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tives the highest ideas of our arts and manufactures, by laying before them the finest specimens of our skill and ingenuity. Why, then, are common sense and decency to be forgotten in religion alone? and so foolish a set of men allowed to engage themselves in this occupation, that the natives almost instinctively duck and pelt them? But the missionaries, we are told, have mastered the languages of the East. They may also, for aught we know, in the same time, have learnt perspective, astronomy, or anything else. What is all this to us? Our charge is, that they want sense, conduct, and sound religion; and that, if they are not watched, the throat of every European in India will be cut-the answer to which is, that their progress in languages is truly astonishing! If they expose us to eminent peril, what matters it if they have every virtue under heaven? We are not writing dissertations upon the intellect of Brother Carey, but stating his character so far as it concerns us, and caring for it no further. But these pious gentlemen care nothing about the loss of the country. The plan, it seems, is this: We are to educate India in Christianity, as a parent does his child; and, when it is perfect in its catechism, then to pack up, quit it entirely, and leave it to its own management. This is the evangelical project for separating a colony from the parent country. They see nothing of the bloodshed, massacres, and devastations, nor of the speeches in parliament, squandered millions, fruitless expeditions, jobs and pensions, with which the loss of our Indian possessions would necessarily be accompanied; nor will they see that these consequences could arise from the attempt, and not from the completion, of their scheme of conversion. We should be swept from the peninsula by Pagan zealots; and should lose, among other things, all chance of really converting them.

What is the use, too, of telling us what these men endure? Suffering is not a merit, but only useful suffering. Prove to us that they are fit men, doing a fit thing, and we are ready to praise the missionaries; but it gives no pleasure to hear that a man has walked a thousand miles with peas in his shoes, unless we know why, and wherefore, and to what good purpose he has done it.

But these men, it is urged, foolish and extravagant as they are, may be very useful precursors of the established clergy. This is much as if a regular physician should send a quack doctor before him, and say, do you go and look after this disease for a day or two, and ply the patient well with your nostrums, and then I will step in and complete the cure; a more notable cure we have seldom heard of. Its patrons forget that these self-ordained ministers, with Mr. John Styles at their head, abominate the established clergy ten thousand times more than they do Pagans, who cut themselves with cruel kimes. The efforts of these precursors would be directed with infinitely more zeal to make the Hindoos disbelieve in Bishops, than to make them believe in Christ. The darling passion in the soul of every missionary is, not to teach the great leading truths of the Christian faith, but to enforce the little paltry modification and distinction which he first taught from his own tub. And then what a way of teaching Christianity is this! There are five sects, if not six, now employed as missionaries, every one instructing the Hindoos in their own particular method of interpreting the Scriptures; and when these have completely succeeded, the Church of England is to step in, and convert them all over again to its own doctrines. There is, indeed, a very fine varnish of probability over this ingenious and plausible scheme. Mr. John Styles, however, would much rather see a kime in the flesh of an Hindoo than the hand of a Bishop on his head.

The missionaries complain of intolerance. A weasel might as well complain of intolerance when it is throttled for sucking eggs. Toleration for their own opinions-toleration for their domestic worship, for their private groans and convulsions, they possess in the fullest extent; but who ever heard of tolerance for intolerance? Who ever before heard men cry out they were persecuted, because they might not insult the religion, shock the feelings, irritate the passions of

their fellow creatures, and throw a whole colony into bloodshed and confusion? We did not say that a man was not an object of pity who tormented himself from a sense of duty, but that he was not so great an object of pity as one equally tormented by the tyranny of another, and without any sense of duty to support him. Let Mr. Styles first inflict forty lashes upon himself, then let him allow an Edinburgh Reviever to give him forty more he will find no comparison between the two flagellations.

These men talk of the loss of our possessions in India as if it made the argument against them only more or less strong; whereas, in our estimation, it makes the argument against them conclusive, and shuts up the case. Two men possess a cow, and they quarrel violently how they shall manage this cow. They will surely both of them (if they have a particle of common sese) agree, that there is an absolute necessity for preventing the cow from running away. It is not only the loss of India that is in question-but how will it be lost? By the massacre of ten or twenty thousand English, by the blood of our sons and brothers, who have been toiling so many years to return to their native country. But what is all this to a ferocious Methodist? What care brothers Barrel and Ringletub for us and our colonies?

If it it were possible to invent a method by which a few men sent from a distant country could hold such masses of people as Hindoos in subjection, that method would be the institution of castes. There is no insti tution which can so effectually curb the ambition of genius, reconcile the individual more completely to his station, and reduce the varieties of human character to such a state of insipid and monotonous tameness; and yet the religion which destroys castes is said to render our empire in India more certain! It may be our duty to make the Hindoos Christians-that is another argument: but, that we shall by so doing strengthen our empire, we utterly deny. What signifies identity of religion to a question of this kind? Diversity of bodily colour and of language would soon overpower this consideration. Make the Hindoos enterprising, active, and reasonable as yourselves-destroy the eternal track in which they have moved for ages-and, in a moment, they would sweep you off the face of the earth. Let us ask, tow at must be the astonishment if the Bible is universally dif fused in Hindostan, of the natives to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal; we who, in fifty years have extended our empire from a few acres about Madras over the whole peninsula, and sixty millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable. What matchless impudence to follow up such practice with such precepts! If we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and tell them that Machiavel is our prophet and the god of the Manicheans our god.

There is nothing which digusts us more than the familiarity these impious coxcombs affect with the ways and designs of Providence. Every man, now-adays, is an Amos or a Malachi. One rushes out of his chambers, and tells us we are beaten by the French, because we do not abolish the slave trade. Another assures us that we have no chance of victory till India is evangelized. The new Christians are now come to speak of the ways of their Creator with as much confi dence as they would of the plan of an earthly ruler. We remember when the ways of God to man were gazed upon with trembling humility-when they were called inscrutable-when piety looked to another scene of existence for the true explanation of this ambiguous and distressing world. We were taught in our childhood that this was true religion; but it turns out now to be nothing but atheism and infidelity. If any thing could surprise us from the pen of a Methodist, we should be truly surprised at the very irreligious and presumptous answer which Mr. Styles makes to some of our arguments. Our title to one of the anecdotes from the Methodist Magazine is as follows: 'A sinner punished-a Bee the instrument;' to which Mr. Styles replies, that we might as well ridicule the Scriptures, by relating their contents in the same ludicrous man. ner. An inter ference with respect to a travelling Jew

blindness the consequence. Acts, the ninth chapter, and first nine verses. The account of Paul's conversion, &c. &c. &c., page 38. But does Mr. Styles forget, that the one is a shameless falsehood, introduced to sell a twopenny book, and the other a miracle recorded by inspired writers! In the same manner, when we express our surprise that sixty millions of Hindoos should be converted by four men and sixteen guineas, he asks, what would have become of Christianity if the twelve Apostles had argued in the same way? It is impossible to make this infatuated gentleman understand that the lies of the Evangelical Magazine are not the miracles of Scripture; and that the Baptist Missionaries are not the Apostles. He seriously expects that we should speak of Brother Carey as we would speak of St. Paul; and treat with an equal respect the miracles of the Magazine and the Gospel.

Mr. Styles knows very well that we have never said because a nation has present happiness, that it can therefore dispense with immortal happiness; but we have said that, where of two nations both cannot be made Christians, it is more the duty of a missionary to convert the one, which is exposed to every evil of barbarism, than the other possessing every blessing of civilization. Our argument is merely comparative: Mr. Styles must have known it to be so: but who does

