than children when they give chace to the extremity of the rainbow. Nor is any thing more Some years ago, the king, fuppofing that our fchool editions of the claffics, might be useful in his German Dominions, ordered a collection of the books used at Westminster and Eton to be sent to Mr. Heyne, at Gottingen. Of thefe editions Mr. H. has publifhed a review, (Gottingen Magazine, 1780, No. 6, p. 429, &c.): he marks the greater number with a ftrong note of difapprobation. He is ftruck by the metrical part of our Latin grammar; obferves, that it muft needs be very crabbed and obfcure; and feems to doubt, whether we are quite fo abfurd as to force children to learn it by rote. It is, indeed, to be hoped, that this most painful inftrument of grammatical torture will foon be generally laid afide. Our claffical scholars would perhaps wifh, that the whole of this Review might be tranflated; and were Mr. H.'s remonftrances likely to produce an alteration, it would be a work of humanity to translate it: but I fufpect that the immediate effect would be to alarm our pride, rather than correct our errors, as the following expreffions, more common than to fee the fchool and college books, finally configned over to the damps and cobwebs of the dark closet, the moment their poffeffor becomes fui juris. preffions, which may be confidered as a fummary of this celebrated profeffor's opinion on our method of instruction in the Latin, may serve to fhew: "Ex perience, he says, proves, that good Latin is no "where more uncommon than among the English. "Their best scholars (Humanisten) often write a Latin "ftyle, full of folecifms and barbarifms. Even in "fome school-books the preface and additional mat"ter are expreffed in very bad Latin. At this no one "will be furprized, when he fees how they are in"troduced early in life, to the knowledge of Latin.” Mr. Heyne speaks in the most contemptuous terms of that, which Mr. Harris calls Dr. Clarke's " rational edition of Homer." Homer." The tranflation, he says, is barbarous, and a disgrace to the poet-the grammatical obfervations either falfe or trivial, the thoufand times repeated references to which he thinks in-. tolerable the notes, he befides obferves, feldom af : ford the illustration wanted, &c. &c. It It was partly in order to strengthen, if poffible, thofe arguments that have been urged in favour of a plan of education which fhall pay fome attention to the fenfes and the understanding, by many illustrious writers from Locke to Condorcet *; partly to take away from the revivers of exploded abfurdities, that support which they have been defirous to gain, by forcing into an unnatural alliance with their cause, so refpectable a fcience as mathematics; and partly to fhew what false measures of objects are taken by those who have no better rule than antient metaphyfics, that these remarks are offered to public confideration. Had it not been for fuch collateral views, that eminent patron of lite * In his memoirs on public inftruction, in the Bibliotheque de l'homme publique. rature, whose name may be read at the bottom of the title page, fhould never have rifqued upon them the expence of paper and printing. THE END. NOTE I. On the System of the Greek Language, proposed by Schultens, Hemsterhuis, their Difciples, and by Lord Monboddo. Neque enim ad grammaticorum regulas linguæ fuerunt condita; fed ex linguis multo ufu populorum jam tritis et excultis, regulæ tandem funt formatæ. Lennep. de Analogiâ, p. 55. T feems to me hardly poffible for a mere claffical IT scholar to make any discovery of importance concerning the structure of language. The little fuccefs with which the long-continued efforts of such scholars have been attended, and a confideration of the Greek and Latin languages themselves, concur in countenancing this opinion. The Greek language (and the Latin is fcarce any thing but a dialect of the Greek), has its furface fo highly varnished, and its joints fo closely fitted, that the acutest surveyor could hardly ever have ascertained the original materials of which |