taste. He recollects all his reading, he reviews all he has seen and heard, he searches his books on similar topics, and at once improves what he has obtained, and makes new acquisitions.

He who has been conversant in great schools will, have seen copies of verses written as the exercises of an evening, in which were displayed wit, humour, fine language, ingenious turns, harmonious verse, and very shrewd observations on men and things. Such were the Lusus Westmonasterienses ; such were many in the Muse Etonenses; and such are thousands that have never yet been offered to the public view. It is a known truth, that many of the boys who were engaged in these useful sports of a fertile genius, afterwards became distinguished members of the literary or the political republic; and they owed much of that good reception which they met with in the world, to the fame and merit of classical scholarship, acquired at their school.

Every liberal scholar desires to extend his views, and to be enabled to derive literary pleasure from all that is capable of affording it. If he has formed. no taste for modern Latin poetry, he will be a stranger to many most pleasing productions. But he cannot have a just relish for them, unless he has a knowledge of prosody, and of their various metres; and of these he can seldom have a perfect knowledge, such a knowledge as will enable him to judge of their finer graces, without having composed Latin poetry as an exercise.

It is certain, that none of the modern Latinists have equalled Virgil and Horace, and that the classical student can no where find entertainment so

But the

unmixed as in their original writings. daintiest fare that an Apicius ever invented, ceased to please when constantly repeated. Nor can he be said to have an undistinguished taste, or a coarse appetite, who seeks variety in the warblings of the Virgilian Vida, and the sweet strains of our own Vincent Bourne. There is often a happy union of the beauties that distinguish Ovid, Tibullus, and Marshal, in the Carmina Quadragesimalia. Rapin, Vanier, Buchanan, and Browne, seem to have written Latin verse with an ease, which would almost lead to a supposition that Latin was their vernacular language. In miscellaneous publications of our own and other nations, the man of taste will find a multitude of poëmatia, which he may read with plea- · sure, and without danger of corrupting the purity of his style.

Merely as the means of enjoying a sweet and innocent pleasure in greater perfection, of filling up a leisure hour with an elegant amusement, the composition of Latin verse may be justly recommended to the affluent and the generous youth, who enjoys, and knows how to value, a liberal education. Others, it must be owned, will be much better employed in learning their pence-table.

NO. CXLII.

ON THE INSENSIBILITY OF THE MEN TO THE CHARMS OF A FEMALE MIND CULTIVATED

WITH POLITE AND SOLID

LITERATURE. IN A

LETTER.

SIR,

I AM the only daughter of a clergyman, who, on the death of my mother, which happened when

I was about three years old, concentered his affections on me, and thought he could not display his love more effectually than in giving me a good education. His house was situated in a solitary village, and he had but little parochial duty, so that there was scarcely any thing to divert his attention from this object. He had ever been devoted to letters, and considered learning, next to virtue, as the noblest distinction of human nature.

As soon as I could read, I was initiated in Lilly's Grammar, and, before I was eight years old, could repeat every rule in it with the greatest accuracy. I was taught indeed all kinds of needlework; but two hours in every day were invariably set apart for my improvement in Latin. I soon perfected myself in the elementary parts, and had read Phædrus and Cornelius Nepos with a strict attention to the grammatical construction of every word and phrase which they contained. From these I was advanced to Virgil and Horace. Under the direction of so good a classic as my father, I soon acquired a taste for their beauties, and not only read them through with great delight, but committed their more beautiful passages to memory.

My father was so well pleased with my proficiency, and with the task of instructing the object of his tenderest love, that he resolved to carry my improvements higher, and to open to my view the spacious fields of Grecian literature. The Greek Grammar I mastered with great ease, and I found a sweetness in the language which amply repaid me for the little difficulties I sometimes encountered. From the Greek Testament I proceeded to the

Cyropædia of Xenophon, the Orations of Demosthenes, the Dialogues of Plato, and the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. That I received great improvement from this course, cannot be denied; but the pleasure of it alone was to me a sufficient reward. I was enabled to drink at the fountain-head, while others were obliged to content themselves with the distant and polluted stream. I found that no translations whatever, however accurately they might exhibit the sense of originals, could express the beauties of the language. I was possessed of a power of inspecting those volumes, in admiration of which the world has long agreed, but from which my sex has been for the most part unreasonably excluded. It was a noble privilege, and I value myself upon it; but I hope and believe I did not despise those who had not partaken of it solely for want of opportunities.

The French and Italian languages became easy after my acquaintance with the Latin, and my father was of opinion that they are indispensably necessary to the modern scholar. In French I read Rollin, Boileau, Fontenelle, Voiture, Bouhours, Bruyere, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Marmontel; in Italian, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, Guicciardin, and the Cortegiano of Castiglione. All these gave me a degree of pleasure, which I'am sure none would be without who are capable of obtaining it.

After having laid a foundation in the languages, which I believe is seldom done with success but at an early age, my father allowed me to feast without controul on the productions of my own country. The learning I had acquired enabled me to read

them critically, and to understand all their allusions. The best writers abound so much in quotations, that I cannot help thinking that they who are unacquainted with the ancient languages, must often be mortified at their inability to unlock the concealed

treasure.

All the classical poets, from Shakespeare to Pope, were my study and delight. History, which my father always recommended as peculiarly suited to adorn the female mind, was a favourite pursuit. I digested Hume and Robertson, and took a pleasure in every biographical anecdote I could collect. After reading a life, or the history of any particular event, I was always desired by my father to give my sentiments upon it in writing; an exercise which I found to be attended with great advantage.

I never penetrated deeply into the sciences, yet I could not rest satisfied without a superficial knowledge of astronomy, of the solar system, of experimental philosophy, and of geography, mathematical, physical, and political. This little was necessary for rational conversation, and I had neither time nor taste for scientific refinements. Poetry was my delight, and I sometimes wrote it, as the partiality of my poor father led him to assert, in a pleasing

manner.

I do not make it a merit of my own, because it was entirely owing to my father's direction, that with all my attention to books I did not neglect the ornamental accomplishments. My father excelled in music, and he taught me to play on the harpsichord. He engaged a good master to instruct me in dancing, and he always cautioned me against