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toward his creatures, of the creatures toward God, for erotic love, pining love, for charity, &c.

Delicacy, likewise, requires generic terms, that we may merely allude to unpleasant or offensive subjects, The poet, of course, wants frequently holophrastic when obliged to touch upon, instead of directly prowords; but poly phrastic terms are equally necessary at nouncing them. "During our late misunderstandings" other times; for as it is sometimes highly poetic to would be more delicate if used by an American writing shoot the word like an arrow to one single point, with to an Englishman, than "During our late war with unerring aim, poetry requires, at other times, to keep, if | you,” and circumstances might exist which would renI may use the expression, the mind pending between ader a delicate expression in this case preferable to the number of thoughts, to allude and indicate instead of pointing and fixing, to throw with one word a vast association of ideas into the mind of the hearer, and let it work there for itself.

When we feel the want of being eloquent, the desire to speak with a degree of energy, yet on a subject of a decided or somewhat philosophical character, compound holophrastic words will be found peculiarly convenient, for they bring to our mind, an assemblage of ideas, with rapidity and yet allow us to view it as complex, without which the philosophical character would vanish. Take a word like brons, or the German Rechtsfähigheit, the capability of being a person with legal privileges and obligations.

positive.

There is also a peculiar energy in some cases, when we suddenly elevate ourselves from the specific to the generic or the most general possible; for instance when the poet, having spoken of a vessel, so that we know what he means, suddenly says "and now the mighty thing," &c.

These observations, to which many other might be added, show that a language is the more complete, the more abundantly it is supplied and may, at pleasure, continue to supply itself both with holophrastic and analytic words, and the more archolophrastic and synthetic or inflective holophrastic words it possesses, that it may supply the continual wants of the mind to deThe more our speech assumes the character of dis-signate newly divided shades, new symplectic ideas, cussion, the more philosophical it is the more we newly discovered things or newly produced notions. stand in want of generic terms, of analytic words; yet There exists, however no language, which, being otherhere again, it is necessary that we may distinctly par-wise intimately connected with our civilisation, can at ticularize the various genera, in other words, that we all be compared in perfection-applying this term to lanhave an abundance of words. The French is a languages in the sense in which I have explained it—to guage of a decidedly analytic and generic character, the Greek, which to all its enumerated philosophic perstill it is a very inconvenient means for metaphysic❘ fections, unites that of great euphony and rhythm. discussions; because it is a language which has not a very abundant treasure of words at its disposal.

The Greek language 1. possesses an abounding treasure of words, so that it can designate with ease generic A language must be rich in order to be energetic as as well as specific ideas, and is able to express the most well as delicate; if it be not, words which signify spe- delicate shades or the minutest connecting links between cific things or ideas must be used to express more gene- more definite or general ideas. 2. Its vocabulary conral ideas; hence they lose the power of expressing tains a vast number both of holophrastic and sharply quite specific objects or delicate shades. The French discriminating, analytic words. 3. The Greek has a is delicate with regard to social intercourse; but in this great many archolophrastic, and hence most energetic particular it is a very rich language, far more so than expressions; it contains 4. likewise an astonishing English or German. abundance of synthetico-holophrastic words, which Hence the great beauty of languages which have not afford a variety, unequalled in any other language, of thrown away the privilege of forming and compound-discriminating terms for all philosophic inquiries, geneing, with the commencement of their written literature, and which have at no period considered themselves as finished, but have at all periods continued to act as an organic, living thing, such as the German or Greek.

Elegance of language requires likewise analytic words, for it is the character of elegance not to be too positive or direct, to use, therefore, the general instead of the particular, the generic instead of the specific, the distant, instead of the near, the circuitous instead of the direct, (as we may say Mrs. B. instead of your wife, though Mr. B. may stand before us, and as politeness has introduced in many languages the third person, as if some one absent were spoken of, instead of direct address.) The French use la glace (the substance, the general) for miroire (the specific.) Frequently it is elegant to use the general instead of the specific, because it shows a certain skill of generalizing, something recherché; but for this reason, also, it becomes so easily affected and ridiculous. Suppose a man were to say: an individual of the feline species, instead of a cat; it would be ridiculous. Still, modern affectation has introduced many circuitous expressions of equal absurdity, which nevertheless are now quite common.

