guage be of one colour. It matters not, to my mind, whether you attach yourself to that of Cicero and Livy, or to that of Tacitus and Quintilian; but one period you must choose: else the result is a motley style, which is as offensive to a sound philologer, as if one were to mix up German of 1650 and of 1800.

You were very right not to send the two projected essays which you mention, because you cannot possibly say any thing sound on such questions. To learn, my dear friend, to learn conscientiously-to go on sifting and increasing our knowledge, this is our speculative calling through life: and it is so most especially in youth, which has the happiness that it may give itself up without hinderance to the charms of the new intellectual world opened to it by books. He who writes a dissertation,-let him say what he will,-pretends to teach: and one cannot teach without some degree of wisdom; which is the amends that, if we strive after it, God will give us for the departing bliss of youth. A wise young man is a monster. Nor let it be said, that such dissertations are composed for one's own sake, in order to get to the bottom of some particular subject. He who composes them with this view acts absurdly, and injures himself. Let him write down fragmentarily what he has well thought over; but not sit down to think while he is writing. If a man tries to make a compact whole of that which cannot have a shadow of completeness, either in its substance or form, he runs the utmost risk of contenting himself with a mere superficial show, and of adopting a corrupt and mischievous facility of bad writing. Fortunate is the young tree, which, planted in a good soil and favourable situation, is preserved in its straight growth by a careful hand, and forms sound wood. If its growth be accelerated by immoderate watering, and it is weak and pliant, exposed to the winds without

shelter or support, its wood becomes spongy, and its trunk awry, its whole life through.

What I wish above all things to impress on you, my young friend, is, that you should purify your mind to entertain a sincere reverence for every thing excellent. This is the best dower of a youthful spirit, its surest guide.

I must now say something more to you about your style of writing. It is too verbose; and you often use false metaphors. Do not suppose that I am unreasonable enough to require a finished style. I expect not such from you, nor from any one at your age; but I would warn you against a false mannerism. All writing should merely be the expression of thought and speech. A man should either write just as he actually delivers a continuous discourse, expressing his genuine thoughts accurately and fully; or as he would speak, if placed in circumstances, in which in real life he is not placed, where he might be called upon to do so. Every thing should spring from thought; and the thoughts should fashion the structure of the words. To be able to do this, we must study language, must enrich our memory with an abundant supply of words and phrases, whether in our mother-tongue, or in foreign tongues, living or dead-must learn to define words precisely, and to determine the idiomatic meaning of phrases, and their limits. The written exercises of a boy or lad should have no other object than to develope his power of thinking, and to enrich and purify his language. If we are not content with our thoughts,-if we twist and turn about under the feeling of our emptiness, writing becomes terribly up-hill work, and we have hardly courage to persevere in it. This was my case at your age, and long after. There was no one who would enter into my distress and assist me, which, in my youth, would have been easy. This distress is

not felt when any one adopts a manner; for he has the outward form, which is so difficult to be attained when we have thoughts that we want to give shape to; or at least he fancies he has it; and many perhaps find others who are deceived by the semblance, though not good judges. But in acquiring a manner one loses all truth, and, by degrees, all capacity of producing any thing sound and independent. For the sake of wearing a look of completeness, the whole is puffed out with empty words, -all our own thoughts are distorted and worthless: we rank ourselves among those whom we fancy we resemble, and yet are nothing, and sink into the lowest class of imitators.

With a certain faculty of catching outward features, it must be very easy to acquire a manner; but to get free from it, when one has had the misfortune to be infected by it, is extremely difficult. The difficulty of unfolding and expressing our thoughts is no way lessened thereby, when we get to see our way; but we have to fight against the bad habit,— and seldom will any one maintain the double contest. If a person has been a mannerist long, he will not extricate himself from it without heroic exertions. I am, therefore, the more earnest in urging you to give up this habit altogether, and to avoid it most sedulously in future. Under the head of mannerism come all prolix, empty expositions, pretending to a deep insight into the spirit of a poet.

Above all things, however, in every branch of literature and science, must we preserve our truth so pure, as utterly to shun all false show,- so as never to assert any thing, however slight, for certain, of which we are not thoroughly convinced, so as to take the utmost pains, when we are expressing a conjecture, to make the degree of our belief apparent. If we do not, where it is possible, ourselves point out

defects which we perceive, and which others are not likely to discover; if, when we lay down our pen, we cannot say, in the presence of God,—I have written nothing knowingly which, after a severe examination, I do not believe to be true; in nothing have I deceived my reader, either with regard to myself or others; nor have I set my most odious adversary in any other light than I would answer for at my last hour,-if we cannot do this, learning and literature make us unprincipled and depraved.

Here I am conscious that I demand nothing from others, of which a higher spirit, reading my soul, could reproach me with ever having done the reverse. This scrupulousness, combined with my conception of what a philologer can and ought to be, if he comes before the world, and with my reverence for great scholars, made me so reluctant, long after I had attained to manhood, to appear with any work. Though often urged to do so, not without reproaches, by my friends, I felt that my hour was not yet come; which, had my life taken another course, might have come several years earlier.

In this matter I am so strict, that I utterly disapprove of the common practice of adopting references, after verifying them, without naming the source whence they are taken; and tedious as the double reference is, I never allow myself to dispense with it. When I cite a passage simply, I have found it out myself. He who does otherwise, assumes the appearance of more extensive reading than belongs to him.

Others may be less strict: nor should I blame them for it, if I can imagine that it is really altogether indifferent to them whether they are believed to have engaged in more profound researches than they have done; or if, like some persons, they supposed it taken for granted that references are mostly

borrowed. But from a young man, were it merely as an exercise of honesty, I demand a most scrupulous truth in literature, as in all other things, absolutely and without exception; so that it may become an integral part of his nature; or rather that the truth, which God planted in his nature, may abide there. By it alone can we fight our ways through the world. The hour when my Marcus should say an untruth, or give himself the shew of a merit which he had not, would make me very unhappy.

I come now to another part of my task of giving you advice. I wish you were not so fond of satires-even of Horace's. Turn to those works which elevate the heart, in which you see great men and great events, and live in a higher world: turn away from those which represent the mean and contemptible side of ordinary relations and degenerate ages. They are not fitted for the young; and the ancients would not have let them fall into your hands. Homer, Eschylus, Sophocles, Pindar,—these are the poets for youth, the poets with whom the great men of antiquity nourished themselves; and as long as literature shall give light to the world, they will ennoble the youthful souls that are filled with them for life.

Keep clear of miscellaneous reading, even of the ancient authors: among them, too, there are many very bad ones. Eolus only let the one wind blow which was to bear Ulysses to his goal; the others he tied up when let loose and crossing each other, they occasioned him endless wanderings.

Study history in two ways: according to persons, and according to states. Often make synchronistical surveys. The advice which I give you, I would give to any one in your place: the blame I should have to give to very many. Do not fancy that I do not know this, or that I do not willingly