advances have been made from words to science, from science to morals, and from morals to religion.

Scarcely is a boy weaned from the nursery, before he is entered on the study of what is called classical learning. I am aware that the ground I am now upon is by many held almost sacred; and as a degree of enthusiasm is, I believe, most incident to professional men, I should not wonder if some of the learned masters and teachers of our classical schools and colleges were ready to exclaim, upon any seeming rudeness of approach to these temples of the muses-Procul, O, procul este profani! And should the reader, from early prejudice, or the influence of public opinion, be partial to the same cause, I would intreat his equitable and candid attention, while I proceed with freedom, yet, I trust, without petulance or malignity, to offer a few remarks on a subject of so much importance,

We should doubtless think it strange, were we not reconciled to it by long cus tom, for Christians to send their children to schools where they are chiefly taught the productions of heathen poets. Should it be urged, that these are works of much genius, and which exhibit many admirable models of elegant writing and just composition, I would ask, in reply, Whether all this, and much more, ought to be put in balance with their vain mythology, their defective morals, and their frequent obscenity? and whether it is because we have no poetry in the scriptures of the Old Testament, in the songs of Moses, the dramatic history of Job, the prophecies of Isaiah, or the psalms of David *; or because we have none of a Christian and domestic growth, that we must send our youth to pagan Greece and Rome, at the risk of a perverted judgment and a tainted imagination?

Lest this sentiment of classical danger should be rejected as the mere suggestion of a melancholy recluse, who has no relish for the beauties of Homer and Virgil, I shall fortify it by two great authorities, the one Christian and the other pagan, which no man who wishes to preserve his own character for taste and good sense, will be forward to dispute. The first is that of a most eloquent Christian apologist and Roman lawyer, Minutius Felix, who flourished in the beginning of the third century. "Why," says he, " should I "speak of the adultery of Mars and Ve"nus; or of Ganymede, whom his lewd " paramour, Jupiter, placed among the " stars? stories invented for no other pur" pose than to justify men in their vices * ;"

* Quid loquar Martis et Veneris adulterium depren sum? et in Ganymedem Jovis stuprum cælo consecratum? Quæ omnia in hoc prodita, ut vitiis hominum quædam auctoritas pararetur. His atque hujusmodi figmentis, et mendaciis dulcioribus, corrumpuntur ingenia puerorum; et hisdem fabulis inhærentibus, adusque summæ ætatis robur adolescunt, et in iisdem opinionibus miseri consenescunt. MIN. FEL. p. 40.

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and then proceeds to observe, that the minds of youth, "when they had early im"bibed this unhappy tincture, retained it " in their more advanced years, and grew "grey under the delusion." And else. where he thus speaks: " Such are the " idle stories told us by our ignorant fore"fathers, and, what is worse, which we “ourselves endeavour to cherish by a fond "application to the poets, who, by the "general esteem in which they are held, " have done unspeakable injury to the "cause of truth: and therefore Plato "did wisely when he banished Homer " from his ideal republic*." My next authority is that of the great Roman orator and philosopher, who, in his Tusculan Questions, speaks to this purpose: "Who "sees not the mischief occasioned by the "poets? They dissolve the firmness of " our minds: and yet such is their attrac"tion, that we not only read but learn "them by heart. Hence it is, that when " to the vices of domestic discipline, and "the delicacy of an indolent life, are added "the fascinating charms of these syrens, "all the nerves of virtue are destroyed: " and therefore Plato did well when he ba" nished them from that imaginary repub"lic, which he endeavoured to construct

upon principles the most agreeable to "virtue and good order. But we, alas! "after the fashion of the Greeks, are fami"liarized with the poets from our infancy; " and this we are pleased to call a polite " and liberal education *." Behind this