238 
in which our giant scholars have written 
even tolerable English. Even the style 
of Johnson, we trust, has ceased to be a 
model for vernacular composition. But 
what can surpass the barbarous jargon 
of the should-be English of Dr. Parr ? 
Gilbert Wakefield, though somewhat 
moreanglicized in his studies and acquire- 
ments, would claim but little reverence 
if his English periods were the primary 
test of his literary merits; and it is well 
known that the scientific erudition of 
some of the most distinguished orna- 
ments of Oxford and Cambridge in the 
present day, is obscured and rendered 
almost repulsive by the jargon in which 
it is communicated to the world. In 
short, the rarest of all our literary phe- 
nomena is—an English Scholar. Por- 
son was the only man we remember 
who united, in an eminent degree, 
that character, together with that 
of supereminence in classic lore. The 
English seems to be the only language 
which it is not disgraceful for well- 
educated Englishmen never to have 
studied; and, therefore, in its energies 
and capabilities, never to understand. 
Byt the numerals on our MS. pages 
warn us that we are trespassing beyond 
all bounds. We have got upon our 
hobby, and are in danger of riding, if not 
ourselves, our readers out of breath. 
We will add, therefore (and we will add 
it without comment) but one extract 
more: it is what relates to the sup- 
posed advantage to our parliamentary 
and other public orators from making 
Demosthenes and Cicero the models of 
their eloquence : 
“ Of the two great ends of oratory, to 
convince the reason and to influence the 
feelings, what are the debts due to former 
orators? It is from his own soul that man 
speaks oratory, as from his own soul he 
writes poetry! He to whom nature has 
given voice, fluency, and grace, and to 
whom practice has given language—his 
own language, not that of Greece and 
Rome—he to whom nature has granted 
the logical faculty, the mind that grasps 
xapidly and certainly the most remote as 
the nearest relations, which analyses, ar- 
ranges, and condenses, and he to whom the 
study, not of two dead languages, but of 
all the infinite knowledge of modern days 
has furnished materials, that man is the 
orator. Be his subject what it may, he 
will not quail before Demosthenes ; and 
to him it is indifferent whether Cicero ever 
lived. ‘That he may profit by the study of 
good models, we are not so absurd as to deny. 
But till the language of modern oratory is 
that of Greece or Rome; till the matter 
Neglect of English Erudition, 
[Oct.1, 
of modern oratory is the matter that en- 
gaged Rome and Athens; till the audi- 
ences of Britain are Athenian and Roman 
audiences, he will profit but scantily by 
Greek and Roman models. And we will ask 
any modern orator, how far he has profited 
by those models—any audience capable of 
judgment, what are the debts of modern 
oratory to the ancient masters in that art?”’ 
Into the superior importance of the 
modern languages, European or Ori- 
ental, over the dead languages of Greece 
and Rome, to those who are destined to 
commercial, and even political pursuits, 
we will not enter; the position is self- 
evident. Nor will we concern ourselves 
with the inquiry which the Reviewer 
presses with such “ sober and utilitarian 
sadness’? — 
“ how the universal pursuit of literature 
and poetry—poetry and literature—is to con- 
duce towards cotton-spinning, or abolishing 
the Poor Laws, or removing commercial re- 
strictions, or restraining the Holy Alliance, 
or convincing the other half of England that 
a Catholic is a Christian; or recasting the 
Court of Chancery ?’’ &c. 
because we are not, in fact, quite so far 
gone in this “utilitarian sadness” as to 
imagine that cotton-spinning, and poli- 
tics, and political economy, are the only 
ends of life and the only objects of hus 
man civilization ; but look upon them, in 
reality, as among the means only toa 
higher end. Wedonot look upon “litera- 
ture” either as “a harlot” or “a se- 
ducer ;”’ though she may be occasionally 
perhaps perverted into both; and cot- 
ton-spinning politics, and political econo- 
my also, are sometimes, we are afraid, 
perverted into much worse—as many a 
ardened, corrupted, avaricious heart 
might witness. We are not for strip- 
ping “ polished society” of its true “ Co- 
rinthian capital ;” nor do we see why 
the opulent merchant or manufacturer 
should not have a taste for literature, or 
the solace of its accomplishments ; espe- 
cially as we are perfectly satisfied, that 
if our public schools and universities 
were once disencumbered of the barba- 
rous monkish technical system by which 
the labour of acquisition is multiplied, 
and its progress retarded, there is time 
enough for our ingenuous youth to ac- 
quire those accomplishments against 
which the Westminster economists are 
so immeasurably hostile, without su- 
perseding those other essential objects 
of education, the paramount importance 
of which we haye not the least inclina- 
tion to deny. 