not love the Tabernacle better than truth? When the

tenacity of the Hindoos on the subject of their religion is adduced as a reason against the success of the missions, the friends of this understanding are always fond of reminding us how patiently the Hindoos submitted to the religious persecutions and butchery of Tippoo. The inference from such citations is truly alarming. It is the imperious duty of Government to watch some of these men most narrowly. There is nothing of which they are not capable. And what, after all, did Tippoo effect in the way of conversion? How many Mahomedans did he make? There was all the carnage of Medea's Kettle, and none of the transformation. He deprived multitudes of Hindoos of their caste, indeed; and cut them off from all the benefits of their religion. That he did, and we may do, by violence: but, did he make Mahomedans?-or shall we make Christians? This, however, it seems, is a matter of pleasantry. To make a poor Hindoo hateful to himself and his kindred, and to fix a curse upon him to the end of his days!-we have no doubt but that this is very entertaining; and particularly to the friends of toleration. But our ideas of comedy have been formed in another school. We are dull enough to think, too, that it is more innocent to exile pigs than to offend couscience, and destroy human happiness. The scheme of baptizing with beef broth is about as brutal and preposterous as the assertion that you may vilify the gods and priests of the Hindoos with safety, provided you do not meddle with their turbans and toupees, (which are cherished solely on a principle of religion), is silly and contemptible. After all, if the Mahome: dan did persecute the Hindoos with impunity, is that any precedent of safety to a government that offends every feeling both of Mahomedan and Hindoo at the same time? You have a tiger and a buffalo in the same enclosure; and the tiger drives the buffalo before him; is it therefore prudent in you to do that which will irritate them both, and bring their united strength upon you?

In answer to the low malignity of this author, we have only to reply, that we are, as we always have been, sincere friends to the conversion of the Hindoos. We admit the Hindoo religion to be full of follies, and full of enormities;—we think conversion a great duty and could think it, if it could be effected, a great blessing; but our opinion of the missionaries and of their employers is such, that we most firmly believe, in less than twenty years, for the conversion of a few degraded wretches, who would he neither Methodists nor Hindoos, they would infallibly produce the massacre of every European in India; the

Every opponent says of Major Scott's book, 'What a dangerous book! the arrival of it at Calcutta may throw he whole Indian empire into confusion ;--and yet these are the people whose religious prejudices may be insulted with impunity.

loss of our settlements, and, consequently, of the chance of that slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christianity, which the superiority of the European character may ultimately effect in the Eastern world. The Board of Control (all Atheists, and disciples of Voltaire, of course) are so entirely of our way of thinking, that the most peremptory orders have been issued to send all the missionaries home upon the slightest appearance of disturbance. Those who have sons and brothers in India may now sleep in peace. Upon the transmission of this order, Mr. Styles is said to have destroyed himself with a kime

HANNAH MORE. (EDINBURGH Review, 1809.)

Calebs in Search of a Wife; comprehending Observations on Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals. 2 Vols. London, 1809.

THIS book is written, or supposed to be written, (for we would speak timidly of the mysteries of superior beings,) by the celebrated Mrs. Hannah More! We shall probably give great offence by such indiscretion; but still we must be excused for treating it as a book merely human,-an uninspired production, the result of mortality left to itself, and depending on its own limited resources. In taking up the subject in this point of view, we solemnly disclaim the slightest intention of indulging in any indecorous levity, or of wounding the religious feelings of a large class of very respectable persons. It is the only method in which we can make this work a proper object of criticism. We have the strongest possible doubts and we think it more simple and manly to say so at of the attributes usually ascribed to this authoress ; once, than to admit nominally superfunary claims, which, in the progress of our remarks, we should vir. tually deny.

who

Calebs wants a wife; and, after the death of his father, quits his estate in Northumberland to see the world, and to seek for one of its best productions, a his future life. His first journey is to London, where, woman, may add materially to the happiness of in the midst of the gay society of the metropolis, of course, he does not find a wife. The exaltation, therefore, of what the authoress deems to be the reli gious, and the depreciation of what she considers to be the worldly character, and the influence of both upon matrimonial happiness, form the subject of this novel. rather, of this dramatic sermon.

The machinery upon which the discourse is suspended is of the slightest and most inartificial texture, bearing every mark of haste, and possessing not the slightest claim to merit. Events there are none; and scarcely a character of any interest. The book is intended to convey religious advice; and no more labour appears to have been bestowed upon the story than tic form. Lucilla is totally uninteresting; so is Mr. was merely sufficient to throw it out of the dry, didac Stanley; Dr. Barlow is still worse; and Colebs a mere clod or dolt. Sir John and Lady Belfield are rather more interesting-and for a very obvious reason: they have some faults; they put us in mind of men and with ourselves. As we read, we seem to think we women;--they seem to belong to one common nature might act as such people act, and therefore we attend; characters which Mrs. More has set before us; and whereas imitation is hopeless in the more perfect therefore they inspire us with very little interest.

