344 STUDIES OF NATURE. - 



tafte, knowledge, and eloquence, funk at once 

 among the Ancients, together with manners and 

 virtue. I would be very careful not to fatigue 

 my pupils with reading of this fort ; I would point 

 out to them only the more poignant paffages, in 

 order to excite in them a defire to know the reft. 

 My aim fliould be, not to lead them through a 

 courfe of Virgil, of Horace^ and of Tacitus, but a 

 real courfe of claffical learning, by uniting in their 

 ftudies whatever men of genius have .confidered as 

 beft adapted to the perfeding of human nature. 



I would likewifehave them praflically inftrudled 

 in the knowledge of the Greek tongue, which is 

 on the point of going into total difufe among us, 

 I would make them acquainted with Homer, prin- 

 cipium Japienîia IE fons, (the original fource of Wif- 

 dom) as Horace, with perfed propriety calls him ; 

 with Herodotus, the father of Hiftory ; with fome 

 maxims from the fublime book qÎ Marcus Aurelius, 

 I would endeavour to make them fenfible how, 

 at all times, talents, virtues, great men, and States, 

 flouriQied together, with confidence in the Divine 

 Providence. But, in order to communicate greater 

 weight to thefe eternal truths, I would intermingle 

 with them., the enchanting fludies of Nature, of 

 ■which they had hitherto feen only fome faint 

 fketches in the greateft Writers. 



I would 



