the study of the Latin language, may be deduced from the

nature of logic, or the art of thinking. Words are of the utmost importance to human understanding. Almost all the ideas employed by us in matters of reasoning have been acquired by words. In our most retired contemplations we think for the most part in words; and upon recollection can in most cases easily tell in what language we have been thinking. Without words, uttered, or thought upon, we could not probably carry on any long train of deduction. The science of thinking therefore is little else than the science of words. He that has not been accustomed to refine upon words, and discriminate their shades of meaning, will think and reason after a very inaccurate and slovenly manner. He that is not able to call his idea by various names, borrowed from various languages, will scarcely be able to conceive his idea in a way precise, clear and unconfused. If therefore a man were confined in a desert island, and would never again have occasion so much as to hear the sound of his own voice, yet if at the same time he would successfully cultivate his understanding, he must apply himself to a minute and persevering study of words and language.

Lastly, there is reason to believe that the study of Latin would constitute a valuable part of education, though it were applied to no practical use, and were to be regarded as an affair of intellectual discipline only.

There are two qualities especially necessary to any considerable improvement of human understanding; an ardent temper, and a habit of thinking with precision and order. The study of the Latin language is particularly conducive to the production of the last of these qualities.

In this respect the study of Latin and of geometry might perhaps be recommended for a similar reason. Geometry it should seem would always form a part of a liberal course of studies. It has its direct uses and its indirect. It is of great importance for the improvement of mechanics and the arts of life. It is essential to the just mastery of astronomy and various other eminent sciences. But its indirect uses are perhaps of more worth than its direct. It cultivates the powers of the mind, and generates the most excellent habits. It eminently conduces to the making man a rational being, and accustoms him to a closeness of deduction, that is not easily made the dupe of ambiguity, and carries on an eternal war against prejudice and imposition.

A similar benefit seems to result from the study of language and its inflections. All here is in order. Every thing is subjected to the most inflexible laws. The mind therefore which is accustomed to it, acquires habits of order, and of regarding things in a state of clearness, discrimination and arrangement.