penetrated with a keen relish for the beauties of Attic wit and Roman oratory, will have contrived to pick up in his career many pearls of diction, many gems of thought : "Precious stones That on the stretched forefinger of all Time He will not have to complain that he has "toiled" much and "caught" nothing. In draining the drowned lands of antiquity, he will have recovered many priceless jewels from the greedy sands. He shall answer the question-What will the Classics do for their readers? They will chasten (he will reply) and purify the taste, refine and ripen the imagination, moderate and mature the judgment; by their constant demands they will educe those habits of close observation from lack of which nearly all fallacies proceed. They may do more: show how "the world by wisdom knew not God," and yet how Deity never was unwitnessed while the "thoughts" of Pagans "accused or else excused one another,”—suggest that even the naked exhibition of folly and wickedness, vice and falsehood, may be rendered subsidiary to the establishment or reinforcement of a high-toned morality, and nice susceptibility of shame. Mathematics encourage and constrain precise thinking, and give comprehension a firmer grasp; other studies execute other intentions, and we exult in the manifold adaptation; but the Classics still seem the nurse of noble natures, mementoes and motives for profound meditation. There is much in them of mechanism and manipulation only, and here, as elsewhere, an apprenticeship to be endured; but there is much more of aliment for genius and enjoyment, for excursiveness; and, most of all, is there a continual challenge for patient perseverance,- —a promise and a pabulum for that sweet enthusiasm which is the one essential of Excellence everywhere. The gift of concentrated attention, that best of intellectual boons,-a power capable of augmentation almost indefinite by resolute industry, cannot, we grant, be infused by education; yet it is one of those faculties which will be steadied and strengthened by application to classical pursuits, but it must be by intense application. This is the true scholarship,-not the death, but dawn, of true originality. We have partially anticipated the examination of the claims of the Classics on our esteem. Curious is the interest, and more than magical the fascination, which attend the decay of anything wearing the impress of pristine greatness and celebrity; and renders what once was so renowned and venerated, venerable and renowned for evermore. this which prompts the prediction: "Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time It is The paramount preference claimed for the Dead Languages springs from a partiality for the august contents they enshrine,-that unrivalled body of lore of which they are the key; that inexhaustible mine of mental wealth; the hoarded wisdom of the flower of the human family. It would not be expedient to dispute about the relative merits of the ancient and modern literature; for while we are disposed to yield the palm to the latter on the whole, yet we agree with what has been said, that if the former were swept away, the latter would forfeit some of its uses and many of its charms, even where it did not become quite unintelligible. The Classics are, the crown and finish of Form, evincing the polish and perfection of a pure taste, comprising, as they do, the selectest conceptions of the subtlest intellects cast in the very finest, rarest moulds of expression,-the most stirring and influential events of ages presented in the simplest, chastest style. Theirs are literally the "thoughts that breathe" in the "words that burn," shaping themselves into every figure the finger of Fancy can fabricate, and glowing with each gorgeous tint which the lustre of Learning could pour like a halo around them. Who but derives pleasure from the contemplation of a master-piece of architecture,-its modest pride, its perspective, and proportions! At such spectacles even inferior minds are spirited to unusual achievements. Our sentiments contract more of mellowness and vigour, when they flow artlessly in classical channels. Then simplicity is their sweetness, and serenity is their strength. Not inanimate, then, is that petrifaction of those Tongues in one immutable attitude, nor unreasonable our devotion. There Poetry still seeks her most magnificent models, Eloquence resorts to her prime examples, Sculpture realizes her wildest visions. There the ocean of Mind-how it lashed itself to foam on the furthest shores of speculation, and how Imagination beat its wings against the bars of its cage of flesh-burst every barrier, and soared "extra flammantia monia mundi." Grace is the genius of Greek; majesty, of Latin. The former is at once most copious and most correct, so natural and yet so artificial; simple even to severity, but easily compounded and supremely syntactical; for philosophical pur poses how transparent; for oratorical demonstration how cogent; in drama and dialogue how plastic and versatile, grave and gay together! How soon did it shoot up into that stately symmetry, which almost justified its authors in naming all but themselves barbarians! How thrillingly does it speak to us, calling from deep to deep, in Homer's epic song! How flash its lightnings in the fervour of the living lyre! How sounds it the same soul-subduing strain, whether chiming softly from the strings of Sappho's harp, or rolling peal upon peal in the awful thunders of Demosthenes! Why marvel that it struck chords which have never since ceased to vibrate? Why wonder, if, transplanted from manuscripts into myriads of volumes, it became the seed-plot of modern intelligence, the germ of Western civilization! What