those comic scenes wherewith our great dramatic poet has occasionally thought proper to diversify his tragedies. Such a licence will at least be allowed to be more pardonable in him, than it would be in other tragic poets. They must make their way to the heart, as an army does to a strong fortification, by slow and regular approaches; because they cannot, like Shakespeare, take it at once, and by storm. In their pieces, therefore, a mixture of comedy might have as bad an effect, as if besiegers were to retire from the out-works they had gained, and leave the enemy at leisure to fortify them a second time. But Shakespeare penetrates the heart by a single effort, and can make us as sad in the present scene, as if we had not been merry in the former. With such powers as he possessed in the pathetic, if he had made his tragedies uniformly mournful or terrible from beginning to end, no person of sensibility would have been able to support the representation.-As to the probability of these mixed compositions, it admits of no doubt. Nature every where presents a similar mixture of tragedy and comedy, of joy and sorrow, of laughter and solemnity, in the common affairs of life. The servants of a court know little of what passes among princes and statesmen, and may, therefore, like the porter in Macbeth, be very jocular when their superiors are in deep distress. The death of a favourite child is a great affliction to parents and friends; but the man who digs the grave, may, like Goodman Delver in Hamlet, be very cheerful while he is going about his work. A conspiracy may be dangerous; but the

constable who apprehends the traitors may, like Dogberry, be a ludicrous character, and his very absurdities may be instrumental in bringing the plot to light, as well as in delaying or hastening forward. the discovery.-I grant, that compositions, like those I would now apologize for, cannot properly be called either tragedies or comedies; but the name is of no consequence; let them be called Plays: and if in them nature is imitated in such a way as to give pleasure and instruction, they are as well entitled to the denomination of Dramatic Poems, as any thing in Sophocles, Racine, or Voltaire.

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Love is another " tyrant of the throbbing breast," of whom they who wish to see the stage transformed into a school of virtue, complain, that his influence in the modern drama is too despotical. Love, kept within due bounds, is no doubt as the song says, "a gentle and a generous passion:" but no other passion has so strong a tendency to transgress the due bounds: and the frequent contemplation of its various ardours and agonies, as exhibited in plays and novels, can scarce fail to enervate the mind, and to raise emotions and sympathies unfriendly to innocence. And certain it is, that fables in which there is neither love or gallantry, may be made highly interesting even to the fancy and affections of a modern reader. This appears, not only from the writings of Shakespeare, and other great authors, but from the Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan, and the history of Robinson Crusoe: than which last, there is not perhaps in any language a more interesting narrative :

or

or a tale better contrived for communicating to the reader a lively idea of the importance of the mechanic arts, of the sweets of social life, and of the dignity of independence.

On the Utility of Classical Learning. By the same.

THE

HE mental faculties of children stand as much in need of improvement, and consequently of exercise, as their bodily powers. Nor is it of small importance to devise some mode of discipline for fixing their attention. When this is not done, they become thoughtless and dissipated to a degree that often unfits them for the business of life.

The Greeks and Romans had a just sense of the value of this part of education. The youth of Sparta, when their more violent exercises were over, employed themselves in works of stratagem; which, in a state where wealth and avarice were unknown, could hardly be carried to any criminal excess. When they met together for conversation, their minds were continually exerted in judging of the morality of actions, and the expediency of public measures of government; or in bearing with temper, and retorting with spirit, the sarcasms of good-natured raille ry. They were obliged to express themselves, without hesitation, in the fewest and plainest words possible. These institutions must have made them thoughtful, and attentive, and observant both of men and things. And, accordingly, their good sense and penetration, and their nervous and senten