There are books, however, of all kinds; and those may not be unwisely planned which set before us very less amusing, than ordinary stories; but they are more pure models. They are less probable, and therefore amusing than plain, unfabled precept. Sir Charles Grandison is less agreeable than Tom Jones; but it is more agreeable than Sherlock and Tillotson; and teaches religion and morality to many who would not seek it in the productions of those professional writers.

But, making every allowance for the difficulty of the task which Mrs. More has prescribed to herself, the book abounds with marks of negligence and want of skill; with representations of life and manners which are either false or trite.

Temples to friendship and virtue must be totally laid aside, for many years to come, in novels. Mr. Lane, of the Minerva Press, has given them up long since; and we are quite surprised to find such a writer as Mrs. More busied in moral brick and mortar. Such an idea, at first, was merely juvenile; the second time a little nauseous; but the ten thousandth time it is quite intolerable. Cœlebs, upon his first arrival in London, dines out,-meets with a bad dinner,-supposes the cause of that bad dinner to be the erudition of

the ladies of the house,-talks to them upon learned subjects, and finds them as dull and ignorant as if they had piqued themselves upon all the mysteries of housewifery. We humbly submit to Mrs. More, that this is not humorous, but strained and unnatural. Philippics against frugivorous children after dinner are too common. Lady Melbury has been introduced into every novel for these four years last past. Peace to her

ashes!

The characters in this novel which evince the greatest skill are unquestionably those of Mrs. Ranby and her daughters. There are some scenes in this part of the book extremely well painted, and which evince that Mrs. More could amuse, in no common degree, if amusement was her object.

though her friends may be correct, devout, and both doctrinally and practically pious; yet, if they cannot catch a certain mystic meaning-if there is not a sympathy of intelligence between her and them-if they do not fully con communications, she holds them unworthy of intercourse ceive of impressions, and cannot respond to mysterious with her. She does not so much insist on high moral excellence as the criterion of their worth, as on their own account of their internal feelings.'—(I. 60–63.)

The great object kept in view, throughout the whole of this introduction, is the enforcement of religious principle, and the condemnation of a life lavished in dissipation and fashionable amusement. In the pursuit of this object, it appears to us that Mrs. More is much too severe upon the ordinary amusements of mankind, many of which she does not object to in this or that degree, but altogether. Calebs and Lucilla, her optimus and optima, never dance, and never go to the play. They not only stay away from the comedies of Congreve and Farquhar, for which they may easily enough be forgiven-but they never go to see Mrs. Siddons in the Gamester, or in Jane Shore. The finest exhibition of talent, and the most beautiful moral lessons, are interdicted at the theatre. There is something in the word Playhouse which seems so "At tea I found the young ladies took no more interest sin and Satan,-that it stands in their vocabulary for closely connected, in the minds of these people, with in the conversation than they had done at dinner, but sat every species of abomination. And yet why? Where whispering and laughing, and netting white silk gloves, till is every feeling more roused in favour of virtue than at they were summoned to the harpsichord. Despairing of getting on with them in company, I proposed a walk in the a good play? Where is goodness so feelingly, so garden. I now found them as willing to talk as destitute enthusiastically learnt? What so solemn as to see of any thing to say. Their conversation was vapid and the excellent passions of the human heart called forth frivolous. They laid great stress on small things. They by a great actor-animated by a great poet? To hear seemed to have no shades in their understanding, but used Siddons repeat what Shakspeare wrote! To behold the strongest terms for the commonest occasions; and ad- the child and his mother-the noble and the poor arti miration was excited by things hardly worthy to command san-the monarch and his subjects-all ages and all attention. They were extremely glad and extremely sorry on subjects not calculated to excite affections or any kind. ranks convulsed in one common passion-wrung with They were animated about trifles, and indifferent on things one common anguish, and, with loud sobs and cries, of importance. They were, I must confess, frank and good- doing involuntary homage to the God that made their natured; but it was evident that, as they were too open to hearts! What wretched infatuation to interdict such have any thing to conceal, so they were too uninformed to amusements as these! What a blessing that manhave any thing to produce; and I was resolved not to risk kind can be allured from sensual gratification, and find my happiness with a woman who could not contribute her relaxation and pleasure in such pursuits! But the full share towards spending a wet winter cheerfully in the excellent Mr. Stanley is uniformly paltry and narrow, country.'-(I. 54, 55.) -always trembling at the idea of being entertained, and thinking no Christian safe who is not dull. As to the spectacles of impropriety which are sometimes in a much stronger degree, to not driving along the witnessed in parts of the theatre, such reasons apply, Strand, or any of the great public streets of London, after dark; and, if the virtue of well-educated young persons is made of such very frail materials, their best resource is a nunnery at once. It is a very bad rule, however, never to quit the house for fear of catching cold.

