indolent, were unknown to him. No domeftic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the fordid occurrences of life, and unfullied by its intercourfe, he came occafionally into our fyftem, to council and to decide.

A character fo exalted, fo ftrenuous, fo various, fo authoritative, aftonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all her claffes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that the had found defects in this ftatefman, and talked much of the inconfiftency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the hiftory of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, anfwered and refuted her.

Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in the fenate, peculiar and fpontaneous, familiarly expreffing gigantic fentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demofthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully, it refembled fometimes the thunder, and fometimes the mufic of the fpheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful fubtility of argumentation; nor was he, like Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the fubject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like thofe of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

Upon the whole, there was in this man a fomething that could create, fubvert, or reform; an understanding, a fpirit, and an eloquence to fummon mankind to fociety, or to break the bonds of flavery asunder, and to rule the wildernefs of free minds with unbounded authority; fomething that could eftablish or overwhelm empire, and ftrike a blow in the world that should refound though the universe.

ESSAY

ESSAY ON

THE USES OF CLASSICAL EDUCATION.

BY DR. GREGORY.

ROM a fair confideration of the real uses of claffi

FROM a faturco, fome practical conclufions refult

which appear of no inconfiderable importance in the education of youth.

Impreffed, as I am, with a full fenfe of the advan. tages refulting from a claffical education, I cannot help thinking, that an unreasonable and enthusiastic regard has fometimes been paid to the writings of the ancients. Inftead of confidering them as useful affiftants, as guides to knowledge, they have been extolled as containing within themfelves all that is worthy of being known; and men have miftaken the rudiments of fcience for science itself. How many have devoted their lives to the ftudy of the claffics, as if there were no other duties to be performed, no other advantages to be obtained, no other laurels to be reaped? How many have continued, during their existence, in the elements of science, without extending their views to any thing beyond them, without indeed making use of their own understanding.

I fhould wish to fee the ancients ftudied for their matter as well as for their language: but the informa. tion which they convey is too commonly made a fecondary confideration. The attention of youth is directed to the elegant latinity of Cæfar and of Horace, not to the facts, obfervations, or precepts, which are contained in thefe valuable authors. If the tutors of our youth condefcend to remark even upon the beauties of the claffics, it is not on the beauty of fentiment, it is not on the beauty or vigour of the imagaination, it is not on the poetical ornaments-their attention is, at the utmost, extended to a choice of words, to a curious grammatical connection, or to the nice intricacies of idiomatical phrafcology.

At

At the revival of letters a race of commentators were ufeful, if not neceffary; they were the pioneers of literature, who cleared the way for more refpectable adventurers: but, in the prefent ftate of literature, can we behold, without regret, a man of genius dedicating a life to a few barren and fruitlefs verbal criticifms, to the regulating of a few phrafes, or correcting, in a few inftances, the quantity and metre of an obscure author; when, had he applied his talents as they ought to have been applied, he perhaps would have produced an original compofition more valuable than the production on which he has fo unworthily bestowed his labour?

To write latin decently and intelligibly, may occafionally prove a convenience to a literary man, chiefly in facilitating his commerce with foreign literati; but furely the attempt (for it is but an attempt) to compofe poetical productions in Greek and Latin, is, at beft, only a fpecies of elegant trifling. If life be fhort, and fciences of unbounded extent; if our duties be many, and but few our opportunities of qualifying for them, and performing them as we ought; are we juftified in neglecting folid and ufeful branches of knowledge; are we to pursue straws, and leaves, and goffamer, while we leave the grain and fruits, which fhould be the support of life, to perish and to

rot ?

The example of fome of our enlightened neighbours on the continent may, perhaps, be worthy our imitation. They study the ancients, but they ftudy to read and imitate them. They are not devoted to this study alone; they make themselves mafters not only of the ancient, but of the modern languages; they can converfe with the well informed of other nations, and they can read their works. Thus an infinite extent of knowledge is opened to their view; and they are lefs likely to be the flaves of prejudice than the cloiftered pedant, who expects to find the whole of knowledge in

the

the blind reveries of ancient fcholiafts-whofe philofophy is locked up in Plato, whofe morals and politics are only derived from Ariftotle, and who regard the tales of Pliny as the perfection of natural science.

THOUGHTS ON SCEPTICISM.

Tfections thereon, if you choose to infert them, are

HE enfuing anocdote, Mr. Editor, and my re

much at your fervice.

I am, Sir,

Your moft obedient,

P.

Difcourfing lately with one of our modern sceptics, I learnt as follows:-A gentleman with whom he was walking, accidently ftumbling against a fcraper, thereby incurred a most painful wound; notwithstanding which he continued his pace, till his friend, fearful of what might enfue from fuch a discharge of blood as ftreamed from the incifion, advised him to ftop, expreffing his aftonishment that any one could proceed on foot, in fuch a painful fituation. The other calmly replied, "I doubt the existence of pain." With this before us, Mr. Editor, fhould not we feel lefs surprise at the infidelity of the age: fince, most of our exifting fceptics, like the gentleman juft inftanced, are dubious of the moft pungent realities. Nay, if report may be credited, we have a popular character, in this metropolis, who queftions the certainty of death.

What elfe are we to conceive of a man who avers that he can live as long as he wills. Is not this, in other words, declaring that he has a power to ward off the arrows of diffolution in fpite of the efforts of that hitherto unconquerable enemy? If this Methuselah is, in reality, fo favoured, much as he defpifes the narratives of Revelation, even he, may give us a proof of the unimpoffibility of miracles, and the probability of antedeluvian

antedeluvian longevity at leaft, we have every reason to expect it from him. Few men, if they acted from choice, would quit this world; and, among that few, we are not justified in reckoning the gentleman alluded to; his acknowledged fentiments incline us otherwife; and, as he is a very fpirited declaimer against every fpecies of fineffe and diffimulation, we hope that he will not, like Brothers, elude our expectations, by interceding for a non-completion of his wishes.

After fuch flagrant inftances of the power of Scepticifm in things which have been confolidated by the belief and the experience of every age, how can we expect an affent to thofe truths above the test of ordinary feelings when it is the fashion, nay, the philofophy of the times, to doubt the certainty of certainties ; on what grounds can such an expectation reft ?-Were it accomplished, it would, indeed, be a miracle not inferior to thofe recorded in the volume of infpiration, and an unanswerable argument to the unbeliever; or, rather, it would not leave a fingle doubter to question its reality. As things are, even fuperftition may laugh at the blind advances of thofe who call themselves the advocates, of truth. Like the Perfian glass-feller, they have been lulled by ignorance in the cradle of delufion; and waking from their rapturous dreams of impracticable blifs, they have fpurned the old basket which contained their real treasures; while rendered defperate by disappointment, they grafp with intenfe eagerness at whatever may prop their finking hopes. How long this frenzy will continue cannot exactly be ascertained; though, proportioning its duration to its exertions, we may reafonably hope an approaching calm for, as Socrates obferved, when deluged by his termagant fpoufe, that after fo much thunder, he expected fome rain-fo we may conclude of thefe proceedings; and, as rain is the prelude to funshine, after such an inundation of misery as hath lately