ralizing as well as analyzing the processes of the mind, and of peculiar convenience for all abstract purposes. 5. It is rich in polyphrastic terms; 6. Its faculty of compounding was so great that it rendered the idiom a pliable, fusable and malleable material in the hands of any reflecting man, to whatever point he directed his researches or inquiries, or to whatever bold combinations or daring allusions the loftiest genius elevated itself. 7. The faculty of compounding extended not only to words, but to a great number of elements, which, together with the abundance of entire words, rendered it a peculiarly descriptive tongue, both with regard to natural phenomena and minute technical and mechanical descriptions. 8. The Greek has an extraordinary inflective character, which makes it concise, clear, definite and logical, while it possesses at the same time such a wonderful abundance of particles, far greater even than modern European idioms, though they are not inflective are few imaginable, that there are relations and conditions which cannot be expressed perspicuously by this admirable idiom, perhaps the most wonderful of all the creations of the human mind. 9. Though it is with regard to the composition of words of a decidedly

lop here, but which are intimately connected with the whole spirit of antiquity, and the mighty change, produced by christianity, elevating as it did the value of the individual, the style of the ancients is characteristically different from the style of modern nations. We can learn also in this particular much from the ancients, without giving up in the least the advantages which we derive from modern civilisation. It is but showing ourselves grateful to the great dispensor of nations, if we duly appreciate what former generations gained and conquered, often at a dear rate, and make it a means of farther promotion of intellectual advancement.

synthetic and not unfrequently polysynthetic character, | ourselves. For reasons which it is impossible to deveyet it does not disdain agglutination, and though it has, as to the construction of periods a decidedly syntactic character, it does not disdain parathesis, and thus increases still more its manyfold powers of expression, so that this idiom accompanies the mind to the minutest ramifications of reasoning like an ever ready assistant. 10. As the Greek is thus beautiful and perfect with regard to its structure, its powers and its pliability, it is not less so as to the exterior, and euphony forms one of its greatest ornaments. 11. It was cultivated, and developped under circumstances the happiest imaginable for fixing the meaning of words and expanding the idiom itself as the element in which the human mind has to manifest itself, and by a race endowed with eminently acute and discriminating faculties, a most peculiar sensitiveness for the beautiful and the harmonious, and gifted with the loftiest genius—a race which, | during the short space of two centuries, run through all the fine arts, nearly all systems of philosophy, tried almost all forms of government and fought its way through many combinations of political systems, and elevated itself to an admirable degree of perfection in all branches of poetry and eloquence, so that this very race has become the master race of civilised mankind in most branches, and has laid the foundation even of our more mechanic civilisation; for darkness prevailed so long as never ceasing wars and conquests bade history to be silent on this race, until the conquest of Constantinople scattered the degenerate sons of Greece over Western Europe and the light of knowledge was rekindled even by the mere remnants of former Greek civilisation. So perfect an idiom proved this language that when christianity changed the spirit of antiquity into something entirely different, and new systems necessarily arose, new views were to be expressed and a new truth was to be proclaimed, even then this idiom was found to be a ready element in which the human mind could cast and form whatever it felt urged to express.

I trust that the objection will not be made, that, all I have said of the Greek being granted, it is, nevertheless not our language, nor can we make it so; why then, shall we acquire an idiom, which we cannot use as the means of communication, however preferable it might be in itself to our own idioms. I have shown how great the advantage is, which our mind derives from the attentive study of a foreign idiom, unconnected with the use, we may make of this language as a means of communication; and I have likewise shown, I hope, why these advantages are to be derived from this study. If we apply what I said of the study of foreign idioms in general, to this most perfect language, which, as stated, has been developped under a most propitious combination of circumstances by some of the greatest minds on record, and lies before us deposited in a vast, variegated and rich literature, we shall find, that of all foreign languages, the Greek is by far the most superior in order to obtain these advantages for the development of our mind; the more so, as it is a language of antiquity, a period when different views prevailed, different principles were maintained; at which, therefore, the division of ideas was in many cases entirely different.

