which you contemplate, I fear there can no salutary emulation subsist. Again in the other alternative, could you submit to the ordinary reproofs and discipline of a day-school? Could you bear to be corrected for your faults? Or how would it look to see you put to stand, as must be the case sometimes, in a corner? I am afraid the idea of a public school in your circumstances must be given up. But is it impossible, my dear Sir, to find some person of your own age-if of the other sex, the more agreeable perhaps-whose information, like your own, has rather lagged behind their years, who should be willing to set out from the same point with yourself, to undergo the same tasks-thus at once inciting and sweetening each other's labours in a sort of friendly rivalry. Such a one, I think, it would not be difficult to find in some of the western parts of this island-about Dartmoor for instance. Or what if, from your own estate-that estate which, unexpectedly acquired so late in life, has inspired into you this generous thirst after knowledge, you were to select some elderly peasant, that might best be spared from the land; to come and begin his education with you, that you might till, as it were, your minds together-one, whose heavier progress might invite, without a fear of discouraging, your emulation? We might then see-starting from an equal post-the difference of the clownish and the gentle blood. A private education then, or such a one as I have been describing, being determined on, we must in the next place look out for a preceptor:-for it will be some time before either of you, left to yourselves, will be able to assist the other to any great purpose in his studies. But I And now, my dear Sir, if in describ ng such a tutor as I have imagined for you, I use a style a little above the familiar one in which I have hitherto chosen to address you, the nature of the subject must be my apology. Difficile est de scientiis inscienter loqui, which is as much as to say that "in treating of scientific matters it is difficult to avoid the use of scientific terms." shall endeavour to be as plain as possible. I am not going to present you with the ideal of a pedagogue, as it may exist in my fancy, or has possibly been realized in the persons of Buchanan and Busby. Something less than perfection will serve our turn. The scheme which I propose in this first or introductory letter has reference to the first four or five years of your education only; and in enumerating the qualifications of him that should undertake the direction of your studies, I shall rather point out the minimum, or least, that I shall require of him, than trouble you in the search of attainments neither common nor necessary to our immediate purpose. He should be a man of deep and extensive knowledge. So much at least is indispensable. Something older than yourself, I could wish him, because years add reverence. To his age and great learning, he should be blest with a temper and a patience, willing to accommodate itself to the imperfections of the slowest and meanest capacities. Such a one in former days Mr. Hartlib appears to have been, and such in our days I take Mr. Grierson to be; but our friend, you know, unhappily has other engagements. I do not demand a consummate grammarian; but he must be a thorough master of vernacular orthography, with an insight into the accentualities and punctualities of modern Saxon, or English. He must be competently instructed (or how shall he instruct you?) in the tetralogy, or four first rules, upon which not only arithmetic, but geometry, and the pure mathematics themselves, are grounded. I do not require that he should have measured the globe with Cook, or Ortelius, but it is desirable that he should have a general knowledge (I do not mean a very nice or pedantic one) of the great division of the earth into four parts, so as to teach you readily to name the quarters. He must have a genius capable in some degree of soaring to the upper element, to deduce from thence the not much dissimilar computation of the cardinal points, or hinges, upon which those invisible phenomena, which naturalists agree to term winds, do perpetually shift and turn. He must instruct you, in imitation of the old Orphic fragments (the mention of which has possibly escaped you), in numeric and harmonious responses, to deliver the number of solar revolutions, within which each of the twelve periods, into which the Annis Vulgaris, or common year, is divided, doth usually complete and terminate itself. The intercalaries, and other subtle problems, he will do well to omit, till riper years, and course of study, shall have rendered you more capable thereof. He must be capable of embracing all history, so as from the countless myriads of individual men, who have peopled this globe of earth-for it is