The difficulty of fimplicity is, that t borders on the mean, although in itself moft expreffive and beautiful; while there is a wide distance between a figurative ftyle and bombaft. There is very little vanity in feeling a neceffity for rank or important ftation to attract notice. The heroifm that refalts from juft morals interefts few; the heroim that is most destructive, is the admiration of the multitude. Ariftotle and Horace have told us of the virtues of their forefathers, and the degeneracy of their own times; and authors, from age to age, have done the fame; but if they had spoken the truth, men at this day would be degenerated into brute animals. Raillery is a panegyric on the fpeaker's wit, at the expenfe of his Humanity. People whofe minds are never profoundly occupied, are generally great talkers. Obfcure people, who are ambitious of making a large fortune, are only preparing for the moment when they will be in defpair for their want of birth. A greater number of vices are occafioned by our not fufficiently efteeming ourlelves, than from a too high opinion of our merit. In the whole courfe of my life, I never faw any perfons univerfally despised but fuch as univerfally kept bad company. Experiments make the hiftory of phyfics, and theories its fables. Every nation and every man ought to be civilized; but every nation and man ought alfo to be free. Modefty becomes every one; but though we should give it a place in our minds, we should keep it in fubjection to greater qualities. Be fingular, if you will; but let it be in the elevation of your thoughts. He that can diftinguifh himfelf no otherwife than by his drefs, is a defpicable creature in every country. I once had the curiofity to keep an account of the number of times I heard a ftory repeated, that never deferved to have been related; during three weeks that it occupied the polite world, I heard it told two hundred and twenty-five times, which I thought quite fufficient. Modefty is a fpecies of fand that brings its owner great interest. I vifited the galleys, and faw not one unhappy face; here, I fee many unhappy faces, whofe owners are feeking to be happy in the purfuit of blue ribbands. This is a fine faying of Seneca"Sic præfentibus utaris voluptatibus, ut futuris non noceas."-" Enjoy the prefent hours, fo as not to injure thofe that follow.” There is an error which pervades the whole of the Greek philofophy; its phyfics, morals, and metaphyfics, were incorrect for want of the diftinc tion between pofitive and relative qualities. Thus Ariftotle falls into miftakes, fpeaking of heat and of cold; and Plato and Socrates, of the beautiful, the good, the great, and the perfect. It is a great difcovery, that there are no pofitive 'qualities. The terms, beautiful, good, great, &c. are attributes of objects relative only to the beings that contemplate them. This principle is a fponge to wipe away almoft every prejudice. The dialogues of Plato are a tile of fophifms, wove through ignorance of this principle. Malebranche com mitted a thousand miftakes from the fame cause. Never did a philofopher make men more perfeâly feel the iweetness of virtue, and the dignity of their nature, than Marcus Antoninus; he touches the heart, elevates the mind, enlarges the foul! We must read the politics of Ariftotle, and the two republics of Plato, to have a juft idea of the laws and manners of the ancient Greeks. To look for thofe in their hiftorians, is as fruitlefs as to look for French laws and customs in the hiftory of Lewis the Fourteenth's The English efteem but two thir -wealth and merit. The English are too much employed to be polished. The pride of ordinary people is quite as well founded as that be trayed by the cardinal de Polignac one day that I dined with him. He took the hand of the duke d'Elbeuf, heir of the house of Lorraine; and when the prince had retired, he gave me his hand. When he gave me his hand, it was a mark of his fuperiority; when he took the hard of the prince, it was an expreffion of his esteem. It is in the fame fpirit that princes are familiar with their inferiors: these think it a proof of their regard; it is con nected with no idea but of their condefcention. I confefs my partiality for the ancients. I am ready to fay with Pliny-" You are going to Athens, once the refidence of the gods." Thoughts on Education, by Michael de Montagne and others; from Seward's Biographiana. HERE is not, perhaps, a TH country in Europe where education cofts fo much as in England, and where it is attended with fo little advantage to thofe on whole ac count the money is expended. The plan of it is indeed excellent, but it is not fuited to every difpofition of mind. The claffical page is in vain opened, the thoughts and the ac tions of the Greek and Romans are in vain inculcated, to those who have no relish for their energies and their grandeur; and there occafior ally appear minds upon which the most excellent inftruction is thrown away, as there are foils upon which the highest culture has no opera on.* "Montagne, in his Effay pon the Education of Children,' ddreffed to the countefs of Foix, ys very forcibly, "If your pupil e of fo perverfe a difpofition, that e had rather hear one of Mother Goole's Tales, than the relation of in interesting voyage, or a wife aying; if, at the found of the drum, which animates his young compahions to arms, he flies off to that which nounces the tricks of a merry andrew; if in his heart he is not better pleafed returning home covered with duft, and victorious, from a battle with the trophy of his fuccefs, than if he had gained the prize at a tennis match, or at a ball, there feems to be nothing better to do with him, than to make him a paftry-cook in fome provincial town (even if he was the fon of a duke); according to that excellent obfervation of Plato, that children fhould be educated, not according to the fituation of their father, but according to their own degree of understanding." "It is now," adds he, "an opinion commonly received, that it is a foolish thing to bring up a child at his mother'st apron-ftring. Her natural affection (however wife the may be) renders her too tender of her fon, and makes her cocker him too much. She is incapable of correcting his faults, and cannot bear to fee him fed hardly, and by chance, as he ought to be. She cannot bear to fee him fweating and covered * Doctor Johnson faid one day, in talking of the difference between English and Scotch education, that if from the first he did not come out a scholar, he was fit for nothing at all; whereas," added he, " in the laft, a boy is always taught fomething that my be of ufe to him; and he who is not able to read a page of Tully, will be able to become a furveyor, or to lay out a garden.' "An infancy of indulgence," fays the learned after of an English great ft hool, produces