Chapter XIII: Part 13

“Well—in I went yesterday, and was examined. It was such a queer concern. One of the junior Tutors had me up, and he must be a new hand, he was so uneasy. He gave me the slowest examination! I don’t know to this minute what he was at. He first said a word or two, and then was silent. He then asked me why we came up to Dublin, and did not go down; and put some absurd little questions about βαίνω. I was tolerably satisfied with myself, but he gave me no opportunity to show off. He asked me literally nothing; he did not even give me a passage to construe for a long time, and then gave me nothing more than two or three easy sentences. And he kept playing with his paper knife, and saying: ‘How are you now, Mr. Brown? don’t be alarmed, Mr. Brown; take your time, Mr. Brown; you know very well, Mr. Brown;’ so that I could hardly help laughing. I never was less afraid in my life. It would be wonderful if such an examination _could_ put me out of countenance.

“There’s a lot of things which I know very well, which the Examiner said not a word about. Indeed, I think I have been getting up a great many things for nothing;—provoking enough. I had read a good deal of Grote; but though I told him so, he did not ask me one question in it; and there’s Whewell, Macaulay, and Schlegel, all thrown away.

“He has not said a word yet where I am to be lodged. He looked quite confused when I asked him. He is, I suspect, a _character_.

“Your dutiful son, etc.,

“ROBERT.”

_Mr. White to Mr. Brown, sen._

“MY DEAR SIR,

“I have to acknowledge the kind letter you sent me by your son, and I am much pleased to find the confidence you express in us. Your son seems an amiable young man, of studious habits, and there is every hope, when he joins us, of his passing his academical career with respectability, and his examination with credit. This is what I should have expected from his telling me that he had been educated at home under your own paternal eye; indeed, if I do not mistake, you have undertaken the interesting office of instructor yourself.

“I hardly know what best to recommend to him at the moment: his reading has been _desultory_; he knows _something_ about a great many things, of which youths of his age commonly know nothing. Of course we _could_ take him into residence now, if you urge it; but my advice is that he should first direct his efforts to distinct preparation for our examination, and to study its particular character. Our rule is to recommend youths to do a _little well_, instead of throwing themselves upon a large field of study. I conceive it to be your son’s fault of mind not to see exactly the _point_ of things, nor to be so well _grounded_ as he might be. Young men are indeed always wanting in _accuracy_; this kind of deficiency is not peculiar to him, and he will doubtless soon overcome it when he sets about it.

“On the whole, then, if you will kindly send him up six months hence he will be more able to profit by our lectures. I will tell him what to read in the meanwhile. Did it depend on me, I should send him for that time to a good school or college, or I could find you a private Tutor for him.

“I am, etc.”

_Mr. Brown, sen., to Mr. White._

“SIR,

“Your letter, which I have received by this morning’s post, is gratifying to a parent’s feelings, so far as it bears witness to the impression which my son’s amiableness and steadiness have made on you. He is indeed a most exemplary lad: fathers are partial, and their word about their children is commonly not to be taken; but I flatter myself that the present case is an exception to the rule; for, if ever there was a well-conducted youth, it is my dear son. He is certainly very clever; and a closer student, and, for his age, of more extensive reading and sounder judgment, does not exist.

“With this conviction, you will excuse me if I say that there were portions of your letter which I could not reconcile with that part of it to which I have been alluding. You say he is ‘a young man of _studious habits_,’ having ‘_every hope_ of passing his academical career with respectability, and _his examination with credit_;’ you allow that ‘he knows something about a _great many things_, of which youths of his age commonly _know nothing_:’ no common commendation, I consider; yet, in spite of this, you recommend, though you do not exact, as a complete disarrangement of my plans (for I do not know how long my duties will keep me in Ireland), a postponement of his coming into residence for six months.

“Will you allow me to suggest an explanation of this inconsistency? It is found in your confession that the examination is of a ‘particular character.’ Of course it is very right in the governors of a great Institution to be ‘particular,’ and it is not for me to argue with them. Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that at this day nothing is so much wanted in education as _general_ knowledge. This alone will fit a youth _for the world_. In a less stirring time, it may be well enough to delay in particularities, and to trifle over minutiæ; but the world will not stand still for us, and, unless we are up to its requisitions, we shall find ourselves thrown out of the contest. A man must have _something in him_ now, to make his way; and the sooner we understand this, the better.

