tranquil existence he gave entirely to Latin | ists of his day; and felt himself a master and English literature, but of the two he en- amongst masters. Every time he went into joyed Latin the more, not with the preference of a pedant, but because it carried him more completely out of the present, and gave him the refreshment of a more perfect change. He produced on all who knew him the impression of a cultivated gentleman, which he

was.

There is only an interval of one generation between you and that good Latinist, but how wide is the difference in your intellectual regimen? You have studied—well, here is a little list of what you have studied, and probably even this is not complete:

his study, to pass delightful hours with the noble authors that he loved, he knew that his admission into that august society would be immediate and complete. He had to wait in no antechamber of mere linguistic difficulty, but passed at once into the atmosphere of ancient thought, and breathed its delicate perfume. In this great privilege of instant admission the man of one study has always the advantage of men more variously cultivated. Their misfortune is to be perpetually waiting in antechambers, and losing time in them. Grammars and dictionaries are anteGreek, Latin, French, German, Italian, chambers, bad drawing and bad coloring are mathematics, chemistry, mineralogy, geol- antechambers, musical practice with imperogy, botany, the theory of music, the practice fect intonation is an antechamber. And the of music on two instruments, much theory about painting, the practice of painting in oil and water-color, photography, etching on copper, etc., etc., etc.

That is to say, six literatures (including English), six sciences (counting mineralogy and geology as one), and five branches or departments of the fine arts.

Omitting English literature from our total, as that may be considered to come by nature to an Englishman, though any real proficiency in it costs the leisure of years, we have here no less than sixteen different pursuits. If you like to merge the theory of music and painting in the practice of those arts, though as a branch of study the theory is really distinct, we have still fourteen pursuits, any one of which is enough to occupy the whole of one man's time. If you gave some time daily to each of these pursuits, you could scarcely give more than half an hour, even supposing that you had no professional occupation, and that you had no favorite study, absorbing time to the detriment of the

rest.

worst is that even when a man, like yourself for instance, of very various culture, has at one time fairly penetrated beyond the antechamber, he is not sure of admittance a year hence, because in the mean time the door may have been closed against him. The rule of each separate hall or saloon of knowledge is that he alone is to be instantly admitted who calls there every day.

The man of various pursuits does not, in any case, keep them up simultaneously; he is led by inclination or compelled by necessity to give predominance to one or another. If you have fifteen different pursuits, ten of them, at any given time, will be lying by neglected. The metaphor commonly used in reference to neglected pursuits is borrowed from the oxidation of metal; it is said that they become rusty. This metaphor is too mild to be exact. Rust on metal, even on polished steel, is easily guarded against by care, and a gun or a knife does not need to be constantly used to keep it from being pitted. The gunsmith and the cutler know how to keep these things, in great quantity, without Now your grandfather, though he would be using them at all. But no one can retain considered quite an ignorant country gentle- knowledge without using it. The metaphor man in these days, had in reality certain in- fails still more seriously in perpetuating a tellectual advantages over his more accom- false conception of the deterioration of knowlplished descendant. In the first place, he en-edge through neglect. It is not simply a loss tirely escaped the sense of pressure, the feel- of polish which takes place, not, a loss of mere ing of not having time enough to do what he surface-beauty, but absolute disorganization, wanted to do. He accumulated his learning like the disorganization of a carriage when as quietly as a stout lady accumulates her fat, the axle-tree is taken away. A rusty thing by the daily satisfaction of his appetite. may still be used, but a disorganized thing And at the same time that he escaped the cannot be used until the lost organ has been sense of pressure, he escaped also the miser- replaced. There is no equivalent, amongst able sense of imperfection. Of course he did ordinary material losses, to the intellectual not know Latin like an ancient Roman, but loss that we incur by ceasing from a purthen he never met with any ancient Romans suit. But we may consider neglect as an ento humiliate him by too rapid and half-intel-emy who carries away the girths from our ligible conversation. He met the best Latin- saddles, the bits from our bridles, the oars