And this last observation leads me to make a remark on the different style of the writings of the ancients and

Nothing, probably, characterises the difference of the style of the classics and the moderns so strikingly, as the fact that the ancients keep the object to be described or discussed, strictly in view; the moderns make the subject, who describes, play a prominent part. The ancients describe the beautiful, we beautifully; they the horrid, we fearfully; they the graceful, we gracefully; they the fact, we the impression of the fact; they the thing, we the feeling caused by the thing; they discriminate, we try to be witty. Hence, among other things, the great advantage, which, individuals endowed with independant judgment, have, at all times derived from a careful study of the classics; for imitation is worth nothing; but patiently and attentively learning from master minds is not slavish-imitation or copying.

It has been often said, and, it may be allowed, with an appearance of plausibility if we glance only at the subject: "Why shall we study the ancients, whom did they study?" "Did the Greeks not develop their civilisation from out themselves?" "What foreign Homer did the Athenian schoolboy study?" First, this objection would apply to the Greeks only, for Roman literature is very decidedly founded upon the Greek; so was Roman science. With regard to the Greeks themselves, I have only to say: if it was the plan of the great ruler to lead, by a combination of thousand different circumstances, geographical, chronologic, religious, and political, a tribe to a high degree of civilisation without foreign influence except in the first stages of its history, what right have we to murmur against his plan, or to throw aside the whole amount of this civilisation because we have not acquired it? Surely, it is possible that a nation may acquire a beautiful language without the influence of foreign literature; the very Greeks prove it; but are those who start the objection, aware of how dearly bought Greek civilisation was? There eloquence could not have risen to so eminent a degree had not Greece fought through all those many political struggles, nor without their peculiar liberty, which made the state every thing and almost disowned individual right; it was, if I may use a paradox, the tyranny of liberty. Will they deny, that the Greeks are and ought to be our teachers in sculpture and architecture; but could either have risen to so high a perfection without their religion—a religion which ascribed human shapes to the gods and thus lead to an idealization of this form? In history there is no such thing as living over old periods; a dream cannot be dreamt twice, and what is broken may be glued, but cannot form one whole again. It is folly to attempt to force back the great current of time, but it is wisdom to profit by what others have VOL. III.-22

cient Hindoos; their ideas moved in too different a sphere, to lead to the study of Sanscrita that general advantage, which we derive from the Greek, however interesting that venerable idiom once spoken on the shores of the Ganges may be to the philologist and the philosopher of the human mind by profession. In the Greek the student will find a new logic, a new division of ideas, nay, entirely new ideas with the new words which designate them, without being led into regions too distant.

produced without paying the same high price for it. | lisation is not directly connected with that of the anThe Greek beautiful plastic style is closely connected with their whole view of life, which acknowledged in its fullest extent reality, the life that is, and nothing beyond it. Dreary indeed was their view of Hades, despondingly so; who can read the visit of Ulysses to the lower regions without chilling sadness! But since such is the fact, since this view has produced so beautiful and perfect a style, is it not our bounden duty to profit by it? If a man were to squander his whole fortune in cultivating a garden, to the neglect of many other important subjects; shall his neighbor, who culti- What I have said of the Greek applies in a great vates likewise his garden, but is wiser, and does not measure to the Latin language and literature. I state ruin his fortune by it, decline to profit by the discove-it as a fact in which I firmly believe, having seen variries, which the first may have made, and may have been ous confirmations of it, that it is impossible for any indiable to make only because he used up his whole for-vidual in modern times to read attentively and in a tune for horticulture? What should become of mankind way by which he reads the work not the words, a book if one generation is not to profit by the previous ones? like Cæsar's War with the Gauls, without deriving a It would never elevate itself above barbarity. decided benefit from it for his thoughts and his mode of expression.