This trait of character appears to us to be very good. The following passage is still better.

In the evening, Mrs. Ranby was lamenting in general, in rather customary terms, her own exceeding sinfulness. Mr. Ranby said, "You accuse yourself rather too heavily, my dear; you have sins to be sure." "And pray what sins have I, Mr. Ranby?" said she, turning upon him with so much quickness that the poor man started. "Nay," said he, meekly, "I did not mean to offend you; so far from it, that, hearing you condemn yourself grievously, I intended to comfort you, and to say that, except a few faults "" "And pray what faults?" interrupted she, Mrs. More practically extends the same doctrine continuing to speak, however, lest he should catch an in- to cards and assemblies. No cards-because cards terval to tell them. "I defy you, Mr. Ranby, to produce are employed in gaming; no assemblies-because one." "My dear," replied he, " as you charged yourself many dissipated persons pass their lives in assemblies. with all, I thought it would be letting you off cheaply, by Carry this but a little further, and we must say, no naming only two or three, such as -" Here, fearing wine-because of drunkenness; no meat-because of matters would go too far, I interposed; and, softening things as much I could for the lady, said, "I conceived that gluttony; no use, that there may be no abuse! The Mr. Ranby meant, that though she partook of the general fact is, that Mr. Stanley wants, not only to be religi corruption- Here Ranby, interrupting me with ous, but to be at the head of the religious. These more spirit than I thought he possessed, said, "General little abstinences are the cockades by which the party corruption, sir, must be the source of particular corruption. are known,-the rallying points for the evangelical I did not mean that my wife was worse than other women." faction. So natural is the love of power, that it someWorse, Mr. Ranby, worse?" cried she. Ranby, for times becomes the influencing motive with the sincere the first time in his life, not minding her, went on, "As advocates of that blessed religion whose very characshe is always insisting that the whole species is corrupt, she cannot help allowing that she herself has not quite escaped teristic excellence is the humility which it inculcates. the infection. Now, to be a sinner in the gross, and a saint in the detail—that is, to have all sins, and no faults-is a thing I do not quite comprehend."

After he had left the room, which he did as the shortest way of allaying the storm, she, apologizing for him, said, "he was a well-meaning man, and acted up to the little light he had;" but added, "that he was unacquainted with religious feelings, and knew little of the nature of conver

sion."

Mrs. Ranby, I found, seems to consider Christianity as a kind of free-masonry; and therefore thinks it superfluous to speak on serious subjects to any but the initiated. If they do not return the sign, she gives them up as blind and dead. She thinks she can only make herself intelligible to those to whom certain peculiar phrases are familiar: and Ꭰ

We observe that Mrs. More, in one part of her work, falls into the common error about dress. She first blames ladies for exposing their persons in the present style of dress, and then says, if they knew their own interest,-if they were aware how much more alluring they were to men when their charms are less displayed, they would make the desired alteration from motives merely selfish.

Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest, if they could guess with what a charm even the ap pearance of modesty invests its posessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice; the co

quette would adopt it as an allurement; the pure as her appropriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.'-(I. 189.)

