Boys who, if I may continue the allufion, gallop through one of the ancients with the affiftance of a tranflation, can have but a very flight acquaintance either with the author or his language. It is by the exercise of the mind alone that a language is learned; but a literal tranflation on the oppofite page leaves no exercise for the memory at all. The boy will not be at the fatigue of remembering, when his doubts are at once fatisfied by a glance of the eye; whereas were every word to be fought from a dictionary, the learner would attempt to remember in order to fave him the trouble of looking out for it for the future.

To continue in the fame pedantic ftrain, though no school-mafter, of all the various grammars now taught in the schools about town, I would recommend only the old common one; I have forgot whether Lily's, or an emendation of him. The others may be improvements; but fuch improvements feem to me only mere grammatical niceties, no way influencing the learner, but perhaps loading him with trifling fubtilties, which at a proper age he must be at fome pains to forget.

Whatever pains a mafter may take to make the learning of the languages agreeable to his pupil, he may depend upon it, it will be at firft extremely unpleafant. The rudiments of every language, therefore, muft be given as a tafk, not as an amufement. Attempting to deceive children into inftruction of this kind, is only deceiving ourselves; and I know no paffion capable of conquering a child's natural lazinefs but fear. Solomon has faid it before me; nor is there any more certain, though perhaps more difagreeable truth, than the proverb in verfe, too well known to repeat on the prefent occafion. It is very probable that parents are told of fome mafters who never use the rod, and confequently are thought the propereft inftructors for their children; but

though

though tenderness is a requifite quality in an inftructor, yet there is too often the trueft tenderness in well-timed correction.

Some have juftly observed, that all paffion fhould be banished on this terrible occafion; but I know not how; there is a frailty attending human nature, that few mafters are able to keep their temper whilft they correct. I knew a good-natured man, who was fenfible of his own weakness in this refpect, and confequently had recourfe to the following expedient to prevent his paffions from being engaged, yet at the fame time adminifter juftice with impartiality. Whenever any of his pupils committed a fault, he fummoned a jury of his peers, I mean of the boys of his own or the next claffes to him; his accufers stood forth; he had a liberty of pleading in his own defence, and one or two more had a liberty of pleading against him: when found guilty by the pannel, he was configned to the footman, who attended in the houfe, who had previous orders to punish, but with lenity. By this means the mafter took off the odium of punishment from himfelf; and the footman, between whom and the boys there could not be even the flighteft intimacy, was placed in fuch a light as to be shunned by every boy in the school *.

And now I have gone thus far, perhaps you will think me fome pedagogue, willing by a well-timed puff, to increase the reputation of his own fchool; but fuch is not the cafe. The regard I have for fociety, for thofe tender minds who are the objects

* This differtation was thus far introduced into the volume of effays, afterwards publithed by Dr. Goldfmith, with the following obfervation:

This treatise was published before Rouffeau's Emilius: if there be a fimilitude in any one inftance, it is hoped the author of the prefent effay will not be termed a plagiarist.

of the prefent effay, is the only motive I have for offering thofe thoughts, calculated not to furprize by their novelty, or the elegance of compofition, but merely to remedy fome defects which have crept into the prefent fyftem of school education. If this letter fhould be inferted, perhaps I may trouble you in my next with fome thoughts upon an univerfity education, not with an intent to exhaust the fubject, but to amend some few abuses. I am, &c,

ON THE INSTABILITY

OF WORLDLY GRANDEUR.

AN alehouse-keeper near Ilington, who had long lived at the fign of the French king, upon the commencement of the laft war with France, pulled down his old fign, and put up the queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden fceptre, he continued to fell ale till the was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her therefore fome time ago for the king of Pruffia, who may probably be changed in turn for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration.

Our publican in this imitates the great exactly, who deal out their figures one after the other to the gazing crowd beneath them. When we have fufficiently wondered at one, that is taken in, and another exhioned in its room, which feldom holds its ftation long; for the mob are ever pleafed with variety.

I must own I have fuch an indifferent opinion of the vulgar, that I am ever led to fufpect that merit which raifes their fhout; at leaft I am certain to find

thofe

thofe great and fometimes good men, who find fatisfaction in fuch acclamations, made worse by it; and History has too frequently taught me, that the head which has grown this day giddy with the roar of the million, has the very next been fixed upon a pole.

As Alexander VI. was entering a little town in the neighbourhood of Rome, which had been juft evacuated by the enemy, he perceived the townsmen bufy in the market-place in pulling down from a gibbet a figure, which had been defigned to reprefent himself. There were also fome knocking down a neighbouring ftatue of one of the Orfini family, with whom he was at war, in order to put Alexander's effigy when taken down, in its place. It is poffible a man who knew lefs of the world would have condemned the adulation of those barefaced flatterers; but Alexander feemed pleafed at their zeal, and turning to Borgia his fon, faid with a fmile, Vides, mi fili, quam leve difcrimen palibulum inter et ftatuum. "You fee, my fon, the fmall difference "between a gibbet and a statue." If the great could be taught any leffon, this might ferve to teach them upon how weak a foundation their glory ftands, which is built upon popular applaufe; for as fuch praise what seems like merit, they as quickly condemn what has only the appearance of guilt.

Popular glory is a perfect coquet; her lovers'muft toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory on the other hand refembles a woman of fenfe; her admirers muft play no tricks; they feel no great anxiety, for they are fure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit. When Swift used to appear in public, he generally had the mob fhouting in his train. "Pox take thefe fools,"

he

he would fay, "how much joy might all this bawling give my Lord Mayor !"

We have feen thofe virtues, which have while living retired from the public eye, generally tranfmitted to pofterity, as the trueft objects of admiration and praife. Perhaps the character of the late Duke of Marlborough may one day be fet up, even above that of his more talked-of predeceffor; fince an affemblage of all the mild and amiable virtues is far fuperior to thofe vulgarly called the great ones. I must be pardoned for this fhort tribute to the memory of a man, who while living would as much deteft to receive any thing that wore the appearance of flattery, as I fhould to offer it.

I know not how to turn fo trite a subject out of the beaten road of common place, except by illuftrating it, rather by the affiftance of my memory than my judgment, and inftead of making reflections by telling a ftory.

A Chinese, who had long ftudied the works of Confucius, who knew the characters of fourteen thousand words, and could read a great part of every book that came in his way, once took it into his head to travel into Europe, and obferve the cuftoms of a people whom he thought not very much inferior even to his own countryinen, in the arts of refining upon every pleafure. Upon his arrival at Amfterdam his paffion for letters naturally led him to a bookfeller's fhop; and as he could fpeak a little Dutch, he civilly asked the bookfeller for the works of the immortal Ilixofou. The bookfeller affured him, he had never heard the book mentioned before. " What, have you never heard of that immor"tal poet," returned the other much furprised, "that light of the eyes, that favourite of kings, "that role of perfection! I fuppofe you know no

thing of the immortal Fipfihihi, fecond coufin to

"the