402 
enjoyed when people of note came to 
s3e and commend it: his correspon- 
dence is about nothing else but this 
place and his own writings, with two 
or three neighbouring clergymen, who 
wrote verses too.’? Well may the pro- 
verb say, “ deliver me from my friends 
and T’ll take care of my enemies.” Was 
it a stain on the understanding of Shen- 
stone to wish for fame and distinction ? 
Milton was, I suppose, a blockhead 
when he talks of 
Those other two, equall’d with me in fate, 
So were I equall’d with them in renown ! 
Of Shenstone’s powers as a poet, I 
shall say but little. But in this respect 
I agree with Johnson, that the School 
Mistress is the most pleasing of his 
productions ; and I think it quite suffi- 
cient to entitle him to a conspicuous 
niche in the Pantheon of the British 
Muses. Could Johnson’ himself have 
written it half so well? could Burns have 
done it better? But whatever merits may 
now or hereafter be justly awarded himas 
avotary of the Muses, they are much 
more than equalled, in my humble opi- 
nion, by the combined qualifications 
displayed in adorning the Leasowes. 
The inscriptions alone, though so play- 
ful or classical, owe their bewitching 
interest to time, place, and circum- 
stance, which are altogether so inimit- 
ably interwoven. It was his unrivalled 
skill to have united utility with embel- 
lishment, in a degree which no future 
imitator will perhaps ever attain. The 
man seemed made for the spot, and its 
beauties were half created by him. 
Other places may be found supe- 
rior to this in extent and romantic 
sublimity, and perhaps equal in the 
milder graces of softness and distant 
variety ; but till other Shenstones shall 
arisé to adorn them with equal dis- 
plays of refined intellect, the Leasowes 
(had they remained as left by him) 
would still have been unrivalled. 
Yours, &c. 
Jas. Luckceck. 
—— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
Sir: : 
BSERVING that the greatest. at- 
tention is invariably paid in your 
valuable miscellany to every subject that 
is in any way calculated to promote the 
welfare of society; and that the Monthly 
Magazine is a repository of many useful 
facts connected. with, that. highly-im- 
portant. and. \ill-understood . ‘science, 
Education, I venture’ to address’ to 
you a few ideas, drawn from experience, 
October 24. 
On the Advantages of Literary Societies. 
[ Dee. 1, 
ona portion of that extensive subject 
which has been’ noticed in several of 
your later numbers; namely, Literary 
Societies. 
As the most useful discoveries of 
every kind have at first met with oppo- 
sition, it is not surprising that literary 
societies, composed chiefly of young 
men, who meet occasionally for the pur- 
pose of mutual instruction, by lectures 
and discussions, should meet with some 
opposition. We can forgive our grand- 
mothers, poor old souls, for railing at 
things they have neither been used to, 
nor understand; but we can hardly 
listen without astonishment to persons 
esteemed respectable, while they delaim 
against spouting-shops, as they con 
temptuously term them, which, they 
say, merely fill young heads with self- 
conceit and love of wrangling. For 
others to be wiser than themselves, is 
considered a crime by many; and the 
real cause of much of the existing dis- 
like to these institutions arises, I appre- 
hend, no less from the knowledge they 
impart to their members, than from the 
power they afford them of conveying 
it forcibly to others. So far from de- 
bating societies tending to foster con- 
ceit, they evidently have a directly oppo- 
site tendency, Indeed, I know few 
means more effectual to take the con- 
ceit out of a young man (to use a coarse 
though expressive term), than a society 
of equals, by whom the manner, no 
less than the matter, of his discourse 
will be thoroughly examined. Impu- 
dence will still less be tolerated in such 
societies; and I do not find that a love. 
of wrangling is at all conspicuous 
among their members. 
In the present defective state of Edu- 
cation, Literary Societies of this de- 
scription are a necessary supplement to 
scholastic pursuits. What does a youth 
of sixteen or eighteen know? what can 
he do, when he comes from what is 
called a respectable school? “He can 
write a stiff hand, perform mechanically 
a few simple operations of Arithmetic, 
repeat Murray’s English Grammar by 
heart, without knowing the meaning of 
a sentence of it, and ‘translate, with 
difficulty, an easy French senténce. {fhe 
have been at a public school, he knows, 
at-eighteen, nothing’ on earth but the 
hard ‘words of two “dead Languages, 
which’ ‘he‘takes’ twelve years to learn, 
and one to forget. “If hé go to’'a col- 
lege, in many cases he will learn nothing ; 
or if he‘do ‘study, and study ‘hard ‘too, 
he only increases his stock of hard 
words ; 