tious style, were no less the admiration of Greece, than their sobriety, patriotism, and invinciblé courage. For the talent of saying what we call good things they were eminent among all the nations of antiquity. As they never piqued themselves on their rhetorical powers, it was prudent to accustom the youth to silence and few words. It made them modest and thoughtful. With us very sprightly children sometimes become very dull men. For we are apt to reckon those children the sprightliest, who talk the most and as it is not easy for them to think and talk at the same time, the natural effect of their too much speaking is too little thinking. At Athens, the youth were made to study their own language with accuracy both in the pronunciation and composition; and the meanest of the people valued themselves upon their attainments in this way. Their orators must have had a very difficult part to act, when, by the slightest impropriety, they ran the hazard of disgusting the whole audience: and we shall not wonder at the extraordinary effects produced by the harangues of Demosthenes, or the extraordinary care wherewith those harangues were composed, when we recollect, that the minutest beauty in his performance must have been received and felt by every one of his hearers. It has been matter of surprise to some, that Cicero, who had so true a relish for the severe simplicity of the Athenian orator, should himself in his orations have adopted a style so diffuse and declamatory. But Cicero knew what he did. He had a people to deal with, who, compared with the Athenians,

might be called illiterate; and to whom Demosthenes would have appeared as cold and uninteresting, as Cicero would have seemed pompous and inflated to the people of Athens. In every part of learning the Athenians were studious to excel. Rhetoric in all its branches was to them an object of principal consideration. From the story of Socrates we may learn, that the literary spirit was keener at Athens, even in that corrupted age, than at any period in any other country. If a person of mean condition, and of the lowest fortune, with the talents and temper of Socrates, were now to appear, inculcating virtue, dissuading from vice, and recommending a right use of reason, not with the grimance of an enthusiast, or the rant of a declaimer, but with good humour, plain language, and sound argument, we cannot suppose, that the youth of high rank would pay him much attention in any part of Eu rope. As a juggler, gambler, or atheist, he might, perhaps, attract their notice, and have the honour to do no little mischief in some of our clubs of young worthies; but from virtue and modesty, clothed in rags, I fear they would not willingly receive improvement.

The education of the Romans, from the time they began to aspire to a literary character, was similar to that of the Athenians. The children were taught to speak their own language with purity, and made to study and translate the Greek authors. The laws of the twelve tables they committed to memory, And as the talent of public speaking was not only ornamental, but even a necessary qualification, to every man who wished

to distinguish himself in a civil or military capacity, all the youth were ambitious to acquire it. The study of the law was also a matter of general concern. Even the children used in their diversions to imitate the procedure of public trials; one accusing, and another defending, the supposed criminal; and the youth, and many of the most respectable statesmen, through the whole of their lives, allotted part of their leisure to the exercise of declaiming on such topics as might come to be debated in the forum, in the senate, or before the judges. Their domestic discipline was very strict. Some ancient matron, of approved virtue, was appointed to superintend the children in their earliest years; before whom every thing criminal in word or deed was avoided as a heinous enormity. This venerable person was careful both to instil good principles into her pupils, and also to regulate their amusements, and, by preserving their minds pure from moral turpitude, and intellectual depravation, to prepare them for the study of the liberal arts and sciences. It may also be remarked, that the Greeks and Romans were more accurate students than the moderns are. They had few books, and those they had were not easily come at: what they read, therefore, they read thoroughly. I know not, whether their way of writing and making up their volumes, as it rendered the perusal more difficult, might not also occasion a more durable remembrance. From their conversationpieces, and other writings, it appears, that they had a singular facility in quoting their favourite authors. Demosthenes is said to have transcribed

transcribed Thucydides eight times, and to have got a great part of him by heart. This is a degree of accuracy which the greater part of modern readers have no notion of. We seem to think it more creditable to read many books superficially, than to read a few good ones with care; and yet it is certain, that by the latter method we should cultivate our faculties, and increase our stock of real knowledge, more effectually, and, per. haps, more speedily than we can do by the former, which, indeed, tends rather to bewilder the mind, than to improve it. Every man who pretends to a literary character, must now read a number of books, whether well or ill written, whether instructive or insignificant, merely that he may have it to say, that he had read them. And, therefore, I am apt to think that, in general, the Greeks and Romans must have been more improved by their reading, than we are by ours. As books multiply, knowledge is more widely diffused; but, if human wisdom were to increase in the same proportion, what children would the ancients be, in comparison of the moderns! of whom every subscriber to the circulating library would have it in his power to be wiser than Socrates, and more accomplished than Julius Cæsar.

