cients whom I would
first propose to a liberal scholar; not only for the merit of their
style and sentiments, but for the admirable lessons, which may be
applied almost to every situation of public and private life.
Cicero's Epistles may in particular afford the models of every form
of correspondence, from the careless effusions of tenderness and
friendship, to the well guarded declaration of discreet and dignified
resentment. After finishing this great author, a library of eloquence
and reason, I formed a more extensive plan of reviewing the Latin
classics, under the four divisions of, 1. historians, 2. Poets, 3.
orators, and 4. philosophers, in a chronological series, from the days
of Plautus and Sallust, to the decline of the language and empire of
Rome: and this plan, in the last twenty-seven months of my residence at
Lausanne (Jan. 1756--April 1758), I nearly accomplished. Nor was this
review, however rapid, either hasty or superficial. I indulged myself in
a second and even a third perusal of Terence, Virgil, Horace, Tacitus,
&c.; and studied to imbibe the sense and spirit most congenial to my
own. I never suffered a difficult or corrupt passage to escape, till I
had viewed it in every light of which it was susceptible: though
often disappointed, I always consulted the most learned or ingenious
commentators, Torrentius and Dacier on Horace, Catrou and Servius on
Virgil, Lipsius on Tacitus, Meziriac on Ovid, &c.; and in the ardour
of my inquiries, I embraced a large circle of historical and critical
erudition. My abstracts of each book were made in the French language:
my observations often branched into particular essays; and I can still
read, without contempt, a dissertation of eight folio pages on eight
lines (287-294) of the fourth Georgic of Virgil. Mr. Deyverdun, my
friend, whose name will be frequently repeated, had joined with equal
zeal, though not with equal perseverance, in the same undertaking. To
him every thought, every composition, was instantly communicated; with
him I enjoyed the benefits of a free conversation on the topics of our
common studies.

But it is scarcely possible for a mind endowed with any active curiosity
to be long conversant with the Latin classics, without aspiring to know
the Greek originals, whom they celebrate as their masters, and of whom
they so warmly recommend the study and imitation;

--Vos exemplaria Graeca
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.

I