generation. Their languages contain but little of practical application and general interest at the present day: whereas those of modern nations are the depositories of a large amount of information, and of such information as is suitable to modern society and indispensable for its various pursuits. The usefulness of living languages will daily increase with the advance of science and the progress of discovery: the exchange of thoughts, of which they are the international medium for social, industrial, or scientific purposes, will henceforth be an inexhaustible source of public prosperity and advancement in civilisation.

The facts which the ancient historians record are less useful to us than those of modern history, because the truths deducible from them are less applicable in our times. The information communicated by the classics is also often inconsistent with our notions of civilisation, morality, or religion. By devoting the first period of life exclusively to them, young people are led astray in forming their standard of propriety on these points; so different from ours were the private and public life of the ancients, their manufactures and commerce, their arts and sciences, their social state, political institutions, and religious worship. At the same time that the study of the poets, orators, and philosophers of Greece and Rome is generally admitted to possess a principle of intellectual development, it is undeniable that the Pagan sentiments and immoral tendencies of some of their writings render them often most dangerous to inexperienced youth. The selfishness of the Romans, and their unqualified hatred for other nations, may be mistaken for love of country; their aggressive wars and rapine, for true glory; and thereby tend to elicit in favour of injustice and cruelty the praise and admiration due to patriotism and virtue.

"The custom of teaching children to regard with the highest admiration the literature and history of the Greeks and Romans, stained with outrages on all the superior faculties of man, and of diverting their minds away from the study of the Creator and his works, has had a most pernicious effect on the views entertained of this world by many excellent and intellectual individuals. This is truly preferring the achievements of barbarous men to the glorious designs of God; and we need not be surprised that no satisfaction to the moral sentiments is experienced while such a course of education is pursued."

At the revival of learning, ancient literature was to the people * Geo. Combe, Constitution of Man.

a rich mine, from which they could supply their scanty idioms; but, now, the character of the principal languages of Europe having been fixed by the genius of their great writers, no longer permits the adoption of foreign phraseology. The introduction of Latinisms into English or French would be as improper as the introduction of Anglicisms or Gallicisms into Latin. Whatever be the excellence of ancient classics, the study of them, as models of composition, must therefore be pursued with great caution. Those who have studied them most assiduously often speak and write their own language very incorrectly. We shall bring our style in the native tongue to greater purity by studying our best national writers, than by the exclusive application to the volumes of antiquity.

A knowledge of Latin affords little assistance in the acquisition of English; for not only is the difference of construction an obstacle to the one being made the standard of the other, but the Latin derivatives which the English language contains are, in comparison with those of Saxon origin, in a decided minority. The absence of analogy between the Latin and the English is particularly remarkable in the fundamental principles of their grammars. The predominating character of the English language, both in its grammatical and idiomatical structure, is essentially of Saxon origin. Its inflexions have generally the same source: the English genitive, the mode of forming the plural of nouns, the terminations by which are expressed the comparative and superlative of adjectives; the inflexions of pronouns, of the second and third persons, of the preterites and participles of verbs; and the most frequent terminations of the adverbs, are all Anglo-Saxon. The manner of expressing the moods and tenses of verbs, the auxiliary words used for that purpose, and the words which most frequently occur, articles, pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, are almost entirely Saxon. It is in this ancient dialect of the great Teutonic family that the history and genius of the English language are to be studied.

It is not, however, in these respects alone that classical literature has lost in usefulness: it is deficient most in effecting what should be the practical results of instruction,-knowledge of things and facts, acquaintance with the laws of nature and of the mind, consciousness of our duties and our rights; it does not even confer the power of receiving or conveying ideas. Latin' would be, at the present day, a most inconvenient medium of

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communication; because the progress of civilisation has introduced in modern arts and sciences, in commerce and manufacture, in our modes of life and social relations, a wide range of ideas for which that language has no corresponding terms.

If the word learning means obsolete vocabularies and antiquarian lore, it may indeed be applied to ancient literature; but if, as we believe, it means science, history, philosophy, literature in general, it is the extreme of absurdity and quackery to apply the term to the acquisition of Greek and Latin, and to call these languages learned, when scarcely any kind of available information can be obtained through them. Those alone are truly the learned languages which are depositories of useful knowledge. Almost all the Greek and Latin works which contain information of any value have been translated, and are thus accessible to persons ignorant of those languages; but from the modern press there are issuing daily, in various countries, works of merit in every branch of literature, and in every department of knowledge, many of which ought to be read as they appear. No physician, chemist, or engineer,-no scientific man, in fact, can attain to eminence, or even keep pace with the progress of science or art, who cannot avail himself of the discoveries and improvements made by other nations on subjects relative to his pursuit. Living languages are indispensable to travellers, merchants, and statesmen, to consular and diplomatic agents, to naval and military men,* to the man of fashion, as to the man of science; whereas the usefulness of the ancient languages, viewed either as stores of knowledge, or as means of communication, is at the present day very limited.