from our boats, and one wheel from each of | embarrassment of that kind. Look at the edour carriages, leaving us indeed still nominal-ucation of an ancient Greek, at the education ly possessors of all these aids to locomotion, of one of the most celebrated Athenians, a but practically in the same position as if we man living in the most refined and intellectwere entirely without them. And as an ual society, himself mentally and bodily the enemy counts upon the delays caused by perfect type of his splendid race, an eloquent these vexations to execute his designs whilst and powerful speaker, a most capable comwe are helpless, so whilst we are laboring to mander both by sea and land-look at the replace the lost parts of our knowledge the education of the brilliant Alcibiades! When occasion slips by when we most need it. The Socrates gave the list of the things that Alonly knowledge which is available when it is cibiades had learned, Alcibiades could add to wanted is that which we habitually use. it no other even nominal accomplishment, and 'Studies which from their nature cannot be what a meagre, short catalogue it was! "But commonly used are always retained with indeed I also pretty accurately know what great difficulty. The study of anatomy is thou hast learned; thou wilt tell me if anyperhaps the best instance of this; every one thing has escaped my notice. Thou hast who has attempted it knows with what diffi- learned then thy letters (yрàμμаra), to play on culty it is kept by the memory. Anatomists the cithara (Kapičεw) and to wrestle (rañaiew), say that it has to be learned and forgotten six for thou hast not cared to learn to play upon times before it can be counted as a possession. the flute. This is all that thou hast learned, This is because anatomy lies so much outside unless something has escaped me." The of what is needed for ordinary life that very páupara which Alcibiades had learned with a few people are ever called upon to use it ex-master meant reading and writing, for he except during the hours when they are actually pressly says later on, that as for speaking studying it. The few who need it every day Greek, 2λview, he learned that of no other remember is as easily as a man remembers master than the people. An English educathe language of the country which he inhab- tion equivalent to that of Alcibiades would its. The workmen in the establishment at therefore consist of reading and writing, Saint Aubin d'Écroville, where Dr. Auzoux wrestling and guitar-playing, the last accommanufactures his wonderful anatomical mod-plishment being limited to very simple music. els, are as familiar with anatomy as a painter Such an education was possible to an Athenis with the colors on his palette. They never ian (though it is fair to add that Socrates does forget it. Their knowledge is never made not seem to have thought much of it) because practically valueless by some yawning hiatus, a man situated as Alcibiades was situated in causing temporary incompetence and delay. the intellectual history of the world, had no To have one favorite study and live in it past behind him which deserved his attention 'with happy familiarity, and cultivate every more than the present which surrounded him. portion of it diligently and lovingly, as a Simply to speak Greek, 2λŋview, was really small yeoman proprietor cultivates his own then the most precious of all accomplishments, land, this, as to study, at least, is the most and the fact that Alcibiades came by it easily enviable intellectual life. But there is an- does not lessen its value. Amongst a people other side to the question which has to be like the Athenians, fond of intellectual talk, considered. conversation was one of the best and readiest The first difficulty for us is in our educa-means of informing the mind, and certainly tion. Modern education is a beginning of the very best means of developing it. It was many things, and it is little more than a be- not a slight advantage to speak the language ginning. My notion of educating my boy," of Socrates, and have him for a companion. said a rich Englishman, "is not to make him The cleverest and most accomplished Roparticularly clever at anything during his mi-mans were situated rather more like ourselves, nority, but to make him overcome the rudimentary difficulties of many things, so that when he selects for himself his own line of culture in the future, it cannot be altogether strange to him, whatever line he may happen to select." A modern father usually allows his son to learn many things from a feeling of timidity about inaking a choice, if only one thing had to be chosen. He might so easily make a wrong choice! When the inheritance of the human race was less rich, there was no

or at least as we should be situated if we had not to learn Latin and Greek, and if there were no modern language worth studying except French. They went to Greece to perfect themselves in Greek, and improve their ac cent, just as our young gentlemen go to Paris or Touraine. Still, the burden of the past was comparatively light upon their shoulders An Englishman who had attempted no more than they were bound to attempt might be a scholar, but he would not be considered so

