( 7 ) 
have not yet advanced much farther than 
the portal to claflical erudition. 
The dead languages are nothing more 
than the external fteps to the temple of li- 
terary Fame. A mere pedagogue may con- 
{true literally every line of Homer, Virgil, 
Horace, Terence, Cicero, Tacitus, and yet 
be as ignorant of their real beauties as was 
Jerediah Buxton of Garrick's. excellence, 
when, during the performance of the play> 
he attended only to the number of words 
fpoken by the afton The language of the 
celebrated authors I have mentioned, as lan- 
guage merely, merits, I acknowledge, fome 
attention j becaufe a perfect acquaintance 
with the Greek and Latin languages will 
enable you to underfland and to improve 
your own. Neverthelefs, if thefe claflical 
authors poffdTed no merit beyond the me- 
chanical beauty of verbal arrangement and 
harmony of numbers, they would ill deferve 
the time and labour they require. 
The ftrange cuftom in our public fchools, 
which conftitutes the under boys fervants 
to the upper, is fo exceedingly cruel and 
unjuft, that one cannot help being furprifed 
at its continuance to the prefent enlightened 
period of human fociety, when fo many of 
A 4 the 