If there is any truth in this passage, nudity becomes a virtue; and no decent woman, for the future, can be seen in garments.

ourselves for the present with making a few such slight observations as may enable the sagacious to conjec-. ture what our direct answer would be were we compelled to be more explicit.

One great and signal praise we think to be the eminent due of Mr. Edgeworth: in a canting age he doer We have a few more of Mrs. More's opinions to not cant;-at a period when hyprocrisy and fanatic. notice. It is not fair to attack the religion of the ism will almost certainly insure the success of any times, because, in large and indiscriminate parties, publication, he has constantly disdained to have rereligion does not become the subject of conversation. course to any such arts;-without ever having been Conversation must and ought to grow out of materials accused of disloyalty or irreligion, he is not always on which men can agree, not upon subjects which try harping upon Church and King, in order to catch at a the passions. But this good lady wants to see men little populaity, and sell his books;-he is manly, inchatting together upon the Pelagian heresy-to hear, dependent, liberal-and maintains enlightened opiin the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day-nions with discretion and honesty. There is also in and to glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. this work of Mr. Edgeworth an agreeable diffusion of All the disciples of this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, and dine out religiously;-forgetting that the being to whom this impossible purity is recommended, is a being compelled to scramble for his existence and support for ten hours out of the sixteen he is awake;-forgetting that he must dig, beg, read, think, move, pay, receive, praise, scold, command, and obey;-forgetting, also, that if men conversed as often upon religious subjects as they do upon the ordinary occurrences of the world, they would converse upon them with the same familiarity and want of respect, that religion would then produce feelings not more solemn or exalted than any other topics which constitute at present the common furniture of human understandings.

anecdote and example, such as a man acquires who reads with a view to talking or writing. With these merits, we cannot say that Mr. Edgeworth is either very new, very profound, or very apt to be right in his opinion. He is active, enterprising, and unprejudiced; but we have not been very much instructed by what he has written, or always satisfied that he has got to the bottom of his subject.

On one subject, however, we cordially agree with this gentleman; and return him our thanks for the courage with which he has combated the excessive abuse of classical learning in England. It is a subject upon which we have long wished for an opportunity of saying something; and one which we con sider to be of the very highest importance.

ent system of our great schools is, that they devote too "The principal defect,' says Mr. Edgeworth, in the preslarge a portion of time to Latin and Greek. It is true, that the attainment of classical literature is highly desirable; but it should not, or rather it need not, be the exclusive object of boys during eight or nine years.

We are glad to find in this work some strong compliments to the efficacy of works,-some distinct admissions that it is necessary to be honest and just, before we can be considered as religious. Such sort of Much less time, judiciously managed, would give them concessions are very gratifying to us; but how will an acquaintance with the classics sufficient for all use:ul they be received by the children of the Tabernacle?lemen or professional men need to be. It is not requsite purposes, and would make them as good scholars as genIt is quite clear, indeed, throughout the whole of the that every man should make Latin or Greek verses; therework, that an apologetical explanation of certain re-fore, a knowledge of prosody beyond the structure of hexligious opinions is intended; and there is a consider-ameter and pentameter verses, is as worthless an acquisiable abatement of that tone of insolence with which tion as any which folly or fashion has introduced amongst the improved Christians are apt to treat the bungling the higher classes of mankind. It must indeed be acknowl specimens of piety to be met with in the more ancient edged that there are some rare exceptions; but even party prejudice would allow, that the persons alluded to must have risen to eminence though they had never written sapphics or iambics. Though preceptors, parents, and the public in general, may be convinced of the absurdity of making boys spend so much of life in learning what can be of no use to them; such are the difficulties of making any change in the ancient rules of great establishments, that masters themselves, however reasonable, dare not, and can

churches.

So much for the extravagances of this lady.-With equal sincerity, and with greater pleasure, we bear testimony to her talents, her good sense, and her real piety. There occur every now and then, in her productions, very original, and very profound observations. Her advice is very often characterized by the most amiable good sense, and conveyed in the most brilliant and inviting style. If, instead of belonging to a trumpery faction, she had only watched over those great points of religion in which the hearts of every sect of Christians are interested, she would have been one of the most useful and valuable writers of her day. As it is, every man would wish his wife and his children to read Calebs ;-watching himself its effects;-separating the piety from the puerility; and showing that it is very possible to be a good Christian, without degrading the human understanding to the trash and folly of Methodism.

not make sudden alterations.

