from the North American Review. J 43 
reflect, that not a note is struck at the 
centre of thought and opinion in the 
British capital, but is heard and pro¬ 
pagated by our presses, to the valley of 
the Missouri, and that if the day should 
come in the progress of national decline, 
when England shall be gathered with 
the empires that have been, when her 
thousand ships shall have disappeared 
from the ocean, and the mighty chain 
of her wealth shall be broken, with 
which she has so long bound the Euro¬ 
pean world to her chariot-wheels, and 
mustered the nations, from the banks 
of the Tagus to the banks of the Don, 
to march beneath the banner of her 
coalitions, that then there will be no 
unworthy descendant to catch her man¬ 
tle ; and that the rich treasure of her 
institutions and character, instead of 
becoming the unrescued prey of Huns 
and Vandals, and whatever uncouth 
name of barbarism laid waste of old the 
refinements of the world, will be pre¬ 
served, upheld, and perfected in the 
western world of promise. 
We have allowed our feelings to carry 
us too far from the subject which we 
were considering, and from the tribute 
ot respect we wished to pay to the illus¬ 
trious literary establishments of Eng¬ 
land. But we would have this tribute 
as honest as if is hearty and sincere; 
arid we cannot therefore but express 
with it the opinion, that though the 
English universities do not profess to 
be simply schools of instruction, still 
that, even in this department, some 
improvements might be made, and that 
the youth of rank and fortune which 
resort to them, might fill up their time 
more profitably and usefully, as well 
as innocently, by a more zealous and 
extensive course of academical study, 
than we believe prevails at them. The 
unexampled success of Blackstoue’s 
lectures on the law, and the permanent 
service which they have rendered the 
study of that profession, ought to en¬ 
courage a more frequent imitation of 
the example. On the continent, at 
least in those parts of it where public 
education is on a good footing,, (he 
children ot the aristocracy pass the 
time of their residence at the univer¬ 
sity, in attending courses of lectures 
on the law, on history, geography and 
statistics, on the natural scieuces, on 
diplomacy. These are thought to merit 
their attention, as those who are to fill 
the front ranks in society; while, at 
the English universities, the zeal and 
efforts of the same class are chiefly di¬ 
rected to genera] classical studies, or 
the abstract study of the mathematics? 
each of wnich is worthy of great atten¬ 
tion, but neither nor both affording 
exclusively an adequate training for the 
future politician, statesman, legislator, 
or man of affluent leisure. 
io tiie Oxford, lectures on Hebrew 
poetry, is unquestionably to be ascribed 
the first spring given to t he study of the 
Bible, in the enlightened spirit of the 
modern school of sacred literature. The 
Latin language, in which they were 
written, secured them easy access to 
the German universities and schools, 
and an edition of them with annota¬ 
tions, and an appendix, was soon pub¬ 
lished by Michaelis, who stood at that 
time at the head of the biblical critics 
of his country; and Who, as well as his 
successors, concedes to Bishop Lowth, 
-the merit of having first penetrated into 
the spirit of Hebrew antiquity, and sets 
the example of the true mode of study¬ 
ing and enjoying its literary remains." 
This affords one of many examples of 
the utility of a lingua doctorum com¬ 
munis. We suppose there are few scho¬ 
lars, who have had occasion to reflect 
on the subject, who have not had their 
doubts whether the disuse of the tongue, 
once common to scholars, be not upon 
the whole disadvantageous to the cause 
of letters. Tlieie was certainly some¬ 
thing grand in this learned community 
of language; in this remedy, by no 
means inconsiderable, of the great ca¬ 
tastrophe of Babel, which enabled the 
scholar wherever lie went, to find his 
native tongue; and which, so long as 
if continued to be the depository of 
science and literature, emancipated 
him from this slavery of learning half 
a dozen languages. ‘Let us consider, 
too, how much of our modern literature 
is translation, or the saying over in one 
language what had been better said in 
another, and still more that with all 
our translations, a mountain, a river, or 
an invisible political boundary, makes 
us substantially strangers to the efforts 
which the human mind has made and 
is making among our fellow men. One 
great blow to the universality of the 
Latin as a learned language, was abo¬ 
lishing the practice of lecturing in it, 
in the German universities. This was 
first done by Thomasius, a professor at 
Halle, in the beginning of the last cen¬ 
tury ; and his example has so generally 
prevailed, that few or no lectures are 
now r delivered in that tongue in Ger¬ 
many. In the Dutch universities the 
practice 
