Salmasius, whom I may be allowed to quote,
without being suspected of professional prejudice, as none of them were
clergymen, while they warmly recommended to others that learning of
which they themselves were the most astonishing examples, at the same
time dedicating their lives to the advancement of religion. It is
delightful, I say, to hear them acknowledge that their learning was only
valuable as it put it in their power to promote Christianity, and to
have something to sacrifice for its sake."

"I can willingly allow," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that a poet, a dramatic poet
especially, may study the works of the great critics of antiquity with
some profit; but that a Christian writer of sermons can have any just
ground for studying a pagan critic, it is to me quite inconceivable."

"And yet, sir," replied Mr. Stanley, "a sermon is a work which demands
regularity of plan, as well as a poem. It requires, too, something of
the same unity, arrangement, divisions, and lucid order as a tragedy;
something of the exordium and the peroration which belong to the
composition of the orator. I do not mean that he is constantly to
exhibit all this, but he should always understand it. And a discreet
clergyman, especially one who is to preach before auditors of the higher
rank, and who, in order to obtain respect from them, wishes to excel in
the art of composition, will scarcely be less attentive to form his
judgment by some acquaintance with Longinus and Quintilian than a
dramatic poet. A writer of verse, it is true, may please to a certain
degree by the force of mere genius, and a writer of sermons will
instruct by the mere power of his piety; but neither the one nor the
other will ever write well, if they do not possess the principles of
good writing, and form themselves on the models of good writers."

"Writing," said Sir John, "to a certain degree is an art, or, if you
please, a trade. And as no man is allowed to set up in an ordinary trade
till he has served a long apprenticeship to its _mysteries_ (the word, I
think, used in indentures), so no man should set up for a writer till he
knows somewhat of the mysteries of the art he is about to practice. He
may, after all, if he want talents, produce a vapid and inefficient
book; but possess what talents he may, he will, without knowledge,
produce a crude and indigested one."

Mr. Tyrrel, however, still insisted upon it, that in a Christian
minister the lustre of learning is tinsel,