ON LITERARY EDUCATION. 



319 



plex characters of which it consists, we seem to have the relics of that 

 emblematic or picture-language, which I have thus endeavoured to prove 

 has laid a foundation for alphabetic writing in every part of the world. 

 With a few trifling variations this correct and elegant alphabet extends 

 from the Persian Gulf to China ; but it has no pretensions to rival the an- 

 tiquity of the Phoenician. It is unborrowed, but of later origin. 



Such is a brief history of the noblest art that has ever been invented 

 by the unassisted efforts of human understanding ; an art that gives sta- 

 bility to thought, forms a cabinet for our ideas, and presents, in imper- 

 ishable colours, a speaking i)ortraiture of the soul. Without this, hard 

 indeed would be the separation of friends ; and the traveller would be- 

 come an exile from his native home, — vainly languishing for the conso- 

 latory information that his wife, his childres, his kinsmen, his country, 

 were in a state of health and prosperity, and himself still embalmed in 

 their affections. Without this, what to us would be the wisdom of past 

 ages, or the history of former states ? The chain of nature would be 

 broken through all its links, and every generation become an isolated and 

 individual world, equally cut off, as by an irremediable abyss, from its an- 

 cestors and from posterity. VV' hile the language of the lips is fleeting as 

 the breath itself, and confined to a single spot as well as to a single mo- 

 ment, the language of the pen enjoys, in many instances, an adamantine 

 existence, and will only perish amidst the ruins of the globe. Before its 

 mighty touch time and space become annihilated ; it joins epoch to epoch, 

 and pole to pole ; it gives unity to the works of creation and Providence, 

 and enables us to trace from the beginning of things to the end. It is the 

 great sun of the moral world, that warms, and stimulates, and vivifies, and 

 irradiates, and developes, and mpiures the best virtues of the heart, and 

 the best faculties of the intellect. But for this, every thing would be 

 doubt, and darkness, and death-shadf ; all knowledge would be tradi- 

 tionary, and all experience local ; civilized life would relapse into barba- 

 rism, and man would have to run through his little, and comparatively in- 

 significant, round of existence, the perpetual sport of ignorance and error, 

 uninstructed by science, unregulated by laws, and unconsoled by Revela- 

 tion. Have I not, then, justly characterized it as the noblest art that has 

 ever been invented by the unassisted efforts of human understanding ? 



LECTURE XL 



ON THE LITERARY EDUCATION OF FORMER TIMES ; AND ESPECIALLY THAT 

 OF GREECE AND ROME. 



We have taken a brief survey of the nature of oral language, and of 

 the means devised in different age;^ and parts of the world to render the 

 transitory ideas it communicates permanent, by means of picturesque or 

 symbolical signs ; so that what is once spoken may conveniently be copied 

 or written down, and treasured up for future ages. 



It yet remains for us to take some notice of the chief methods that 

 have been ac^opted in different eras to turn this accumulating treasure or 

 bank of intellectual knowledge to the best account ; or, in other words. 