miracles were wrought in it by Aristophanes! What glimpses were given in it, and impulses issued from it, under Plato! What earnests and deposits had it in charge for the "fulness of the times," and how splendidly it redeemed its pledges! Even in the prose of the Greeks it was thought you could discover a faint melody of secret rhythm and numbers, like the low undertone of waterfalls in woods. Prose and poetry, Greek was a language made-born-for elegant combinations and harmonious composition! Not near so highly organized and flexible, Latin has a dignity and deserts of its own,-the tongue of war, religion, empire, jurisprudence, of which language indeed it is to be lamented that it should ever have been "let die" (if it ever has been really dead), or that it should be reserved for the few "In ancient story versed whose breasts have heaved to catch its vanished cadence only in a fond belief amid "The Forum where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes-burns with Cicero !" We are convinced that the ancients lay far less burdensome contribntions on their admirers than is commonly presumed. Considering the tribute they have paid us, the tax on our time and trouble entailed in repaying the compliment may be made somewhat less obnoxious than as it is at present assessed. None to whom they are irksome should be hampered with them; none debarred from them to whom they are agreeable. The Classic Muse, like her fair sisterhood, is one, nevertheless, "Who will be wooed, and not unsought be won." The haughtiest original need not disdain to be their copyist or imitator at first: if he is emulous to be their rival, this is the path his ambition should tread; the way is not so steep and rough as the goal is dazzling. The ardour of the youth of nature, like the ardour of the youth of philosophy, is proof to undervalue the precepts and performances of the past. We are not of those in whose calculations everything later than Greece and Rome counts for a cipher. Far otherwise. We do not pretend that Dante was not a more spiritual minstrel, a mightier seer, than Virgil; Bacon a more experimental, and therefore a more prolific, philosopher than Plato; Milton a meet competitor for the laurel-wreath with Homer himself; Butler immeasurably Aristotle's superior in ethics; and one paragraph, aye, one deathless line, of Shakspeare, worth more, a million times, than all the pages of his tuneful predecessors. But we are speaking not of absolute value, but educational efficiency. As for the physical conjectures of antiquity, we estimate those guesses at zero. And why? Because Newton was yet in the womb of Time. Yet it is our happiness to believe, though it may be but a dear delusion of our self-deceit, that the rich relics of their reflective science and historical records merit a reverential inspection, and will reward a diligent search, -if for nothing besides, for the fearless straightforwardness, the uncompromising front, of their conclusions, their frank, cordial, masculine boldness as the earliest enterprisers or voyagers on the unopened abyss of adventure and discovery. We may there learn to appreciate the cost, to fathom the depth, of those truths, which we, insects of yesterday, superciliously reject as too trite to be entertained. It will not harm us to be mortified by the revelation that we have mistaken and misunderstood their shallowness for ours. (To be continued.) SACRED LATIN POETRY. No. I. "FAMILIAR as household words" should be the sacred Latin poetry of the middle and later ages-familiar alike to the Christian and the scholar. For in this treasury may be found riches of pure and holy Christian feeling,-feeling deep-rooted on that Being from whom the very name of these poets was derived; riches, too, of beauty of expression, of sweet and varied melody, which carry on the reader, and fix his mind deeper and deeper on the subject, and entrance his heart in the strangely beautiful, and, at times, wildly varied rhythm of the hymns. The ideas, so quaintly conceived and still more quaintly expressed,-the bird-like melody,-must strike every reader, however cursory, of the sacred Latin poetry of former time. It seems strange that so little is known of these hymns-that so little care is bestowed upon them. If their name be mentioned, it is often either with a smile or an apology for thus bringing such good-for-nothing bards before the company. Oh! shade of Ambrose! what thinkest thou of this? Thomas of Celano!-thou who wast the author of one of the finest hymns ever composed by uninspired man-dost thou hear such vile calumnies? But such foolish and childish abuse cannot cast any shame or any discredit on these writers; nay, it but adds to their celebrity; for the ill will of such persons, "whose praise is censure, and their censure praise," often forces their hearers to study the book to see if this blame is deserved or not. None can read, we feel confident, the hymns of the monks and others, without admiring both the ingenuity and the scholarship manifested in their every line, and also without perceiving, in general, the pure religious tone of their views and doctrines. It is true that among the monkish hymns there are many which we must reject because they contain doctrines to which we cannot agree. It is true that many hymns, otherwise beautiful, are stained and polluted by tenets which we must shrink from with horror and scorn; but yet this certainly is no reason why we should condemn all, or give our veto" against the admission into our libraries of collections of those hymns which are pure 66 as driven snow," perfect, and without flaw in doc trine. Objections are often made against these monkish hymns by two classes |