author, and invaluable as is the discipline and enlargement of mind acquired by it, this is but a part, and the lowest part, of the study of a Classic. A second and a higher work of the student, is to catch the spirit of the author whose works he is perusing. He should have a communion, lively and deep-felt, with the mighty genius, into whose presence he is admitted. Mere understanding is but lifeless. It may be as perfect as the keenest perception and most accurate comparison can make it, and yet the soul seems to be, in a sense, passive in it all. It is but receiving the impression of another's thoughts. The impression may be perfect. The mind may be moulded into an exact image of the most splendid production of genius the world has ever seen; and yet, if the work goes no farther, it is but a cold inanimate image,

mere clay, -shaped most exquisitely, it is true; still but mere clay, and fit only to be placed as a copy in the Museum of Literature. Alas that so many such copies should stand there! and that they should have been so often the only results of so much study of the Classics! Among the host of classical commentators, the most diligent of students, we seem ofttimes to be standing in the fancied city of the dead. What wonderful forms about us! What nobleness of stature! What perfection of symmetry! But can those limbs move? Can those eyes sparkle? Can those lips speak? With what a sense of desolation do we turn away our eyes from this scene of death. The figure may be a strong one; but is none too strong, to express that destruction of the living energies of the immortal spirit, which comes from making study merely the effort to understand the thoughts, and gather the knowledge of others.

But when the student has worthier views of the dignity of study, and rises from understanding a Classic, to the higher attainment of imbibing its spirit, then the image becomes instinct with life. We have a realization of the fable of Prometheus. The clay, animated by a spark of celestial fire, lives, moves, feels, utters. The student does not now merely receive the impress of another mind, but has come into a state of active communion with that mind. There is a glowing sympathy. His whole soul is roused to action, in unison with the author whose works he is

reading. As he reads he anticipates. And when the writing stops, his mind still runs on. He adds new sentiments, new arguments, new illustrations. He becomes in imagination the bard or the orator; and is himself striking his lyre before chieftains, or addressing a Roman Senate, or with death at the door reasoning on the immortality of the soul. And it is no exaggeration to say, that he may thus become at length, in all except originality, another Homer, or Cicero, or Socrates.

We have a fine illustration of the two stages of study we have mentioned, in the celebrated Wythenbachs' studies. After a statement of his first acquisitions, he proceeds: "I then took up Demosthenes. I had an edition of the Greek text only, accompanied with the Greek notes of Wolfius. Alas! darkness itself. But I had learned not to be deterred on the first approach, and I persevered. I found greater difficulties than ever, both in the words and the extent of the orator's propositions; but at last, after much labor, I reached the end of the first Olynthiac. I then read it a second and third time, when everything appeared clear, but still I found nothing of those powers of eloquence of which we hear so much. I doubted at this time whether I should venture upon another of his orations, or should review again the one I had just read. I decided, however, to review it; and (how wonderful are the effects of this practice, which can never be sufficiently recommended) as I read, a new and unknown feeling took possession of my. mind. Hitherto in reading the Greek authors, I had experienced only that pleasure which arose from understanding their meaning and the subjects discussed by them, and from observing my own proficiency. But in reading Demosthenes, an unusual and more than human emotion pervaded my mind, and grew stronger and stronger upon each successive perusal. I could now see the orator at one time all ardor; at another, in anguish; and at another, borne away by an impulse which nothing could resist. And as I proceed, the same ardor begins to be kindled within myself, and I am carried away by the same impulse. I feel a greater elevation of soul; I am no longer the same man; I fancy that I am Demosthenes himself, standing before the assembly, delivering this oration, and exhorting the Athenians to emulate the bravery and the glory of their