I mention these particulars of the Greek and Roman discipline, in order to show, that although the ancients had not so many languages to study as we have, nor so many books to read, they were, however, careful that the faculties of their children should neither languish for want of exercise, nor be exhausted in frivolous employ

ment. As we have not thought fit to imitate them in this; as most of the children in modern Europe, who are not obliged to labour for their sustenance, must either study Greek and Latin, or be idle; (for as to cards, and some of the late publications of Voltaire, I do not think the study of either half so useful or so innocent as shuttlecock) I should be apprehensive, that if classical learning were laid aside, nothing would be substituted in its place, and that our youth would become altogether dissipated. In this respect, therefore, namely, as the means of improving the faculties of the human mind, I do not see how the studies of the grammar-schools can be dispensed with.

It may be observed that the study of a system of grammar, so complex and so perfect as the Greek or Latin, may, with peculiar propriety, be recommended to children, being suited to their understanding, and having a tendency to promote the improvement of all their mental faculties. In this science, abstruse as it is commonly imagined to be, there are few or no difficulties which a master may not render intelligible to any boy of good parts, before he is twelve years old. Words, the matter of this science, are within the reach of every child; and of these the human mind, in the beginning of life, is known to be susceptible to an astonishing degree and yet in this science there is a subtilty, and a variety, sufficient to call forth all the intellectual powers of the young student. When one hears a boy analyse a few sentences of a Latin author; and show that he not only knows the general meaning, and the import of the particular words,

but

but also can instantly refer each word to its class; enumerate all its terminations, specifying every change of sense, however minute, that may be produced by a change of inflexion or arrangement; explain its several dependencies; distinguish the literal meaning from the figurative, one species of figure from another, and even the philosophical use of words from the idiomatical, and the vulgar from the elegant recollecting occasionally other words and phrases that are synonymous, or contrary, or of different though similar signification; and accounting for what he says, either from the reason of the thing, or by quoting a rule of art, or a classical authority :--one must be sensible, that, by such an exercise, the memory is likely to be more improved in strength and readiness, the attention better fixed, the judgment and taste more successfully exerted, and a habit of reflection and subtle discrimination more easily acquired, than it could be by any other employment equally suited to the capacity of childhood. A year passed in this salutary exercise will be found to cultivate the human faculties more than seven spent in prattling that French which is 15 learned by rote: nor would a complete course of Voltaire yield half so much improvement to a young mind, as a few books of a good classic author, of Livy, Cicero, or Virgil, studied in

this accurate manner.

On the Constitution of Feudal Monarchy-The Dignity and Revenues of the King-and of his Power as to the raising of Taxes VOL. XX.

and Subsidies. From Sullivan's Lectures on the Laws of England.

AS, in my former lectures, I

drew a general sketch of the nature and form of the governments that prevailed among the northern nations whilst they remained in Germany, and what alterations ensued on their being removed within the limits of the Roman empire, it will be now proper to shew, in as brief a manner as may consist with clearness, the nature and constitution of a feudał monarchy, when estates were become hereditary, the several constituent parts thereof, and what were the chief of the peculiar rights and privileges of each part. This research will be of use, not only to understand our present constitution, which is derived from thence, but to make us admire and esteem it, when we compare it with that which was its original, and observe the many improvements it has undergone. From hence, likewise, may be determined that famous question, whether our kings were originally absolute, and all our privileges only concessions of theirs, or whether the chief of them are not originally inherent rights, and coeval with the monarchy; not, indeed, in all the subjects, for that, in old times, was not the case, but in all that were freemen, and, as all are such now, do consequently belong to all.

To begin with the king, the head of the political body. His dignity and power were great, but not absolute and unlimited. Indeed, it was imposisble, in the nature of things, even if it had been declared so by law, that it could have continued in that state, when N

he