to promote the purposes of an ingenious and virtuous mind like yours; but it will give me pleasure to find you improving and altering them, according to the suggestions of your own good sense, guided by emergencies and the opinions of others with whom you may converse.

Your situation in life requires action as well as contemplation. I do not wish to render you a walking library, a verbal critic, or a mere grammarian. But, in general, there is little danger of excess on the side of application to study. So many and and powerful are the temptations to frivolity, that the danger is lest it should engross the mind, and preclude all attention to books, and all learning, useful and ornamental. I know your love of letters is ardent; but, at first entering into the world of fashion, there is reason to fear, that your earlier propensities may be superseded by others less laudable.

You will allow me therefore to prescribe such conduct and such studies, as I think best, and most conducive to your honour and happiness. If I recommend too much of any thing, attribute it to my anxiety for your welfare; but not to my ignorance of the difficulty you will be under, of doing or reading all that I may mention as worthy your attention and endeavour.

At the same time that I am ready to make all due allowance, and grant many indulgences; I cannot refrain from reminding you, that every man, especially every young and healthy man, like yourself, is able to read much more, than in the hour of timidity and indolence he is apt to imagine. To the persevering spirit of manly virtue and youthful ambition, there is scarcely any height which is too arduous for attainment. Be of good courage; and remember that by aiming at great things, you will certainly obtain

much, though not all to which you aspire. How much wiser and nobler, than to shrink from the pursuit entirely, through a despair of reaching the highest pinnacle! I am, &c.

LETTER VII.

MY LORD,

I RESERVED the subject of Cicero's Orations for a particular letter; because I consider all that is connected with oratory as particularly important to you, who intend not to pass your life in an ignominious ease, but in the pursuit of real honour, and the service of your country. You will soon be a member of the senate; and your friends will naturally expect to see the fruits of your study and genius richly displayed in parliamentary eloquence.

The world cannot afford you a better model than Cicero. But to receive all the benefit from his orations which they are able to afford, you must read them, not merely as a critic and grammarian, but with a particular view to improvement in oratory. You must enter into their spirit, be present at the scenes which occasioned them, analyze their method, and weigh their arguments in the scales of

reason.

Begin with the oration for Milo. It is generally allowed to be one of the best; and as you may not have time to read all, it is advisable in the first instance, to secure an acquaintance with the most approved. You may indeed read the whole of the selection made for the use of the Dauphin, previously to any of the others; for to reject that, or any other common books, merely because they are common, is a proof of affectation and foolish conceit, rather than of

good sense. I confess that the edition for the use of the Dauphin, is not in much esteem among the learned, and that it is calculated chiefly for learners; but it is an useful selection, and may very properly be read by you, as an introduction to the other orations. You will sometimes find a difficult passage, which the notes in this edition will usually illustrate. If they should not, pass it over, and read on without interruption. The difficulty will probably vanish at a second reading; or it may be removed by the assistance of an intelligent friend. At all events, let it not impede your progress, or cool the glow of animation which you may have caught, and which will conduce more to your improvement in eloquence, than the notes of all the commentators.

Though I wish you to make the works of Cicero your particular study, yet I cannot advise you to trouble yourself with more notes than those which are indispensably necessary to illustrate allusions to historical facts, to ancient laws, and to local practices and customs. The Clavis Ciceroniana of Ernestus, which you may procure in a separate octavo volume, will answer your purpose entirely. Let it always be at hand while you read Cicero. It is printed in the last volume of the Oxford edition; but it is cumbrous in a quarto size, and the labour of investigating words in an index, is sufficiently irksome, without the additional incumbrance of an unwieldy volume. You will remember at the same time, that I do not interdict your reading of any notes, if you should have time, and should take a pleasure in the learning and ingenuity which they often display. All I mean is, to express my opinion of the impropriety of diverting the attention which is due to an author, and which such authors as Cicero will amply reward, from the valuable text to the annotations, which are

often of dubious authority, and expressed in dubious Latin. It has been justly observed, that many a celebrated ancient author, surrounded by a vast accumulation of comments, is scarcely seen, and resembles a little boat in the wide ocean, or a jewel lost in a dunghill. I wish, my Lord, to bring forward the author himself to your notice, to impress his words strongly on your mind, to tinge you with the colour of his style, and to work his sentiments into your bosom. Shall Grævius and Burmannus overwhelm Cicero in the mind of the reader, even while they are undertaking to illustrate him? Read the text, and trust while you read, to your own understanding. Grapple with your author by the exertions of your native vigour. Dare to enter the temple at once, without lingering in the porch. Life is too short, to spend any time in superfluous preparation. I am, &c.

LETTER VIII.

MY LORD,

Of the great number of Orations which Cicero delivered, fifty-nine are extant at this day; a number sufficient to furnish ample employment for the most diligent student of modern eloquence.

But I repeat my advice, that you should first read the best of them, and leave those which are not above mediocrity, or which at least are less celebrated than others, to the contingency of a future occasion. I have already recommended the Oration for Milo. You will read all that are contained in the Dauphin selection. But you will not be satisfied without reading that for Aulus Cluentius. In other orations, Cicero is said to have outdone others; in this, himself. The

seven harangues on the famous business of Verres, and the fourteen against Anthony, will of course excite, as they will richly reward, your attention.

When you shall have read all these, with the assistance of Ernestus's indexes, I think you may be congratulated on your acquaintance with one of the greatest speakers and best men whom antiquity has produced. You will want no farther directions for the study of Cicero. You will have contracted an esteem for the man, notwithstanding his modern detractors, and a taste for his works, however neglected. You will, without my instigation, read the rest of his harangues at your leisure and from choice. Your improvement will infallibly be great and secure. Quintilian, a most judicious writer, has asserted, as you may remember, that he who is delighted with Cicero, may depend upon it, that he has made no small proficiency in the study of eloquence.

I know it has been the fashion to detract both from the moral and the literary character of Cicero: and indeed neither his life nor his writings are without the characteristics of humanity. He was sometimes too timid in his conduct, and too diffuse in his style.. But, my Lord, his excellencies predominate in a more than common proportion; and his detractors have had chiefly in view, the attainment of distinction for themselves, by singularity of opinion, and the gratification of their pride, by pretensions to superior sagacity. I am, &c.

LETTER IX.

MY LORD,

As oratory is very properly the object of your present studies, I must conduct you from Cicero to