a globe-by comparison of their respective births, lives, deaths, fortunes, conduct, prowess, &c. to pronounce, and teach you to pronounce, dogmatically and catechetically, who was the richest, who was the strongest, who was the wisest, who was the meekest man that ever lived; to the facilitation of which solution, you will readily conceive, a smattering of biography would in no inconsiderable degree conduce. Leaving the dialects of men (in one of which I shall take leave to suppose you by this time at least superficially instituted), you will learn to ascend with him to the contemplation of that unarticulated language, which was before the written tongue; and, with the aid of the elder Phrygian or Æsopic key, to interpret the sounds by which the animal tribes communicate their minds-evolving moral instruction with delight from the dialogue of cocks, dogs, and foxes. Or marrying theology with verse, from whose mixture a beautiful and healthy offspring may be expected, in your own native accents (but purified) you will keep time together to the profound harpings of the more modern of Wattsian hymnics. Thus far I have ventured to conduct you to a "hill-side, whence you may discern the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming." With my best respects to Mr. Grierson, when you see him, April 1, 1823. RELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM. Manuel du Bibliophile, ou Traité de Choix des Livres. Par GABRIEL PIEGNOT. 2 vols. 8vo. DIJON. Bibliotheca Britannica: or a General Index to British and Foreign Literature. By ROBERT WATT. 4to. Edinburgh and London. 4 vols. 1824. Bibliotheca Biblica: a Select List of Books on Sacred Literature, with Notices, Biographical, Critical, and Bibliographical. By WILLIAM ORME. Svo. Edinburgh and London. 1824. BIBLIOGRAPHY, or the knowledge of books, is a branch of science, which has been most extensively studied by the literati of France, Germany, and Italy. Great Britain, however, can boast of many learned bibliographers now living, among whom the Rev. T. F. Dibdin may claim a distinguished place for the variety of information contained in his numerous publications, and for their splendid typography. M. Peignot is one of the most prolific writers on bibliography in France: and his attachment to his favourite pursuit has led him, in some of his multifarious volumes, to exaggerate its value, so far as to represent it as the most extensive and even universal of all sciences. Bibliography, as pursued by some, at least, of its ardent admirers, is little more than a mere knowledge of the fringe and drapery of a book; but, if it go not beyond this, it goes no useful length; it is a curiosity at once absurd and irregular. To be useful, bibliography must teach us to read what is valuable, not merely what is rare; to make a love of books instrumental to a love of knowledge; to examine as well as to open volumes, and to apply our knowledge of what has been written or done in other ages, towards the improvement of that in which we live. Such is the true end of bibliography; and its object is more or less answered in the publications of which we are now to give some account to our readers. 1. The first of these is the "Manuel" of M. Peignot, which was originally an essay of three hundred pages, published in 1817, but * Milton's Tractate on Education, addressed to Mr. Hartlib. it is now enlarged into two well printed and well filled octavo volumes, comprising nearly one thousand pages. Passing over the preliminary discourse, which contains a number of observations not remarkable for their profundity, though ingeniously expressed, on the importance of literature, the use and abuse of the press, &c. we come to the first part of his work, which treats on the necessity of making a selection out of the innumerable quantity of volumes extant. The second part comprises a literary, historical, and chronological account of the predilection, which celebrated men in every age have exhibited for peculiar books. Multum legere, non multa, was their motto, as it must be that of every one, who is desirous of aequiring solid information. This, as we incidentally remarked in our last volume, (p. 394,) is one of the more amusing parts of Mr. Peignot's book, though at the same time one of the most prolix. We shall condense it into its principal parts; the chief part even of those are already familiar to the student. The history of Thucydides, who when a youth had shed tears of transport and joy on hearing Herodotus repeat his history of the Persian wars before the Athenians, was so much admired by Dɛmosthenes, that, in order to perfect himself as an orator, he transcribed it eight times, and could almost repeat it by heart. The reverence of Alexander the Great for Homer is known to all scholars. Xenophon was the favourite author