“It mortified me, I confess, to hear from my son, that you did not try him in a greater number of subjects, in handling which he would probably have changed your opinion of him. He has a good memory, and a great talent for history, ancient and modern, especially constitutional and parliamentary; another favourite study with him is the philosophy of history. He has read Pritchard’s Physical History, Cardinal Wiseman’s Lectures on Science, Bacon’s Advancement of Learning, Macaulay, and Hallam: I never met with a faster reader. I have let him attend, in England, some of the most talented lecturers in chemistry, geology, and comparative anatomy, and he sees the Quarterly Reviews and the best Magazines, as a matter of course. Yet on these matters not a word of examination!

“I have forgotten to mention, he has a very pretty idea of poetical composition: I enclose a fragment which I have found on his table, as well as one of his prose Essays.

“Allow me, as a warm friend of your undertaking, to suggest, that the _substance_ of knowledge is far more valuable than its _technicalities_; and that the vigour of the youthful mind is but _wasted_ on _barren_ learning, and its ardour is _quenched_ in _dry_ disquisition.

“I have the honour to be, etc.”

On the receipt of this letter, Mr. White will find, to his dissatisfaction, that he has not advanced one hair’s breadth in bringing home to Mr. Brown’s father the real state of the case, and has done no more than present himself as a mark for certain commonplaces, very true, but very inappropriate to the matter in hand. Filled with this disappointing thought, for a while he will not inspect the enclosures of Mr. Brown’s letter, being his son’s attempts at composition. At length he opens them, and reads as follows:

_Mr. Brown’s poetry_.

THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.(40)

Oh, might I flee to Araby the blest, The world forgetting, but its gifts possessed, Where fair-eyed peace holds sway from shore to shore, And war’s shrill clarion frights the air no more.

Heard ye the cloud-compelling blast(41) awake The slumbers of the inhospitable lake?(42) Saw ye the banner in its pride unfold The blush of crimson and the blaze of gold?

Raglan and St. Arnaud, in high command, Have steamed from old Byzantium’s hoary strand; The famed Cyanean rocks presaged their fight, Twin giants, with the astonished Muscovite.

So the loved maid, in Syria’s balmy noon, Forebodes the coming of the hot simoon, And sighs.… And longs.… And dimly traces.…

* * * * *

_Mr. Brown’s prose._

“FORTES FORTUNA ADJUVAT.”

“Of all the uncertain and capricious powers which rule our earthly destiny, fortune is the chief. Who has not heard of the poor being raised up, and the rich being laid low? Alexander the Great said he envied Diogenes in his tub, because Diogenes could have nothing less. We need not go far for an instance of fortune. Who was so great as Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russias, a year ago, and now he is ‘fallen, fallen from his high estate, without a friend to grace his obsequies.’(43) The Turks are the finest specimen of the human race, yet they, too, have experienced the vicissitudes of fortune. Horace says that we should wrap ourselves in our virtue, when fortune changes. Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what we expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the Constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne.

“From all this it appears, that we should rely on fortune only while it remains,—recollecting the words of the thesis, ‘Fortes fortuna adjuvat;’ and that, above all, we should ever cultivate those virtues which will never fail us, and which are a sure basis of respectability, and will profit us here and hereafter.”

* * * * *

On reading these compositions over, Mr. White will take to musing; then he will reflect that he may as well spare himself the trouble of arguing with a correspondent, whose principle and standard of judgment is so different from his own; and so he will write a civil letter back to Mr. Brown, enclosing the two papers.

3.

Mr. Brown, however, has not the resignation of Mr. White; and, on his Dublin friend, Mr. Black, paying him a visit, he will open his mind to him; and I am going to tell the reader all that will pass between the two.

Mr. Black is a man of education and of judgment. He knows the difference between show and substance; he is penetrated with the conviction that Rome was not built in a day, that buildings will not stand without foundations, and that, if boys are to be taught well, they must be taught slowly, and step by step. Moreover, he thinks in his secret heart that his own son Harry, whose acquaintance we have already formed, is worth a dozen young Browns. To him, then, not quite an impartial judge, Mr. Brown unbosoms his dissatisfaction, presenting to him his son’s Theme as an _experimentum crucis_ between him and Mr. White. Mr. Black reads it through once, and then a second time; and then he observes—

“Well, it is only the sort of thing which any boy would write, neither better nor worse. I speak candidly.”

On Mr. Brown expressing disappointment, inasmuch as the said Theme is _not_ the sort of thing which any boy could write, Mr. Black continues—

“There’s not one word of it upon the thesis; but all boys write in this way.”

