Her imagination was of a high order. She brought into her works a spirit of Italian history, which was always full of romance and taste. There was a current of blood running through it, more often of patrician than plebeian fountains. Crime, sentiment, daring, inexplicable conduct, abounding in the quietest walks of life, and superabounding in the upper circles of society, made Italy one fertile field of novel incident, which the "great magician of Udolpho" improved and embellished. If we lay aside excitement, passion, and the wonderful, and come to just and powerful exhibitions of human life, Miss Edgeworth has no superior. She deals in nothing but probable events, which are full of instruction, and are well calculated to teach all classes their duties. Her great good sense was soon discovered by an intelligent community, and the cant and fustian, and mawkish sensibility which was deluging the land, at once, in a measure, disappeared, and a better taste was cultivated. Her PATRONAGE would afford lessons for the profound statesman. It is a mirror of nature. It flatters no one, nor gives any unnatural image. Hosts of similar productions were thrown off for the public, and many of them were well intended, and some of them well written. The knight errants in the fields of literature were numerous, and they coursed here and there without superior or master, until Walter Scott appeared. At first he was the great unknown. At the onset he bore away the palm from all his rivals with ease, and then becoming a little jaded, " he seemed to gallop over the course as one careless of the victory; but when some cried out that he was exhausted, the next moment he was seen recruited, dash ing onwards to prove his pedigree, speed, and bottom. For a long time the princely knight wore his visor down, and fought and conquered with perfect concealment. At length accident revealed him, and strange to tell, his discovery has not robbed his works of a particle of their interest. Sir Walter Scott has a tribe of imitators, and some of them tread closely upon his heels, while others are at a sightless distance from his course. Some of these authors may be called learned, and may be said to use good language, in a gentlemanly manner, particularly Walter Scott. Their vocabularies are sometimes rich in sound philology, and bear marks of having been well used. Many are improved by reading the works of such a writer as Walter Scott. Every reader catches more or less of his cast of thought, and learns to see carefully, and to describe with accuracy. It would be wrong to make an English education out of these novels, or to rely upon them for historical facts; but if they should be kept out of the school-room, they may be found in the library, and may be suffered to lie on the work table and the toilet. There is, at present, a cormorant appetite for these works of fiction-even our own wonderful history must be illustrated by tales and stories, because the true narrative might be dull. This is an evil. Sir Walter has not so directly guided the public taste as we imagine; he rather saw the direction and followed it, and found his fortune and his fame in the course. If Sir Walter had given about half the number of works to the public that he has in the same period of time he has been writing, it would have been as well for his fame, and better for his readers; for his works have come too rapidly for the reader who had many avoca tions, and with less finish than they would have had with more pains. But when the critic has said all he ought to say, and the reader has put aside the novel, tired and determined to turn from him for ever, for something in another path, let a month elapse, and it is taken up again with fresh delight and perused with new devotion. The influence of genius can never be destroyed, it lives and gathers new strength in every age. The gossamers of fashion pass away, but the solid gold of talents remains, like the works of Ged, to increase our admiration as our knowledge increases. There is a great mass of English literature now extant, which contains immense stores of thought, and which, if read judiciously, would make a very learned man. It is every day increasing, and it will soon require large books of indexes and references for one to get fairly at it; in fact, they are numerous now. Much time is often wasted for want of proper guides in our studies. We not only should have finger-posts and mile-stones, but maps and directories constantly with us, whenever we go out to increase our knowledge, or for amusement. English literature is ours by birthright, and we have retained it uninjured by low idioms, and unprofaned by jargons, which have so often been found in colonial languages. The academic bowers, the lyceums, and the universities of the mother country have all poured their treasures into our land most readily. އ This literature of England must be forever ours. No non-intercourses or wars, can long keep the intellectual rays of that nation from us. This settled, we must respect our own literature to bring out the genius of the American people. This should not be done by a tariff on English literature, but by bounties on our own. There is mind enough and a good disposition every where seen among us for the high pursuits of learning, but our authors must shine only as scattered and flickering lights along our shores, unless these fires are cherished and new ones kindled up by the breath of public patronage. CHAPTER VII. I SHALL not enter into a discussion of the advantages of a classical education; I shall leave that question to those who are fond of controversy. This subject has occupied the minds of distinguished men for ages. For nearly four centuries classical learning held the first rank in the pursuits of knowledge. After the flood of learning had burst from Constantinople, Greek and Latin were considered the highest pursuits of man; the greatest objects of the human mind, humaniores literæ, were translated-THE HUMANITIES. Until a few years since no one dared lisp a word against classical learning, but lately opposers to the study of the dead languages have been numerous and powerful; and their main argument has been, that the mind might be more profitably employed in other departments of knowledge. It must be conceded on all hands that the Greek and Roman writers contain much that is essential to be known. It may be found in translation, it is said, and mastered much sooner than in a foreign language. In every point of view the learning of the classic ages must be had, and a great portion of it, even to the professed scholar, comes through the me dium of translations; but few, indeed, have spent their days in reading history, biography, and geography, in Herodotus, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Strabo, in the original, who could find a good translation at hand. In the early ages, all branches of knowledge were commingled together. History was poetry, and poetry history. And these, with eloquence, made up the amount of their literature. To understand the ancients, we must begin with the birth of letters. All before that time was tradition and fable, and if written since, it must have been from conjecture or from amusement. "Be famous then By wisdom; as thy empire must extend, Error by his own arms is best evinc'd. Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount |