e reputation of skill, it is true,
may be obtained at a much less expense of time and intellect. The
comparative cheapness of the acquisition holds out the powerful
temptation of more credit with less labor. A sufficient knowledge of
botany or chemistry to make a figure, is easily obtained, while a
thorough acquaintance with the historians, poets, and orators of
antiquity requires much time, and close application."

"But," exclaimed Sir John, "can the fashionable studies pretend to give
the same expansion to the mind, the same elevation to the sentiments,
the same energy to the feelings, the same stretch and compass to the
understanding, the same correctness to the taste, the same grace and
spirit to the whole moral and intellectual man."

"For my own part," replied I, "so far from saying with Hamlet, 'Man
delights not me, nor woman neither,' I confess I have little delight in
any thing else. As a man, man is the creature with whom I have to do,
and the varieties in his character interest me more than all the
possible varieties of mosses, shells and fossils. To view this compound
creature in the complexity of his actions, as portrayed by the hand of
those immortal masters, Tacitus and Plutarch; to view him in the
struggle of his passions, as displayed by Euripides and Shakspeare; to
contemplate him in the blaze of his eloquence, by the two rival orators
of Greece and Rome, is more congenial to my feelings than the ablest
disquisition of which matter was ever the subject." Sir John, who is a
passionate, and rather too exclusive, admirer of classic lore, warmly
declared himself of my opinion.

"I went to town," replied I, "with a mind eager for intellectual
pleasure. My memory was not quite unfurnished with passages which I
thought likely to be adverted to, and which might serve to embellish
conversation, without incurring the charge of pedantry. But though most
of the men I conversed with were my equals in education, and my
superiors in talent, there seemed little disposition to promote such
topics as might bring our understandings into play. Whether it is that
business, active life, and public debate, absorb the mind, and make men
consider society rather as a scene to rest than to exercise it, I know
not; certain it is that they brought less into the treasury of
conversation than I expected; not because they were poor, but proud, or
idle, and reserved their talents and acquisitions for higher occasions.
The most opul