There is another reason, however, why we ought to study the classics, though the Greeks studied no foreign The study of the Latin and Greek however becomes authors, founded in the character of our languages and still more important for all whose native tongue is a that ancient idiom itself. Greek and Latin, whatever language with little of a grammar, and which relies their origin may be, developped themselves as original | mainly on parathesis, as the modern idioms of western languages, i. e. they acquired their settled forms, and Europe do. The reason why this is the case is simply, grammar, and the meaning of the words along with the as I have stated already, because these languages rose progress of the respective nations. The languages of out of a highly cultivated language, the Latin, spoken, Western Europe however were formed by little civi- with admixtures from others, by barbarous tribes, lised nations of the fragments of those idioms, muti- which could not enter into the inflective and syntactic nicelated, defaced, corrupted fragments, so that all the ties, just as children or our negros to the present day beauties which are peculiar to original languages are drop nearly every thing which indicates any thing more necessarily excluded from these derivative and mixed than the bare thing. No plural, no tense, no subjuncidioms. They have not the capacity of formation tive, no nicety of any relation is generally expressed (Bildsamkeit, in German) within them in any degree by them. Master minds as well as a highly improved comparable to that of the classic languages. I shall say state of society raised, at a later period, these jargons, a few more words on this subject. and some, as the English, the Italian, &c. to an admira| ble degree of perfection; still they could not change their original character. A grammar could not be invented where there was none originally. The consequence is, that those whose vernacular tongue is one of these modern idioms, never have their mind directed to a variety of relations in which certain ideas expressed in a period stand to each other, if they do not learn a language with a fully developped grammar such as the Latin. As, however, some relations of the kind alluded to, are expressed in these languages and not the same by all, an acquaintance with the Latin or Greek will be always found of great service even for the study of these modern languages. The mind of the student has been initiated into grammatic relations. I speak here from experience. This advantage is still more perceptible when a modern language such as the German, is studied. I have invariably found that individuals acquainted with Latin derive the greatest benefit from this knowledge in studying German, while it is sometimes very difficult to make a student clearly understand so simple a relation as that of the accusative governed by a verb, if he know nothing but English for instance.

The Sanscrita is, I am well aware, far more perfect in its original structure and philosophic spirit than the Greek. Perfect regularity pervades the whole system of this wonderful and surprising idiom; with a given number of roots and numerous classes of affixes, prefixes and other means of formation or change and a richly endowed declension and verb, it can express, compound, approximate, modify, where other idioms have to be silent; and exhibits to us a fabric which still more shows the senselessness of all those attempts at inventing a general language or pantagraphy, the great desideratum of small minds; for though Leibnitz may have started the idea, he soon gave it up, and we have now acquired a different view of the essence of language than that it is a thing arbitrarily invented, settled by conventional agreement, and might therefore be as well invented by one as by many. There was a time when people were very ready with inventions, inventing constitutions, inventing languages, inventing codes, inventing religions!

There are other reasons, however, why the Sanscrita cannot compete with the Greek in our systems of education. The Greek unites the two great advantages that it belongs to early times, when languages had yet a productive power, which we miss in the later ones, and that it is far later than the earliest Asiatic languages and partakes therefore of the analytic character of later idioms. The literature of the Sanscrita, moreover, is chronically too far removed from us; our civi

My previous remarks will show, what advantage is to be derived from the study of the classic languages, and how it happens that their study is recommended to us, when the nations who spoke them, have long left the stage of human events. It is not said that their study is absolutely necessary for every individual,

though I do believe that it is absolutely necessary for all | and Plan of Education for Girard College, to prove how modern nations, if they are resolved to acquire the far I am from a pedantic love of the classic idioms, greatest possible degree of civilisation and intellectual or that I consider their study indispensable for all, when elevation. many things must be learned that are still more important to some.

From the fact that Greek is far more perfect than Latin, and Greek literature far richer and more elevated If the study of the classic languages is frequently or than the Roman, the one, moreover being indigenous, generally pursued, in the United States, in an unprofithe other in many points not, it would appear that table way, if it is especially to be deplored that so litGreek ought to be studied more than Latin. This tle attention is paid to the subject of antiquities, which would be the fact did not other circumstances change afford after all the true picture of antiquity, but which the matter. Greek is more difficult, and requires, con- cannot be properly understood with a knowledge of the sequently, more time; and the Latin deserves more- respective languages; and without which again it is vain over to be more generally studied because it is the to pretend the expounding of a classic author, let us corsimplest key to all the Romanic languages. Surely, if rect the deficiencies, but let us not cut off this whole Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese can be learned branch of education, from a want, perhaps, of a thoeasily, so as to enable the student to read these lan-rough understanding of what the study of language guages, merely by learning Latin, in early life; and if, really effects. by a knowledge of Latin, we can enter at once so deeply into their spirit, it would be very strange if we were to throw away the very key to them. Latin besides has penetrated so many branches and sciences, from its having once been the language of universal communication and of an undivided church, that we can hardly get on in any scientific pursuit without some knowledge | of it. And why not learn it? Is it too difficult? If properly taught, not.