of Scipio Africanus, who continually perused his works, which materially contributed to make him a great general: the same admirable moralist and historian constituted the delight of Lucullus. Though Aristotle, Plato, and Theophrastus were greatly admired and studied by Cicero, yet Demosthenes was in his judgment the greatest of all orators in every kind of style: and he gloried in imitating him. The younger Brutus so highly esteemed the history of Polybius, that he not only read it even when engaged in the most important affairs, but on the very day before the battle of Philippi, he was occupied in abridg ing his history. So enthusiastically was Virgil attached to Homer, that he was surnamed the Homeric. The Emperor Adrian is an instance of the depravation of literary taste, which took place after the Augustan age. He preferred, in eloquence, Cato to Cicero; in poetry, Ennius to Virgil; and in history, Colius to Sallust. The Emperor Tacitus so highly valued the works of the historian Tacitus, (from whom he gloried in tracing his descent), that he placed his statue in the public libraries, and commanded that ten new copies of his writings should be made annually, at the expense of the treasury, that they might not perish by the carelessness of readers. Homer and Plato were the favourite authors of Julian: Virgil, of Theodoric I., King of the Visigoths; and Augustine's Treatise on the City of God, of Charlemagne, who not only read it during his dinner, but placed it beneath his pillow when he slept. Our illustrious Alfred, was so charmed with the fables of sop, that he translated them into Saxon verse. Theodore Gaza, the grammarian of Thessalonica, (who fled into Italy on the conquest of his country by the Turks), said, as Menage also did long afterwards, that if all the books of the ancients were in the fire, he would draw Plutarch out of the flames, in preference to all the rest. Louis XII. showed his good sense and good taste, by making choice of the commentaries of Cæsar and of Cicero de Officiis. Andrea Navageri, a noble Venetian, and a good Latin poet, was particularly fond of Catullus, whom he imitated in an excellent book of epigrams, which he composed. His enthusiastic attachment to the poems of Catullus led him to conceive such a hatred of Martial's epigrams, that, having instituted in his own house an annual festival in honour of the muses, he never failed on these occasions to sacrifice a copy of Martial to the manes and memory of Catullus. The cardinals Du Prat and Bellia were both passionate admirers of the romance of Rabelais. The former indeed, carried his admiration to such a pitch, that wherever he went, Rabelais was his inseparable companion: and the latter is said to have refused to admit a distinguished scholar to his table, because he had not read the book: for so was the romance at that time called. Nicholas Bourbon, a modern Latin poet, said that he had rather be the author of Buchanan's Paraphrase on the Psalms of David, than be archbishop of Paris; and the celebrated Julius Cæsar Scaliger, that he would rather have composed the second Ode in the fourth book of Horace, (Quem tu Melpomene semel, &c.) than be King of Arragon. Thucydides was the companion of the Emperor Charles V. Melancthon limited his library to four authors, whose names begin with the same letter, viz. Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy. The celebrated civilian Cujas used to say of the works of Paulus de Castro, a distinguished professor of law in the fifteenth century,-Qui non habet Paulum de Castro, tunicam vendat et emat. Montaigne gave the preference among the 'moderns, to the Decameron of Boccacio, to Rabelais, and to the Basia of Johannes Secundus, and among the ancients to Virgil, Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, Lucan, Terence, Plutarch (in the French version of Amyot), Seneca, the philosophical writings of Cicero, especially his moral treatises, his epistles to Atticus, and the commentaries of Cæsar. Passerat, professor of eloquence in the college at Cambray, was particularly attached to Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. He made their poems the subject of his lectures, and published elaborate commentaries on them. The venerable admiral de Coligny, when a young man, and Henry IV. of France, were equally admirers of the Elements of Euclid and of Plutarch's Lives: to the latter work, the king often acknowledged himself indebted for many excellent maxims, both of personal conduct and of government. Statius, Seneca the tragic poet, Ovid, Juvenal, Martial, and above all Horace, were the favourite authors of Malherbe, who was accustomed to call the works of Horace his breviary. Cardinal Richelieu recreated himself with Barclay's Argenis. Quevedo de Villegas, the well known author of the Visions, |