122 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



-the beauties of Firgil and Horace are feir, a thing 

 which our mod celebrated college tranilators never 

 dreamt of. 



.1 recoiled that when I was at ichool, I was for 

 a long time ftunned, as other boys are, by a chaos 

 of barbarous terms ; and that, when I happened 

 to catch a glimpfe, in the Author I was ftudying, 

 of any ftroke of genius which met my reafon, or 

 any fentiment which made it's way to my heart, 

 I kiffed the book for joy. It filled me with afto- 

 nifhment to find that the Ancients had common 

 fenfe. I imagined that there muft be as great a 

 difference between their reafon and mine, as there 

 was in the conftru6lion of our two languages. I 

 have known feveral of my Ichool- fellows fo dif- 

 gufhed at I^atin Authors, by thofe college expla- 

 nations, that, long after they had bidden farewel 

 to the feminary, they could not bear to hear their 

 names mentioned. But when they came to be 

 formed by acquaintance with the world, and by 

 the operation of the paffions, they became perfeâly 

 fenfible of their beauties, and reforted to them as 

 the mofl delightful of all companions. It is thus 

 that children, with us, become ftupifiedj and that 

 an unnatural conflraint is ufed to reprefs a period 

 of life all fire and activity, transforming it into a 

 ftate, fad, fedentary, and fpeculative, which has a 

 difmal influence on the temperament, by ingraft- 



