296 



ON THE LITERARY EDUCATION 



might drink from fountains rather than from rivulets." — " Meos amicos, in 

 quibus est studium, in Graeciam mitto : id est ad Graeciam ire jubeo: ut ea a 

 fontibus potius hauriant, quam rivulos consectentur."* 



Horace alludes to the same seat of learning, and nearly the same habit of 

 studying there in his own case, by way of finishing his education, after having 

 read Homer at home : — 



Romse nutriri mihi contig^it, atque doceri, 

 Iratus Grajis quantum nocuisset Achilles, 

 Adjicere bonse pauld plus artis Athenag : 

 Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum, 

 Atque inter silvas Academi quserere varum. I" 

 At Rome I first was bred, and early taught 

 What woes to Greece Acliilles' anger wrought. 

 Famed Athens added some increase of skill 

 In the great art of knowing good from ill ; 

 And led me, yet an inexperienced youth, 

 To academic groves in search of truth. 



BoSCAWKN. 



Nor were other branches of science, or even the extensive circle of arts 

 and manufactures, forgotten in the midst of the fashionable study of philoso- 

 phy and literature, either at Rome or in the Greek states. We have not time 

 to enter into a survey of the very extensive and, in various respects, accu- 

 rate views that were taken of many of the most important pursuits of our 

 own day, and 'the activity with which they were followed up. In statuary 

 and architecture, as well as in poetry and eloquence, the models of ancient 

 Rome, as well as of ancient Greece, are still the models of our own times. 

 We have already touched upon the skill of the Greek masters in the art of 

 designing; which they practised with great perfection in every diversity, from 

 simple outline or linear drawing, to every variety of silhouette, or light and 

 shadow, as well as every kind of painting with colours ; while in one or two 

 varieties they went far beyond our own day, as in encaustic painting, both on 

 wax and on ivory ; a branch of the art which has, unfortunately, been lost 

 for ages, yet the most valuable of all, as being the most durable. Their ac- 

 quirements are truly astonishing in almost every ramification of invention or 

 execution that the mind can follow up; and the progress which we have still 

 proofs of their having exhibited in metallurgy, crystallography, mirrors, mi- 

 neralogy, chemistry, mechanics, navigation, optics and catoptrics, weaving, 

 dyeing, pottery, and a multiplicity of other manufacturing or handicraft 

 trades, must appear incredible to those who have not deeply entered into the 

 subject. Their splendid purple cloths — Babylonica magnifico colore — have, 

 perhaps, never been equalled since ; the immense and fearful machinery in- 

 vented by Archimedes, at Syracuse, for laying hold of the largest and most for- 

 midable Roman galleys with its ponderous and gigantic arms, and whirling 

 them with instantaneous destruction into the air, as they approached the 

 walls of this famous city during its siege ; — the burning-glasses contrived 

 by him for setting them on fire at a distance, by a concentration of the sun's 

 heat alone ; — their knowledge of the existence and fall of meteoric stones — 

 not many years ago laughed at as a chimera among ourselves ; — and the adum- 

 bration, to call it by no stricter term, with which the grand principles of the Coper- 

 nican system of the heavens was approached by Nicetas, Philolaus, Aristar- 

 chus, and other disciples of the Copernican school, — are, I trust, sufficient 

 proofs of the truth of this remark, though hundreds of other examples might 

 be added to the list.J 



Still, however, the observation I have made with respect to the education 

 and study of the Athenians applies with considerable, though not altogether 

 with equal, force to those of the Romans. Elegance and accomplishment 

 seem rather to have been the chief objects of attainment than deep physical 



* Acad. Quest, i. 2. f Epist. Lib. II. ii. 41. 



t On a former occasion the author had an opportunity of following up and developing this interesting 

 subject at considerable length ; and those who are desirous of pursuing it with him, may turn to the run- 

 ning commentary to his Translation of Lucretius, vol. i.p. 338. 414 : vol. ii. p. 50. 131. 13$. 154. 159. 401 

 491. .568. 