Our country may be called decidedly protestant, and it may be easily conjectured what protestantism, founded upon the Bible, soon must become without a thorough knowledge of the languages—(the Greek and, of course, Hebrew, the study of which will be found much easier by a student, well trained by the study of ancient languages in general)-being kept alive among its professional teachers, when all inquiry, criticism and conjecture is founded upon a translation, and a translation too from ancient languages into a modern, the spirit of which, therefore is very different and the translation consequently difficult, a translation, moreover, made at a period since which the grammatical, historical and antiquarian knowledge of the Scriptures have been infi- | nitely extended. How many unfortunate misconceptions of religiously disposed people were founded upon a misconception of the Bible, to which the translation alone could have led!

Those who object to the study of the ancient languages on the score of morality I will only remind of the fact, that all the reformers were good scholars, some distinguished ones, and all and every one insisted upon the study of the classics as a branch of general education, and that philology has been most effectually cultivated in modern times by protestant nations. Luther insisted most urgently on the study of Greek in schools, and his words on languages in general, are beautiful. The mere fact that the ancient idioms have been studied for so many centuries, have always been the more studied the more refined nations became, have accompanied the European race into other parts of the world and have been cultivated and loved by so many master minds, many of them in practical life, as Fox and Canning, ought to make us consider the matter well. Facts of such magnitude are not arbitrarily produced. There is a power of victory within ancient literature which it must retain forever. We might as well say: let us have something else than gold and silver for our common currency, as deprive the civilized world of the classics.

What I have said can of course not convince; how could I prove that the Greek language really possesses all the excellencies which I have endeavored to indicate? The fact can be known only from a study of the language itself. But my remarks will at least suffice to show that the advocates of the study of Greek and Latin may rest their reasons on points which many of those who object to it, never suspected, and which were never touched upon in their attacks. On whatever side the truth may lie, certain it is, that the question is to be tested and decided on far different grounds than the assailants of this branch seem to think of. Their real value in education, the true advantage of foreign languages in the formation of young minds, is not to be

Those who assail the study of the classic languages, frequently do it because, say they, modern languages are more useful! I agree with them that the European family forms in our own times a community so closely connected, that every individual of a liberal education ought to know at least two modern langua besides his own. It is easily acquired; but let the assailants rest assured that there is no better means to obtain this object, than the instruction in the classic lan-judged of by the inquiry to what direct and immediate guages.

practical use the one or the other idiom may be conduI acknowledge that the importance of Greek and cive. Moral and intellectual expansion is the true and Latin is very different now from it was when sciences essential object of all education; those so called pracrevived. Then nearly all that our race had produced tical subjects in education have generally turned out of in literature was in those languages; now modern lite- little use in practical life. Strengthen the mind, clear ratures of great excellence exist, and numerous new the intellect and give it sound knowledge in the general sciences have sprung up, some of which must be taught branches-develop it philologically, never mind by what in schools. Important as Greek and Latin is, I claim specific idiom, prepare it for clear and lofty historical its study not for all; it cannot be, nor is it necessary, views, never mind whether the history of every nation but do not strike it from the list of those studies which be known; imbue it with a true spirit for natural hisare generally pursued under the appellation of a liberal tory, no matter whether the names of all specimens be education. I hope, I may safely refer to my Constitution | known, &c.; give at the same time that preparatory

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SONNET TO SPRING.

O, swiftly fleet along, ye frozen hours!
Avaunt! thou spirit of the stormy north,
And let the south wind breathe upon the bowers,
To call their verdure and their fragrance forth.
And thou green-sandal'd nymph, fair smiling Spring,
O'er the bald earth's enseam'd and rugged brow,
Thy bloomy wreath of fresh-blown flowerets fling;
And bid the coming south-wind softly blow,
Sending the silver rills unbound away,

To mix their murmurs with the bird's wild lay.
O, come fair Spring! the rosy hours recall,
That sped in Eden, ere the fatal fall,

When the young sun with new-born radiance shone,
And guilt, and grief, and gloom, were all unknown.