He might be a thorough scholar in French and | you believe your own Latin superior to your English,—that is, he might possess the cream grandfather's, notwithstanding the far greatof two great literatures,-but he would be er variety of your studies. Let me confess spoken of as a person of defective education. It is the fashion, for example, to speak of Sir Walter Scott as a half-educated man, because he did not know much Greek, yet Sir Walter had studied German with success, and with his habit of extensive reading, and his immense memory, certainly knew incomparably more about the generations which preceded him than Horace knew of those which preceded the Augustan era.

that I did somewhat idealize that description of your grandfather's intellectual life. I described rather a life which might have been than a life which actually was. And even this "might have been " is problematical. It may be doubted whether any modern has ever really mastered Latin. The most that can be said is that a man situated like your grandfather, without a profession, without our present temptation to scatter effort in many purThe privilege of limiting their studies, from suits, and who made Latin scholarship his the beginning, to one or two branches of unique intellectual purpose, would probably knowledge, belonged to earlier ages, and go nearer to a satisfactory degree of attainevery successive accumulation of the world's ment than we whose time and strength have knowledge has gradually lessened it. School- been divided into so many fragments. But boys in our time are expected to know more, the picture of a perfect modern Latinist is or to have attempted to learn more, than the purely ideal, and the prevalent notion of high most brilliant intellectual leaders of former attainment in a dead language is not fixed times. What English parent, in easy circum- enough to be a standard, whilst if it were stances, would be content that his son should fixed it would certainly be a very low standhave the education of Alcibiades, or an educa- ard. The scholars of this century do not tion accurately corresponding to that of write Latin except as a mere exercise; they Horace, or to that which sufficed for Shakes-do not write books in Latin, and they never peare? Yet although the burdens laid upon speak it at all. They do not use the language the memory have been steadily augmented, actively; they only read it, which is not its powers have not increased. Our brains really using it, but only seeing how other men are not better constituted than those of our have used it. There is the same difference forefathers, although where they learned one between reading a language and writing or thing we attempt to learn six. They learned, speaking it that there is between looking at and we attempt to learn. The only hope for pictures intelligently and painting them. us is to make a selection from the attempts of The scholars of the sixteenth century spoke our too heavily burdened youth, and in those Latin habitually, and wrote it with ease and selected studies to emulate in after-life the fluency. "Nicholas Grouchy," says Monthoroughness of our forefathers taigne, "who wrote a book de Comitiis Romanorum; William Guerente, who has written a commentary upon Aristotle; George Buchanan, that great Scotch poet; and Marc Anthony Muret, whom both France and Italy have acknowledged for the best orator of his time, my domestic tutors (at college), have An idealized portrait-The scholars of the sixteenth century all of them often told me that I had in my in-Isolated students-French students of English when is fancy that language so very fluent and ready olated from Englishmen-How one of them read Tennyson that they were afraid to enter into discourse culty of appreciating the sense-That Latin may still be with me." This passage is interesting for two made a spoken language-The early education of Mon- reasons; it shows that the scholars of that taigne-A contemporary instance-Dream of a Latin isage spoke Latin; but it proves at the same land-Rapid corruption of a language taught artificially. time that they cannot have been really masIn your answer to my letter about the mul- ters of the language, since they were “afraid tiplicity of modern studies you tell me that to enter into discourse" with a clever child. my portrait of your grandfather is considera- Fancy an Englishman who professed to be a bly idealized, and that, notwithstanding all French scholar and yet was afraid to enter the respect which you owe to his memory, you into discourse" with a French boy, for fear he have convincing proof in his manuscript an- should speak too quickly! The position of notations to Latin authors that his scholarship these scholars relatively to Latin was in fact cannot have been quite so thorough as I rep- too isolated for it to have been possible that resented it. You convey, moreover, though they should reach the point of mastery. Supwith perfect modesty in form, the idea that pose a society of Frenchmen, in some seclud

LETTER III.

TO A FRIEND WHO STUDIED MANY THINGS.

