THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. 233 



various and desultory objects before men's minds, tending to 

 lessen the force of individual character, and to disperse the 

 energies of thought and action too widely for their highest 

 efficiency. True genius will rise above these and other 

 hindrances ; but we are bound to provide also for those 

 minds of a lower grade, by whom, in effect, nine-tenths of 

 the world's business is carried on. We gladly perceive in all 

 that is in progress around us, a growing attention to these 

 objects, in which England has deeper interest and concern 

 than any other State on the face of the globe. She has not 

 only to sustain ' her precedence of teaching nations how to 

 live,' but to maintain unimpaired her own great life her 

 liberties, laws, and language and to enlarge and perpetuate 

 their influence on ages yet to come. 



We have been led somewhat away from our subject by 

 this question as to the sufficiency of English education, in 

 its ordinary form, for travel in lands of classical antiquity ; 

 a question we are compelled reluctantly to answer in the 

 negative. Notwithstanding the time given to G-reek and 

 Latin studies in the schools and colleges of England, our 

 youth go forth learned, it may be, in hexameters and 

 iambics but wanting generally in those higher classical 

 associations which localise the history, poetry, eloquence, 

 and philosophy of past ages, and illustrate the revolutions 

 of men and nations by the more lasting memorials of nature. 

 We must not be understood here as invoking any maudlin 

 sentiment on these matters, such as too often finds its way 

 into books and narratives of travel ; the produce rather of 

 after-concoction at home than of honest enthusiasm on the 

 spot. But we wish for such previous knowledge to be 

 brought to places illustrious in the world's history as may 

 enable the traveller, if not to investigate and discover, at 

 least well to understand and enjoy. Much, we conceive, 

 might be done towards this end, by combining with common 



