ct specimen that the Divine Author has chosen
to allot to his creatures. The history of our species unfolds the
splendid catalogue of man's achievements: many monuments, reared by his
patriotism and piety, and elaborated by his tasteful ingenuity, that
have resisted the corrosions of time, and the spoliations of conquest,
remain in our possession: and we still preserve those intellectual
treasures that embalm the poetry, the eloquence, and the wisdom of the
enlightened nations of antiquity. These are, deservedly, the models we
have endeavoured to imitate, and they have even been considered the
boundaries of attainment: but a new epoch has arisen, distinguished for
the cultivation of that which tends to ultimate advantage, where the
mind, confiding in its native energies, and exercising its own thought
on human affairs, has been less disposed to submit to the dictates of
authority.

At this period we possess abundant facilities for the acquirement of
valuable knowledge: under this system, the mental faculties have been
directed to their proper objects, and the time consumed in teaching has
been considerably abbreviated. This abridgement of the usual course of
education has conduced to the neglect of that classical learning, which
required a painful and enduring attention, even for many years, to two
languages that have ceased to be spoken, and are only addressed to the
eye in written character. It is in no manner intended to under-rate the
value of classical literature, the constituent of a scholar, and the
passport and ornament of a gentleman; but to introduce a very probable
opinion, that few of those who have devoted many of the most productive
years of their existence to the Greek and Latin writers, ever attain a
critical knowledge of those tongues: and that the substance of morals,
wisdom, and even the elegant turns of expression, may be more certainly
conveyed through the medium of the best translations, which we now
possess, and the performance of which has occupied a large portion of
the time of accomplished scholars. This conversion of talent to that
which is useful, and productive of emolument, has given a more
energetic impulse to the mind, and accelerated that march of which we
now so justly boast: but it cannot be denied, that in the rapidity of
our advancement, and flushed with the ardent hope of arriving at our
destination, we have bestowed but little notice on the machinery that
urged us forwards, or cont