now predict. Who will be its Homer, or its Demosthenes, or its Shakspeare? Perhaps one of our own pupils. Let us have such an elevation of soul, and enlargement of mind, as will make us worthy of the honor. Let us not consent to the gloomy thought, that there can be nothing better than has been already written, that the human mind must now retrograde and that the only effort of the student of the great productions of past intellect, is to understand and admire and imitate. There seems to be in some an impression about the cycles of literature like that among so many nations respecting the eras of human existence, that first came a golden age, when all was valuable and splendid, an age of perfection. Next appeared the silver, as much inferior, as this metal to gold. Next the brazen, and now at last has come the iron, in which we live, and even we are not stationary, for the process of degeneracy is still going on. The Grecian era was the age of gold: the Latin of silver: the era of the first developement of modern literature the brazen. Alas for us! What can our iron intellects produce? There may be much in these views of poetry. But it is the poetry of death. It is the melancholy strain of the despairing bard, who strikes his harp amid the ruins of his country and then resolves not to survive her fate. But though there may be much of poetry in these views there is very little of philosophy. Philosophy, as well as Christianity, has her millennium and the light we see in the East, though yet faint and with many a mist about it, is so rapidly growing brighter, that we cannot mistake in supposing it the dawning of this day of glory. The question now comes "What shall we further do to fulfil our high destiny." It is evident that we must first have understood the mighty efforts of past genius, and have caught their impulse. But if we yield ourselves entirely to the influence of those who have gone before us, it is impossible that we should rise above them. The cast cannot be larger than its mould: the copy cannot be more perfect than its original. So if the student of the Classics makes any single author, or number of authors an absolute standard, and looks no higher, it is impossible that he should produce anything more excellent unless indeed the production of the highest and most complicated kind of excellence be a work of chance, and

in all probability he confines himself, through life to a far inferior station. He that would accomplish anything for the advance of mind, must look upon nothing already accomplished, as perfect. We must add to the elementary parts of the study of the Classics, a third and far more elevated part, the object of which is to obtain from the contemplation and comparison of the excellences of particular authors, a correct ideal of absolute excellence. What is the primary source of this ideal, is one of the important subjects in dispute between the two great sects in philosophy, which have divided the world from the days of Thales and Pythagoras to the present day? You will not of course ask me to decide a question, even if it were of greater practical consequence, on the different sides of which are such names as Plato and Kant, and Aristotle and Locke. Nor can it be asked that I should point out the precise method, in which it is to be observed, for it would be presumption in me to pretend to anything more than to be myself in quest of it. I must rather ask than give directions. That there is such an ideal within the reach of the human intellect, seems to me, almost an axiom. It is equally plain, that there can be no higher exercise of the powers than the effort to gain it; that its attainment must be the proudest conquest of the mind.

With this ideal before us, we should as a second step in this part of our progress go back and re-examine the authors from a study of whom we rose to this ideal. Now we are prepared for criticism and not until now. He that knows what literary excellence is, can say, and he only, how much has been attained by a particular author. He that knows the laws of composition, can say, and he only, how far those laws have been observed, and in what violated. It is wonderful how many have presumed to criticise, without even having any definite standard in their own minds. Criticism then becomes caprice. The judge is giving sentences of life or of death, without even a definite idea of the principles involved in the case. But criticism upon correct principle is in the highest degree serviceable to the student. By application he tests his principles, by exercise he perfects his taste and judgment, and gains that ready discernment and nice discrimination, which such exercise only can give. He now analyses those productions which before as wholes commanded his

admiration, but which were, like all the works of man, but combinations of good and ill, with a greater proportion of good than is found in most. He marks the good, and yields himself unreservedly to its influence. He distinguishes the ill, and seeks to counteract the influence it may have already exerted. In that practical spirit which is the characteristic of the highest study, he proceeds still farther. He sees how the excellences of the author were attained, for direction in his own efforts to attain the same. He looks for the causes of the defects which he finds, that he may prevent in himself the operation of those causes. This is true criticism, and if there is nothing meaner than the counterfeit, what is there nobler than the genuine?

The student having now separated beauty from deformity, and truth from error, should henceforth yield himself to the full influence of truth and beauty, both in their ideal perfection, and in those actual exhibitions which the Classics furnish. Error and deformity, he should not only disapprove, but keep out of sight. They are malignant stars, to whose rays he cannot expose himself without a blight. Truth and beauty will thus enter in and make his soul their home. They will be the essence of his thoughts, and the spring of his feelings. And the various expressions of his thoughts and feelings, in written or in spoken discourse, will be but manifestations of truth and beauty. This is the true end of the study of the Classics. This is an ample end for the studies of a life. This is an end to which the study of the Classics is an essential means; and this is the only end with which the student should rest content. He should aim at this, as he longs for sympathy with the noble spirits who have lived before him; as he desires to be held in remembrance by those who will come after him; as he seeks to become, in the language of a recently deceased philanthropist," a benefactor of minds;" he should aim at this, and nothing beneath this, as he regards the lofty powers of his own deathless spirit, destined to open, and open, and open, forevermore. Shall there be a canker at the bottom of that rose just blooming for immortality?

An answer has now been attempted to the inquiry, What is involved in the study of a Classic? We find that there are three distinct and essential particulars:- 1. To acquire a full and exact understanding of the composition.