The only remedies that can be suggested might be, perhaps, to take those boys, who are not intended for profes sions in which deep scholarship is necessary, away from school before they reach the highest classes, where prosody and Greek and Latin verses are required.

In the college of Dublin, where an admirable course of instruction has been long established, where this course is ties, and pursued by students of uncommon industry, such superintended by men of acknowledged learning and abiliis the force of example, and such the fear of appearing inferior in trifles to English universities, that much pains have been lately taken to introduce the practice of writing Greek and Latin verses, and much solicitude has been shown about the prosody of the learned languages, without any attention being paid to the prosody of our own.

Boarding-houses for the scholars at Eton and Westminster, which are at present mere lodging houses, might be

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. (EDINBURGH RE- kept by private tutors, who might, during the hours when

VIEW, 1809.)

the boys were not in the public classes, assist them in acquiring general literature, or such knowledge as might be advantageous for their respective professions.

New schools, that are not restricted to any established which afford a rational prospect of success. If nothing can routine, should give a fair trial to experiments in education be altered in the old schools, leave them as they are. Destroy nothing-injure none but let the public try whether they cannot have something better. If the experiment do not succeed, the public will be convinced that they ought to acquiesce in the established methods of instruction, and parents will send their children to the ancient seminaries with increased confidence.'-(p. 47-49.)

Essays on Professional Education. By R. L. Edgeworth, Esq. F. R. S. &c. London. 1809. THERE are two questions to be asked respecting every new publication. Is it worth borrowing? and we would advise our readers to weigh diligently the importance of these interrogations, before they take any decided step as to this work of Mr. Edgeworth; the more especially as the name carries with it considerable authority, and seems, in the estimation of the unwary, almost to include the idea of purchase. For our own part, we would rather decline giving a We are well aware that nothing very new can redirect answer to these questions; and shall content main to be said uvon a topic so often debated. The

complaints we have to make are at least as old as the time of Locke and Dr. Samuel Clarke; and the evil which is the subject of these complaints has certainly rather increased than diminished since the period of those two great men. An hundred years, to be sure, is a very little time for the duration of a national error; and it is so far from being reasonable to look for its decay at so short a date, that it can hardly be expected, within such limits, to have displayed the full bloom of its imbecility.

There are several feelings to which attention must be paid, before the question of classical learning can be fairly and temperately discussed.

We are apt, in the first place, to remember the immense benefits which the study of the classics once conferred on mankind; and to feel for those models on which the taste of Europe has been formed, something like sentiments of gratitude and obligation. This is all well enough, so long as it continues to be a mere feeling; but, as soon as it interferes with action, it nourishes dangerous prejudices about education. Nothing will do in the pursuit of knowledge but the blackest ingratitude; the moment we have got up the ladder, we must kick it down;-as soon as we have passed over the bridge, we must let it rot ;-when we have got upon the shoulders of the ancients, we must look over their heads. The man who forgets the friends of his childhood in real life, is base: but he who clings to the props of his childhood in literature, must be content to remain as ignorant as he was when a child. His business is to forget, disown, and denyto think himself above every thing which has been of use to him in time past-and to cultivate that exclusively from which he expects future advantage: in short, to do every thing for the advancement of his knowledge which it would be infamous to do for the advancement of his fortune If mankind still derive advantage from classical literature proportionate to the labour they bestow upon it, let their labour and their study proceed; but the moment we cease to read Latin and Greek for the solid utility we derive from them, it would be a very romantic application of human talents to do so from any feeling of gratitude, and recollection of past service.