Mr. Brown directs his friend’s attention to the knowledge of ancient history which the composition displays, of Alexander and Diogenes; of the history of Napoleon; to the evident interest which the young author takes in contemporary history, and his prompt application of passing events to his purpose; moreover, to the apposite quotation from Dryden, and the reference to Horace;—all proofs of a sharp wit and a literary mind.

But Mr. Black is more relentlessly critical than the occasion needs, and more pertinacious than any father can comfortably bear. He proceeds to break the butterfly on the wheel in the following oration:—

“Now look here,” he says, “the subject is ‘Fortes fortuna adjuvat’; now this is a _proposition_; it states a certain general principle, and this is just what an ordinary boy would be sure to miss, and Robert does miss it. He goes off at once on the word ‘fortuna.’ ‘Fortuna’ was not his subject; the thesis was intended to _guide_ him, for his own good; he refuses to be put into leading-strings; he breaks loose, and runs off in his own fashion on the broad field and in wild chase of ‘fortune,’ instead of closing with a subject, which, as being definite, would have supported him.

“It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to write on ‘fortune’; it would have been like asking him his opinion ‘of things in general.’ Fortune is ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘capricious,’ ‘unexpected,’ ten thousand things all at once (you see them all in the Gradus), and one of them as much as the other. Ten thousand things may be said of it: give me _one_ of them, and I will write upon it; I cannot write on more than one; Robert prefers to write upon all.

“ ‘Fortune favours the bold;’ here is a very definite subject: take hold of it, and it will steady and lead you on: you will know in what direction to look. Not one boy in a hundred does avail himself of this assistance; your boy is not solitary in his inaccuracy; all boys are more or less inaccurate, _because_ they are boys; boyishness of mind means inaccuracy. Boys cannot deliver a message, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence, without a blunder. They do not rouse up their attention and reflect: they do not like the trouble of it: they cannot look at anything steadily; and, when they attempt to write, off they go in a rigmarole of words, which does them no good, and never would, though they scribbled themes till they wrote their fingers off.

“A really clever youth, especially as his mind opens, is impatient of this defect of mind, even though, as being a youth, he be partially under its influence. He shrinks from a vague subject, as spontaneously as a slovenly mind takes to it; and he will often show at disadvantage, and seem ignorant and stupid, from seeing more and knowing more, and having a clearer perception of things than another has. I recollect once hearing such a young man, in the course of an examination, asked very absurdly what ‘his opinion’ was of Lord Chatham. Well, this was like asking him his view of ‘things in general.’ The poor youth stuck, and looked like a fool, though it was not _he_. The examiner, blind to his own absurdity, went on to ask him ‘what were the characteristics of English history.’ Another silence, and the poor fellow seemed to lookers-on to be done for, when his only fault was that he had better sense than his interrogator.

“When I hear such questions put, I admire the tact of the worthy Milnwood in _Old Mortality_, when in a similar predicament. Sergeant Bothwell broke into his house and dining-room in the king’s name, and asked him what he thought of the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s; the old man was far too prudent to hazard any opinion of his own, even on a precept of the Decalogue, when a trooper called for it; so he glanced his eye down the Royal Proclamation in the Sergeant’s hand, and appropriated its sentiments as an answer to the question before him. Thereby he was enabled to pronounce the said assassination to be ‘savage,’ ‘treacherous,’ ‘diabolical,’ and ‘contrary to the king’s peace and the security of the subject;’ to the edification of all present, and the satisfaction of the military inquisitor. It was in some such way my young friend got off. His guardian angel reminded him in a whisper that Mr. Grey, his examiner, had himself written a book on Lord Chatham and his times. This set him up at once; he drew boldly on his knowledge of his man for the political views advanced in it; was at no loss for definite propositions to suit his purpose; recovered his ground, and came off triumphantly.”

Here Mr. Black stops; and Mr. Brown takes advantage of the pause to insinuate that Mr. Black is not himself a disciple of his own philosophy, having travelled some way from his subject;—his friend stands corrected, and retraces his steps.