SONG.

FARE THEE WELL.

To the old air of "Roy's Wife."

Fare thee well! for I must leave thee;
But oh, let not our parting grieve thee:
Happier hours may yet be mine;
At least I wish them thine, believe me.
We part, and by those dew-drops clear,
My love for thee will last forever!
I leave thee, but thine image dear,
And tender smiles, will leave me never.
Fare thee well, &c.

Oh, dry those pearly tears that flow;
One farewell smile before we sever;
The only balm for parting woe,
Is the fond hope-'tis not forever.
Fare thee well, &c.

Though dark and dreary be the night,
Calm and serene may be the morrow;
The cup of pleasure ne'er shines bright,
Without some mingling drops of sorrow.
Fare thee well, &c.

Forsyth, Ga.

DOUBLE OR QUIT.

I've courted you, Ella, for twelve months or more,
And am rather worse off, I believe, than before:
'Tis a losing game truly I've played, and 'tis fit,
I hope you'll allow, we should double or quit.

S.

P. Q.

TO THE PASSING YEAR.

JANUARY 1837.

Thou art passing onward-the thoughtless throng
Welcome thy coming with dance and song.

Thou art passing onward; with thee are flying
The hopes of the young, and the prayers of the dying.
The smiles that brighten the festive hall,
And the bitter tears that in secret fall;
Careless of all that is lost or won,
Brilliant, but cold, thou art passing on.
Thou art passing onward; in joyous Spring,
When grove and bower with music ring,
The sun that wakens bird, bee and flower,
Touching e'en thee with his gladd'ning power,
Gently thine icy chains shall sever:

Chains that may bind thee again, oh! never.
Revel awhile in thy liberty;

Worship the power that made thee free;

'Till the Summer comes, from whose burning glow Thou woulds't gladly fly to thy cave of snow;

And vainly, wearily shalt thou pine

For the icy fetters that once were thine.
But the fiery Summer shall pass away,
And leave the earth to a softer sway-

The gentle Autumn now draweth near
Thy wearied spirit to soothe and cheer.
Her fruits and flowers might shame the Spring:
Her cooling breezes perchance may fling

A freshness over thy fevered brow,

But thy days too surely are numbered now;
And she cometh only in time to shed

A holy calm o'er thy dying bed.
Awhile, 'tis true, thou wilt linger on
'Till her gentle glories are past and gone;
But when Winter cometh, again to dress
The earth in its icy loveliness,

Thy knell shall sound on the northern blast;
The clouds dark gather thy pall to cast;
The spotless snow-flake thy shroud shall be,
And thy burial place our memory.

Sadly we watch over thy decline;
Is not our destiny like to thine?

In youth's gay season, with thoughtless pride
Our childhood's fetters we cast aside;
And yield our spirits, with wild delight,
To the love of all that is fair and bright.
Quickly our Summer, like thine will come;
And flowers lie withering round our home:
The dearly loved, in their early day
Of brilliant happiness, snatched away.
The friends of childhood, estranged or gone;
The hopes that danced on our pathway, flown;
And slighting blessings that still are ours,
Weekly we grieve for those perished flowers;
"Till the heart, a prey to despair and sorrow,
Ceases to hope for a calmer morrow;
And pines, with a feeling deep as vain,
For childhood's carelessness once again.
But for us there cometh an Autumn day,
When the withering sorrow shall pass away.
We look abroad on the glorious earth;
We smile again at the voice of mirth;
In life's gay circles we mix once more-
But, alas! 'tis not as in days of yore:

For memory shadows glance, smile and tone-
Their careless gladness for aye is gone.
And though, while yet we may linger here,
The light of friendship our path may cheer,
The heart, with its dearest ties thus riven,
Turns with a purer trust to heaven-
Looking above, with an humble faith
That brightens even the bed of death;
With those departed again to dwell,
Gladly we bid the bright earth farewell.
Still, in some few warm hearts may be
A living shrine for our memory.
Richmond.

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