The Art of Writing.

"Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei

Vitabit Libitinam."-HORACE.

"Nulla res tantum ad discendum proficit quantum scriptio."-CICERO.

Only man

Can perform the impossible:

He can impart

To the moment duration."-GOETHE.

A MILLION million blessings from each Age,
And every Land, and Nation, on his head,
Who first of men imagined how to spread
The eloquent thought upon the silent page!
All honour to the unremember'd sage

Who fettered Time, all distance conquered;
Link'd the weak Living to the mighty Dead;
And shelter'd Wisdom from Oblivion's rage!

Whether in simple knots, on painted scroll,
In hieroglyph, or arrow-headed sign,

Are track'd the footprints of the infant Art,
The Giant now hath half-pluck'd from Death's dart
Its feather; all portray'd the vanished soul—*
Doth it not hint of origin divine?

* [See, however, Mr. Buckle's observations, History of Civilization, vol. 1. p. 272, as to the deleterious effect of the introduction of the art of writing upon historical traditions.]

8

VIII.

Language.

“ Πόλλαι μεν θνητοῖς γλώσσαι, μία δ' Αθανατοισι.”

The shatter'd fragments of one primal Tongue
Lie like a broken mirror on Earth's face,
Reflecting back the image of one race,
Central, original, primeval ; flung

Forth from its home to wander wild among

Strange plains and mountains, till each resting-place
Became a Father-land, with scarce a trace

Of words in which the first world-songs were sung.
Adam named all things which crawl, walk, swim, fly,
God-taught, and yet the master of his choice :-
What though his issue speak not as he spake,
Since first confusion fell upon man's voice ?—
The blessed Dead of every tongue shall wake
With but one common language in the sky.

See Note 1.

The English Language.

"And who in time knows whither we may vent
The manner of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
To enrich unknowing nations with our stores ?
What worlds in the yet unform'd Occident
May come refined with accents that are ours?
Or who can tell for what great work in hand

The greatness of our style is now ordained ?"-DANIEL.

Thou mighty English Language, Saxon-sprung,
But from all nations garnering a part,

Polish and strength; thou speaker to the heart
Through our translated Bible: Shakespeare's tongue :
Staid and compact with age, yet ever young;
Gleaner in student's cell, on wide-world mart :
By battle, conquest, commerce, science, art,
Still gaining wealth: sown East and West among
Worlds old and new; far scatter'd South and North;
Who shall foretell thy fortune in all time?

May'st thou not be fore-chosen, to go forth

From this small island into every clime,
Until thy voice in common hath become
The language of Earth-circling Christendom?

X.

Polite Education-Words.

"Here, therefore, is the first distemper of learning, when men study words, not matter."-BACON, Advancement of Learning.

Imberbi didicere, senes perdenda fateri.”—HORACE.

« Αει τάν πόσιν όντα παρατρεκόμεσθα μάταιοι
Κεῖνο ποθοῦντες ὅπερ μακρὸν απώθεν έφυ.”

"Tell Schools they have no soundness,

And stand too much on seeming."

PINDAR.

SIR W. RALEIGH.

Shame on the sluggish apathy which nods
Lethargic on the supreme Lecture Chair,
While Life's best golden years of promise wear
Away their hope in grinding Greek 'neath rods:
When Youth, which might become as wise as Gods,
Is fashioned to a glossary of bare

Dead words, more prized if obsolete and rare,

And Toil the millhorse round of Language plods.

Doubtless they have their beauty, each old Tongue,

And one in every thousand minds may store

With charms against the listlessness of Age;
Yet who would waste his whole prime on a page

Of the vast Book of Learning, as if more

Might not be safe for the much-curious Young?

Lolite Education—Things.

Nay, 'tis dishonourable to men, if, in our age, the regions of the material world, that is, the earth, the ocean, and the heavenly bodies, are discovered and displayed to a vast extent, but the boundaries of the intellectual world are still fixed within the narrow space and knowledge of the ancients."-BACON, Interpretation of Nature.

"Tum mihi naturæ libeat perdiscere mores:

Quis Deus hanc mundi temperet arte domum;
Qua venit Exoriens, qua deficit; unde coactis
Cornibus in plenum menstrua luna redit;
Unde salo superant venti; quid flamine captet
Eurus; et in nubes unde perennis aqua;
Sit ventura dies, mundi quæ subruat arces,

Purpureus pluvias cur bibat arcus aquas ;
Aut cur Perrhæbi tremuere cacumina Pindi,
Solis et atratis luxerit orbis equis;
Cur serus versare boves et plaustra Bootes;

Pleïadum spisso our coit imbre chorus;
Curve suos fines altum non exeat æquor,

Plenus et in partes quatuor annus eat;
Sub terris si jura Deûm, et tormenta gigantum,
Tisiphones atro si furit angue caput;
An ficta in miseras descendit fabula gentes,

Et timor haud ultra, quam rogus, esse potest."

PROPERTIUS.

Feed me with Things, not Words alone, the Mind
An-hungered and a-thirst for knowledge, cries;
Teach me to know and love the mysteries

Of Nature; this orb's face and structure; lined
With what rich minerals; what the powers that bind

Atoms together by affinities;

Forces and all the motions of the skies:

Each living thing after its form and kind,

Whether it walks, or crawls, or swims, or flies:

Herbs, up from hyssop to the trees that rise
Highest on Lebanon: what hath refined,
Best govern'd, or made wealthiest mankind;
And every sister Art which beautifies
Our social life, or any want supplies.