a youth of dithipation, a manhood of infignifiance, and an old age of con. tempt." Dr. Vincent's Sermon before the Philanthropic Society. manner manner of getting them at a cheaper rate, for the fake of thole who may twith to make ufe of it. My father, having made all the inquiries that a iman could pollibly make of men of fenfe and learning, refpecting the beft method of education, was well apprized of the inconvenience of the common method, and was told that the length of time which we take to learn the languages of the ancients (that coft them hardly any pains) was the only reafon why we did not obtain the greatnefs of mind and extent of knowledge which they poffeffed. (In my opinion, however, it is not the only reafon). The first, expedient my father made ufe of was when I was in the nurfe's arms, and almoft before my tongue was cut, was to intruft me to the care of a German, who is fince dead, a famous phyfician in France, entirely ignorant of the French. language, and an excellent Latin fcholar. "This perfon, who was hired on purpofe, and at a great expenfe, had me continually in his areas. He had two perfons of lefs learning than himself to attend upon me, and to affitt him, who understood no other language but Latin. With refpect to the rest of the family, it was an invariable rule that neither my father nor my mother, nor any of the la queys, or the chambermaids, eve fpoke in my prefence any other words than a few Latin ones, which they had got by heart. It is atte nifhing what a progrels every o made in that language. My father and my mother learned Latin enough to underftand it, and a quired it fufficiently to make use of it upon occafion, as did all the fervants who came more particularly in my way.* In fact, among us we Latinized every thing fo much, that words in that language had even reached the neighbouring villages (where they ftill remain), and where many Latin names of trades and of tools have gained ground. With refpect to myself, I was more than fix years of age before I understood any more French, or the patois of my country (that of Perigord), than I did of Arabic; and without pains, without reading any books, without grammar, without rules, without a rod, and without tears, I learned Latin as well as my fchool-master could teach me; for I had no op portunity of changing it or of mixing it with any other language. Whenever I had a theme let me (as they do in colleges, where it is given in French), to me they gave it in bad Latin to turn it into good; *<< Montagne," fays M. D'Argenfon (dans les Loisirs d'un Miniftre,) "had been taught Latin, if not entirely without a mafter, yet wit out the grammar, by practice and by ufc. In my time, the Jefuits obliged their pupils to fpeak Latin to the fervants and the attendants of their colleges, when they wanted any of them. The Latia indeed that was gabbled upon thefe occafions was very bad, it went by the name of Latin de Cuitine (Scullion Latin); but fuch as it was, it begot a habit of fpeaking that language. They have fince left off this custom, under a pretence that it taught young folks to frak Latin ill and ungrammatically. I have, however, often observed how useful this hahatef fing Larin was to those perfons, who, having occafion to travel in Germany, Bar. Tohemia, and Poland, were obliged to have recourfe to it to make tumitives The habit they had acquired from their childhood made it very caly to t ́ers, perfons in our times who have been at college, however well they have berg Tate, and though they have made rhymes and verfes in that language, have hembarraffed when they attempted to speak it." and Nicolas Gronchi, who wrote de Comitiis Romanorum; William Gronchi, one of the commentators upon Ariftotle; George Buchanan, that great Scotch poet; Marc Antony Muret, (that both France and Italy esteemed the most eloquent men of our times), my private tutors, have often affured me, that in my infancy I had Latin fo readily and fo uently, that they were afraid to fpeak to me in that language. With refpect to the Greek language (of which I knew little or nothing),, my father intended that I thould learn it by art, by a new method, as a matter of fport and paftime. We ufed to tofs about our declentions like thofe who learn arithmetic and geometry by a backgammon table. For, befides other things, he had been advifed to make me have a taste for knowledge and for my duty, by my own free will and my own defire, and to cultivate my understanding without constraint, and with perfect freedom. Indeed, he carried this fo very far, that because fome perfons have fuppofed that it hurts the tender brains of children to wake them in a morning haftily and to drag them out of their fleep (into which they are more deeply plunged than we are) of a fudden and by violence, he caufed me to be awakened by the found of fome mufical inftrument, and was never without a perfon for that purpole. This one example will fuffice for the reft, and will evince the providence and the affection which my kind father ever fhewed to me". Montagne, as a man who thought more than he acted, was fubject to that affection of the ftomach which is known by the name of the hypochondriacal difeafe; he therefore fays feelingly, that he was never fo well as when he was on horfe back.* Montagne, like our doctor Johnfon, feems to have had the extremeft horror of that contemptible and pernicious vice, lying. "Lying," fays he, " is indeed a fcoundrel vice. We are men only, and we are connected one with the other only by the gift fpeech. If we did but confider the enormity and the pernicious effects of this vice, we should condemn a liar to death oftner than most other cri minals. "One is forry to fee how often foolith parents correct their children for innocent errors, and that they chaftife them for rafh actions that are of no confequence, and are a!tended with no ill effects. Lying alone, and perhaps in a certain degrec obftinacy, feem to me to be two vices of which we ought in every inftance to withstand the birth and the progrefs. They are continually on the increafe; and it is aftonishing when the tongue has acquired a habit of lying, how impoffible it is for it to break it offIndeed it often happens that men, whom you oblerve men of honour *The great obferver of nature Sydenham fays, "That were a man poffeffed of a re. medy that would do equal good to the human body as riding flowly on horfeback twice a day, he would be in poffeffion of the philofophers fone. Yet how is this falutary remedy abused! How many hectical perfons are fent out of the world by the ufe of it in their particular complaints by the ignorance of thofe who do not know that every thing in this world is relative, and that there is nothing fo dangerous, as well in medicine as in every thing else, as the improper application of excellence itfelf" in |