-Importance of sounds-Illusions of scholarship-Diffi

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ed little French village where no Englishman | poetry to himself. Is it surprising that he ever penetrates, and that these Frenchmen should have failed to appreciate the music of learn English from dictionaries, and set them- our musical verse? He did not, however, selves to speak English with each other, with- seem to be aware that there existed any obout anybody to teach them the colloquial lan-stacle to the accuracy of his decisions, but guage or its pronunciation, without ever once gave his opinion with a good deal of authorhearing the sound of it from English lips, ity, which might have surprised me had I not what sort of English would they create so frequently heard Latin scholars do exactly amongst themselves? This is a question that the same thing. My French friend read I happen to be able to answer very accurately, Claribel" in a ridiculous manner; but Engbecause I have known two Frenchmen who lish scholars all read Latin poetry in a manstudied English literature just as the French-ner not less ridiculous. You laugh to hear men of the sixteenth century studied the lit- 'Claribel" read with a foreign pronunciaerature of ancient Rome. One of them, es- tion, and you see at once the absurdity of pecially, had attained what would certainly affecting to judge of it as poetry before the in the case of a dead language be considered reader has learned to pronounce the sounds; a very high degree of scholarship indeed. but you do not laugh to hear Latin poetry Most of our great authors were known to him, read with a foreign pronunciation, and you even down to the close critical comparison of do not perceive that we are all of us disqualdifferent readings. Aided by the most pow-ified, by our profound ignorance of the proerful memory I ever knew, he had amassed nunciation of the ancient Romans, for any such stores that the acquisitions, even of cul- competent criticism of their verse. In all tivated Englishmen, would in many cases poetry, in all oratory, in much of the best have appeared inconsiderable beside them. and most artistic prose-writing also, sound But he could not write or speak English in a has a great influence upon sense: a great manner tolerable to an Englishman; and al- deal is conveyed by it, especially in the way though he knew nearly all the words in the of feeling. If we do not thoroughly know language, it was dictionary knowledge, and and practise the right pronunciation (and by so different from an Englishman's apprehen- the right pronunciation I mean that which sion of the same words that it was only a sort the author himself thought in whilst he of pseudo-English that he knew, and not our wrote), we miss those delicate tones and caliving tongue. His appreciation of our au-dences which are in literature like the moduthors, especially of our poets, differed so wide-lations of the voice in speech. Nor can we ly from English criticism and English feeling properly appreciate the artistic choice of that it was evident he did not understand beautiful names for persons and places unless them as we understand them. Two things es- we know the sounds of them quite accurately, pecially proved this: he frequently mistook | and have already in our minds the associadeclamatory versification of the most medio- tions belonging to the sounds. Names which cre quality for poetry of an elevated order; are selected with the greatest care by our whilst, on the other hand, his ear failed to perceive the music of the musical poets, as Byron and Tennyson. How could he hear their music, he to whom our English sounds were all unknown? Here, for example, is the way he read" Claribel:

"At ev ze bittle bommess

Azvart ze zeeket lon

At none ze veeld be ommess
Aboot ze most edston

At meedneeg ze mon commess
An lokez dovn alon

Ere songg ze lintveet svelless
Ze clirvoic-ed mavi dvelless

Ze fledgling srost lispess

Ze slombroos vav ootvelless

Ze babblang ronnel creespess

English poets, and which hold their place like jewels on the finely-wrought texture of the verse, lose all their value when they are read with a vicious foreign pronunciation. So it must be with Latin poetry when read by an Englishman, and it is probable that we are really quite insensible to the delicate art of verbal selection as it was practised by the most consummate masters of antiquity.