“The thesis,” he begins again, “is ‘Fortune favours the brave;’ Robert has gone off with the nominative without waiting for verb and accusative. He might as easily have gone off upon ‘brave,’ or upon ‘favour,’ except that ‘fortune’ comes first. He does not merely ramble from his subject, but he starts from a false point. Nothing could go right after this beginning, for having never gone _off_ his subject (as I did off mine), he never could come back to it. However, at least he might have kept to some subject or other; he might have shown some exactness or consecutiveness in detail; but just the contrary;—observe. He begins by calling fortune ‘a power’; let that pass. Next, it is one of the powers ‘which rule our earthly destiny,’ that is, _fortune_ rules _destiny_. Why, where there is fortune, there is no destiny; where there is destiny, there is no fortune. Next, after stating generally that fortune raises or depresses, he proceeds to exemplify: there’s Alexander, for instance, and Diogenes,—instances, that is, of what fortune did _not_ do, for they died, as they lived, in their respective states of life. Then comes the Emperor Nicholas _hic et nunc_; with the Turks on the other hand, place and time and case not stated. Then examples are dropped, and we are turned over to poetry, and what we ought to do, according to Horace, when fortune changes. Next, we are brought back to our examples, in order to commence a series of rambles, beginning with Napoleon the First. _Apropos_ of Napoleon the First comes in Napoleon the Third; this leads us to observe that the latter has acted ‘very differently from what we expected;’ and this again to the further remark, that no explanation has yet been given of his getting rid of the Constitution. He then ends by boldly quoting the thesis, in proof that we may rely on fortune, when we cannot help it; and by giving us advice, sound, but unexpected, to cultivate virtue.”

“O! Black, it is quite ludicrous” … breaks in Mr. Brown;—this Mr. Brown must be a very good-tempered man, or he would not bear so much:—this is my remark, not Mr. Black’s, who will not be interrupted, but only raises his voice: “Now, I know how this Theme was written,” he says, “first one sentence, and then your boy sat thinking, and devouring the end of his pen; presently down went the second, and so on. The rule is, first think, and then write: don’t write when you have nothing to say; or, if you do, you will make a mess of it. A thoughtful youth may deliver himself clumsily, he may set down little; but depend upon it, his half sentences will be worth more than the folio sheet of another boy, and an experienced examiner will see it.

“Now, I will prophesy one thing of Robert, unless this fault is knocked out of him,” continues merciless Mr. Black. “When he grows up, and has to make a speech, or write a letter for the papers, he will look out for flowers, full-blown flowers, figures, smart expressions, trite quotations, hackneyed beginnings and endings, pompous circumlocutions, and so on: but the meaning, the sense, the solid sense, the foundation, you may hunt the slipper long enough before you catch it.”

“Well,” says Mr. Brown, a little chafed, “you are a great deal worse than Mr. White; you have missed your vocation: you ought to have been a schoolmaster.” Yet he goes home somewhat struck by what his friend has said, and turns it in his mind for some time to come, when he gets there. He is a sensible man at bottom, as well as good-tempered, this Mr. Brown.

§ 3.

Latin Writing.

1.

Mr. White, the Tutor, is more and more pleased with young Mr. Black; and, when the latter asks him for some hints for writing Latin, Mr. White takes him into his confidence and lends him a number of his own papers. Among others he puts the following into Mr. Black’s hands.

_Mr. White’s view of Latin translation._

“There are four requisites of good Composition,—correctness of vocabulary, or diction, syntax, idiom, and elegance. Of these, the two first need no explanation, and are likely to be displayed by every candidate. The last is desirable indeed, but not essential. The point which requires especial attention is _idiomatic propriety_.

“By _idiom_ is meant that _use_ of words which is peculiar to a particular language. Two nations may have corresponding words for the same ideas, yet differ altogether in their _mode of using_ those words. For instance, ‘et’ _means_ ‘and,’ yet it does not always admit of being used in Latin, where ‘and’ is used in English. ‘Faire’ may be French for ‘do’; yet in a particular phrase, for ‘How do you _do_?’ ‘faire’ is not _used_, but ‘se porter,’ _viz._, ‘Comment vous _portez-vous_?’ An Englishman or a Frenchman would be almost unintelligible and altogether ridiculous to each other, who used the French or English _words_, with the idioms or _peculiar uses_ of his own language. Hence, the most complete and exact acquaintance with dictionary and grammar will utterly fail to teach a student to write or compose. Something more is wanted, _viz._, the knowledge of the _use_ of words and constructions, or the knowledge of _idiom_.

“Take the following English of a modern writer:

“ ‘This is a serious consideration:—Among men, as among wild beasts, the taste of blood creates the appetite for it, and the appetite for it is strengthened by indulgence.’