To almost every Englishman up to the age of three or four and twenty, classical learning has been the great object of existence; and no man is very apt to suspect, or very much pleased to hear, that what he has done for so long a time was not worth doing. His classical literature, too, reminds every man of the scenes of his childhood, and brings to his fancy several of the most pleasing associations which we are capable of forming. A certain sort of vanity, also, very naturally grows among men occupied in a common pursuit. Classical quotations are the watch-words of scholars, by which they distinguish each other from the ignorant and illiterate; and Greek and Latin are insensibly become almost the only test of a cultivated

they inure children to intellectual difficulties, and make the life of a young student what it ought to be a life of considerable labour. We do not, of course mean to confine this praise exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek; or to suppose that other diff culties might not be found which it would be useful to overcome: but though Latin and Greek have this merit in common with many arts and sciences, still they have it; and, if they do nothing else, they at least secure a solid and vigorous application at a period of life which materially influences all other periods.

To go through the grammar of one language thoroughly is of great use for the mastery of every other grammar; because there obtains, through al languages, a certain analogy to each other in their grammatical construction. Latin and Greek have now mixed themselves etymologically with all the languages of modern Europe-and with none more than our own; so that it is necessary to read these two tongues for other objects than themselves.

The two ancient languages are, as mere inventions as pieces of mechanism, incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern languages of Europe: their mode of signifying time and case by terminations, instead of auxiliary verbs and participles, would of itself stamp their superiority. Add to this, the copiousness of the Greek language, with the fancy, majesty, and harmony of its compounds; and there are quite sufficient reasons why the classics should be studied for beauties of language. Compared to them, merely as vehicles of thought and passion, all modern languages are dull, ill-contrived, and barbarous.

That a great part of the Scriptures has come down to us in the Greek language, is of itself a reason, if all others were wanting, why education should be planned so as to produce a supply of Greek scholars. The cultivation of style is very justly made a part of education. Every thing which is written is meant either to please or to instruct. The second object it is difficult to effect, without attending to the first; and the cultivation of style is the acquisition of those rules and literary habits which sagacity anticipates, or experience shows to be the most effectual means of pleasing. Those works are the best which have longest stood the test of time, and pleased the greatest number of exercised minds. Whatever, therefore, our conjectures may be, we cannot be so sure that the best modern writers can afford us as good models as the ancients; we cannot be certain that they will live through the revolutions of the world, and continue to please in every climate-under every species of government-through every stage of civilization. The moderns have been well taught by their masters; but the time is hardly yet come when the necessity for such instruction no longer exists. We may still borrow descriptive power from Tacitus; dignified perspicuity from Livy; simplicity from Cæsar; and from Homer some portion of that light and heat which, Some men through indolence, others through ig-dispersed into ten thousand channels, has filled the norance, and most through necessity, submit to the world with bright images and illustrious thoughts. established education of the times; and seek for their Let the cultivator of modern literature addict himself children that species of distinction which happens, at to the purest models of taste which France, Italy, and the period in which they live, to be stamped with the England could supply, he might still learn from Virgil approbation of mankind. This mere question of con- to be majestic, and from Tibullus to be tender; he venience every parent must determine for himself. A might not yet look upon the face of nature as Theocripoor man, who has his fortune to gain, must be a tus saw it; nor might he reach those springs of pathos quibbling theologian, or a classical pedant, as fashion with which Euripides softened the hearts of his audidictates; and he must vary his error with the error ence. In short, it appears to us, that there are so of the times. But it would be much more fortunate many excellent reasons why a certain number of schofor mankind, if the public opinion, which regulates the lars should he kept up in this and in every civilized pursuits of individuals, were more wise and enlighten- country, that we should consider every system of edued than it at present is. cation from which classical education was excluded, as radically erroneous and completely absurd.

mind.

All these considerations make it extremely difficult to procure a candid hearing on this question; and to refer this branch of education to the only proper criterion of every branch of education-its utility in future life.

There are two questions which grow out of this subiect: 1st, How far is any sort of classical education aseful? 2d, How far is that particular classical eduzation adopted in this country useful?

Latin and Greek are, in the first place, useful as

That vast advantages, then, may be derived from classical learning, there can be no doubt. The advantages which are dirived from classical learning by the English_manner of teaching, involve another and a very different question; and we will venture to say, that there never was a more complete instance in any country of such extravagant and overacted attachment to any branch of knowledge as that which obtains in this country with regard to classical knowledge. A

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