I know that scholars think that they hear the Roman music still; but this is one of the illusions of scholarship. In each country. Latin scholars have adopted a conventional style of reading, and the sounds which are in conformity with that style seem to them to be musical, whilst other than the accepted sounds seem ridiculous, and grate harshly on This, as nearly as I have been able to ren- the unaccustomed ear. The music which the der it in English spelling, was the way in Englishman hears, or imagines that he hears, which a French gentleman of really high in the language of ancient Rome, is certainly culture was accustomed to read English | not the music which the Roman authors in

Ze ollov grot replee-ess

Vere Claribel lovlee-ess."

tended to note in words. It is as if my Latin more habitually than any other body Frenchman, having read "Claribel" in his of men in the world. That a modern may be own way, had affirmed that he heard the mu- taught to think in Latin, is proved by the sic of the verse. If he heard music at all, it early education of Montaigne, and I may was not Tennyson's. mention a much more recent instance. My Permit me to add a few observations about brother-in-law told me that, in the spring of sense. My French friend certainly under-1871, a friend of his had come to stay with stood English in a very remarkable manner him accompanied by his little son, a boy for a student who had never visited our country; he knew the dictionary meaning of every word he encountered, and yet there ever remained between him and our English tongue a barrier or wall of separation, hard to define, but easy to perceive. In the true deep sense he never understood the language. He studied it, laid regular siege to it, mastered it to all appearance, yet remained, to the end, outside of it. His observations, and especially his unfavorable criticisms, proved this quite conclusively. Expressions often appeared to him faulty, in which no English reader would see anything to remark upon; it may be added that (by way of compensation) he was unable to appreciate the oddity of those intentionally quaint turns of expression which are invented by the craft of humorists. It may even be doubted whether his English was of any ascertainable use to him. He might probably have come as near to an understanding of our authors by the help of translations, and he could not converse in English, for the spoken language was entirely unintelligible to him. An acquisition of this kind seems scarcely an adequate reward for the labor that it costs. Compared with living Englishmen my French friend was nowhere, but if English had been a dead language, he would have been looked up to as a very eminent scholar, and would have occupied a professor's chair in the university.

seven years old. This child spoke Latin with the utmost fluency, and he spoke nothing else. What I am going to suggest is a Utopian dream, but let us suppose that a hundred fathers could be found in Europe, all of this way of thinking, all resolved to submit to some inconvenience in order that their sons might speak Latin as a living language. A small island might be rented near the coast of Italy, and in that island Latin alone might be permitted. Just as the successive governments of France maintain the establishments of Sèvres and the Gobelins to keep the manufactures of porcelain and tapestry up to a recognized high standard of excellence, so this Latin island might be maintained to give more vivacity to scholarship. If there were but one little corner of ground on the wide earth where pure Latin was constantly spoken, our knowledge of the classic writers would become far more sympathetically intimate. After living in the Latin island we should think in Latin as we read, and read without translating.

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But this is dreaming. It is too certain that on returning from the Latin island into the atmosphere of modern colleges an evil change would come over our young Latinists like that which came upon the young Montaigne when his father sent him to the college of Guienne, "at that time the best and most flourishing in France." Montaigne tells us that, notwithstanding all his father's precautions, the place was a college still. "My Latin," he adds, "immediately grew corrupt, and by discontinuance I have since lost all manner of use of it." If it were the custom to speak Latin, it would be the custom to speak it badly; and a master of the language would have to conform to the evil usages around him. Our present state of ignorance has the charm of being silent, except when old-fashioned gentlemen in the House of Commons quote poetry which they cannot pronounce to hearers who cannot understand it.

A little more life might be given to the study of Latin by making it a spoken language. Boys might be taught to speak Latin in their schooldays with the modern Roman pronunciation, which, though probably a deviation from the ancient, is certainly nearer to it than our own. If colloquial Latin were made a subject of special research, it is likely that a sufficiently rich phrase-book might be constructed from the plays. If this plan were pursued throughout Europe (always adopting the Roman pronunciation) all educated men would possess a common tongue which might be enriched to suit modern requirements without any serious departure from classical construction. The want of such a system as this NOTE.-An English orator quoted from Cicero the sentence was painfully felt at the council of the Vati-monia." He made the second vowel in vectigal short, and can, where the assembled prelates discovered that their Latin was of no practical use, although the Roman Catholic clergy employ

"Non intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit parsi.

the House laughed at him; he tried again and pronounced it with the long sound of the English i, on which the critical body he addressed was perfectly satisfied. But if a Roman

had been present it is probable that, of the two, the short