Utility is the test by which the value of instruction ought to be estimated; and the study of words is useful only so far as it leads to the acquisition of things. "Language," says Milton, "is but the instrument of conveying to us things useful to be known. And, though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them, as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only." Those languages should be preferred which afford the most abundant means of gaining knowledge. A second

* Captain Basil Hall recommends, in very strong terms, to young sailors, the study of living languages. See Fragments of Voyages and Travels, First Series.

† On Education, to Sam. Hartlib.

language is not of itself knowledge; it is only an instrument for obtaining and conveying it. Having two words for everything, -two ways of expressing every idea, does not constitute real information. He who knows ten names for a plant is less informed than he who has only one name for it, but is acquainted with ten properties of it. The time which is given to the study of words is often taken from the study of things: hence it. is not rare to find persons masters of several languages who, notwithstanding, are very ignorant (6).

SECT. III.-ON THE STUDY OF EASTERN LANGUAGES.

Although the languages of modern Europe excel all others, considered as depositories of knowledge, they yield to those of antiquity and to Asiatic idioms as means of philological research. Eastern languages are, in this respect, particularly interesting, and deserve the serious attention of the learned who are desirous of investigating the filiation of languages and of nations; for the original idioms in which Oriental learning is veiled afford the strongest evidence that the East is the cradle of Western civilisation. Acquaintance with those which belong to the great family of the Indo-Germanic, or rather Indo-European languages, would throw light on the origin and structure of Latin and Greek.

The study of the Asiatic idioms would also lead to a knowledge of the early psychological condition of man, as illustrated by the formation of language; because these idioms have, for the most part, been subjected to less mixture of dialects than those of Europe, and, owing to the proverbial immobility of the people who speak them, have undergone few of those modifications which the progress of civilisation necessarily brings: they, in fact, bear the stamp of the human mind.

The Sanskrit, one of the most finished idioms that ever existed, is peculiarly favourable for philological investigations. "This language," observes Sir W. Jones, "whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either ; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologist could examine all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists."

• Third Anniversary Discourse.

Hebrew family, are also highly

The Semitic idioms, or deserving of attention, as exhibiting that peculiar character of thought and expression, with which one should be conversant to understand critically the real import of the Holy Scriptures. Philology affords valuable aid to theology.

The study of Eastern languages is perhaps more encouraged by the government of France than it is by that of Great Britain; but in neither country does it meet with the attention it deserves, because its importance is not yet sufficiently appreciated. Of one hundred Latin and Greek scholars there are not two who inquire into Sanskrit etymologies, or who know anything of the affinities which connect the various dialects of the great Indo-European family.

The learned who will attend to this department of knowledge, and, especially, to the literature and philosophy of ancient India, will find the study fraught with useful and interesting results. The great philological discoveries which have latterly arisen from it promise a rich harvest for the reaping of which every facility is offered. Private and public libraries are now filled with precious manuscripts, for which we are indebted to the erudition and patient research of modern Orientalists. Alphabets and grammars of innumerable tribes are brought to light by the indefatigable zeal of navigators and missionaries; and typography reproduces, in the principal capitals of Europe, the most ancient monuments of the literature of the East.

Oriental languages are, at the present day, invested with peculiar interest, and cannot fail, henceforth, to be more extensively cultivated in Europe; because they will prove beneficial as means of international communion, not less than as sources of philological knowledge. There is yet some glory to be gained in the advancement of knowledge, and a duty to be performed towards the well-being of humanity, in exploring the seats of ancient civilisation. Their history and literature, their arts and sciences, their laws and forms of government, are as yet but imperfectly known. It would be desirable to unveil the secret of their rise and decline, to ascertain what are, at the present day, their agricultural and commercial resources, their mineralogical and archæological riches; finally, to solve numerous questions on the origin, traditions, and languages of the various tribes spread over Asia and Africa.

The present time is particularly favourable for all these important inquiries. The occupation of the North of Africa by