360 
yet, perhaps, been fufficiently afcertained 
by experiment. 
To conclude, talents, however gene- 
rated, appear to be fimply the power, 
which proves beneficial oy mifchtevous, 
as it is applied or dire&ted. Like other 
ftrong powers of nature, external con- 
JSrraint teems to have upon them the moit 
dangerous and fatal operation; when 
pent up and oppreffed, the whirlwind 
and the torrent are-not more wild and 
deftructive ; they firuggle to burft their 
bounds, and 
“* Sweep all before them, with impetuous 
Lway.’? 
The preceding defultory remarks are 
merely intended as an invitation to the 
ingenious and the candid to confider the 
fubje€t more accurately; every attempt, 
however impotent, to inveftigate or elu- 
cidate the nature and hiftory of mind, 
is laudable, and has a claim to indul- 
gence; the defire of fimplifying its ope- 
rations, tracing their principles, and re- 
ducing them to general laws, it has been 
jufily obferved by an eloquent philofophie 
writer, in the preface to a late publica- 
tion*, is one of the grandeft efforts of 
jhuman reafon. 2 
. April 29, 17975 ee 
ee ee 
To the. Editor of the Monthly Mazazine.’ 
SIR, 
%7OUR correfpondent, R. H. C. has, 
" unintentionally, without doubt, drawn 
2. very bad péture of the prefent ftate of 
the univerfity. From his intercourfe 
with reading and non-reading men, he 
concludes, that the non-readers never 
pretend an attachment to the claffics, to 
fereen their want of attention to the 
mathematics. It may be fo now; but in 
my my non-reading acquaintance 
did it frequently. He afferts it alfo as a 
notorious faét, “that in met coileges, 
the claffical and moral Ic€tures are hur- 
ried over in a very flcvenly manner.” 
T am forry for it: it was: not fo in my 
time; or, perhaps, I may not have paid 
fufficient ‘attention to what was doing in 
ether colleges. In the college at which 
T was educated, we had IcGures two 
evenings in the week in the Greek tefta- 
ment, and once in a Greek or Latin 
author; and in the mornings, our lec- 
tures were alternately in the claifics, and 
Locke on moral philofephy. Thefe lec- 
tures were fo far from being hurried ovér 
in a flovenly manner, that he muft have 
time 
atiw 

Anon ore oh eo ee ees Seo 
,-* Godwin’s Enquirer. 
Rep to R. H. G. on Studies at Cambridge. 
[May, 
been a very ftupid fellow indeed, who 
would abient himfelf from the latter, 
given by one of the firft charaéters in the 
univerfity, now a dignitary of the church. 
Many of his principles in morality I held 
in the greateft detefiation, though I was 
‘formerly much pleafed with his liberalit 
and his familiar mode of inftruétion. 
As I may think too favourably of the 
whole univerfity, from the excellénce of 
a particular college, your correfpondent 
may, perhaps, from fome* accidental 
defeét in a particular college, be too 
general in his cenfures. Indeed. I have 
heard of a college, where the claffical 
tutor was a very fine, and a very filent 
gentleman; he was above his office, and 
preferred the gaieties of town to the 
dulnefs of tutorial life. A few pages of 
a Latin claflic would ferve him for years ; 
but fuch conduét, I underftood, was ge- 
nerally cenfured by his brethren, of 
other colleges. 
But, without entering into a eom- 
parifon on the paft and prefent merits of 
the univerfity, Iwifh your correfpond- 
ent to give himfelf the trouble of raking 
the fubject in another point of view. I[ 
have clearly proved, that the number of 
medalitts, in a confiderable period, to be 
found among the wranglers, ts far greater 
than that among the fenior optimis ; the. 
proportion in favour of the former being 
nearly two to one. Now, if the zoz- 
reading men are pofiefied of either the 
application or talents which your corre- 
fpondent attributes to them, we may ex- 
pect to find a confiderable number of 
them gaining the medals given annually 
to under-graduates. This queftion J 
ave not examined; but I will venture 
to predict, that, fetting afide the king’s 
men, who are not candidates for honours, 
and, confequently, cannot be taken into 
the prefent queition, of the men who 
gain thefe medals, the greater number 
will be found afterwarcs, in the tripootes 
of their reipective years. 
Again, there is another way of trying 
the queftion, which is by the figure the 
young men make in future life.” 1 do 
hot mean by the ftalls, mitres, or fuc 
trafh, which either clafs may indifferently 
pofiefs ; but the different gradations of 
diftinétion, arifing from talents in a pro- 
teffion, or literary or {cientific merit; le 
the ‘men, then, in the Girt tripos*ef each 
year, be compared with the other men of 
that ‘year; let your correfpondent felea, 
according to any flandard he pleafes, the 
men of merit in'each claf’. “TY think I 
can 