“Translate it word for word literally into Latin, thus:—

“ ‘Hæc est seria consideratio. Inter homines, ut inter feras, gustus sanguinis creat ejus appetitum, et ejus appetitus indulgentiâ roboratur.’

“Purer Latin, as far as _diction_ is concerned, more correct, as far as _syntax_, cannot be desired. Every word is classical, every construction grammatical: yet Latinity it simply has none. From beginning to end it follows the English _mode_ of speaking, or English idiom, not the Latin.

“In proportion, then, as a candidate advances from this Anglicism into Latinity, so far does he write good Latin.

“We might make the following remarks upon the above literal version.

“1. ‘Consideratio’ is not ‘_a_ consideration;’ the Latins, having no article, are driven to expedients to supply its place, _e.g._, _quidam_ is sometimes used for _a_.

“2. ‘Consideratio’ is not ‘a consideration,’ _i.e._, a _thing_ considered, or a subject; but the _act_ of considering.

“3. It must never be forgotten, that such words as ‘consideratio’ are generally metaphorical, and therefore cannot be used _simply_, and without limitation or explanation, in the English sense, according to which the _mental_ act is primarily conveyed by the word. ‘Consideratio,’ it is true, can be used absolutely, with greater propriety than most words of the kind; but if we take a parallel case, for instance, ‘agitatio,’ we could not use it at once in the mental sense for ‘agitation,’ but we should be obliged to say ‘agitatio _mentis_, _animi_,’ etc., though even then it would not answer to ‘agitation.’

“4. ‘Inter homines, gustus,’ etc. Here the English, as is not uncommon, throws two ideas together. It means, first, that something _occurs_ among men, and _occurs_ among wild beasts, and that it is the same thing which occurs among both; and secondly that this something is, that the taste of blood has a certain particular effect. In other words, it means, (1) ‘_this_ occurs among beasts and men,’ (2) _viz._, that the ‘taste of blood,’ etc. Therefore, ‘inter homines, etc., gustus creat, etc.,’ does not express the English _meaning_, it only translates its _expression_.

“5. ‘Inter homines’ is not the Latin phrase for ‘among.’ ‘Inter’ generally involves some sense of _division_, _viz._, interruption, contrast, rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular noun, ‘inter cœnam hoc accidit,’ _i.e._, this _interrupted_ the supper. And so with two nouns, ‘inter me et Brundusium Cæsar est.’ And so with a plural noun, ‘hoc _inter homines_ ambigitur,’ _i.e._, man with man. ‘Micat _inter omnes_ Julium sidus,’ _i.e._, in the rivalry of star against star. ‘Inter tot annos unus (vir) inventus est,’ _i.e._, though all those years, one by one, put in their claim, yet only one of them can produce a man, etc. ‘Inter se diligunt,’ they love each other. On the contrary, the Latin word for ‘among,’ simply understood, is ‘in.’

“6. As a general rule, indicatives active followed by accusatives, are foreign to the main structure of a Latin sentence.

“7. ‘Et;’ here two clauses are _connected_, having _different_ subjects or nominatives; in the former ‘appetitus’ is in the nominative, and in the latter in the accusative. It is usual in Latin to carry on the _same_ subject, in _connected_ clauses.

“8. ‘Et’ here connects two _distinct_ clauses. ‘Autem’ is more common.

“These being some of the faults of the literal version, I transcribe the translations sent in to me by six of my pupils respectively, who, however deficient in elegance of composition, and though more or less deficient in hitting the Latin idiom, yet evidently know what idiom is.

“The first wrote:—Videte rem graviorem; quod feris, id hominibus quoque accidit,—sanguinis sitim semel gustantibus intus concipi, plenè potantibus maturari.

“The second wrote:—Res seria agitur; nam quod in feris, illud in hominibus quoque cernitur, sanguinis appetitionem et suscitari lambendo et epulando inflammari.

“The third:—Ecce res summâ consideratione digna; et in feris et in hominibus, sanguinis semel delibati sitis est, sæpius hausti libido.

“The fourth:—Sollicitè animadvertendum est, cum in feris tum in hominibus fieri, ut guttæ pariant appetitum sanguinis, frequentiores potus ingluviem.

“And the fifth:—Perpende sedulo, gustum sanguinis tam in hominibus quam in feris primæ appetitionem sui tandem cupidinem inferre.

“And the sixth:—Hoc grave est, quod hominibus cum feris videmus commune, gustasse est appetere sanguinem, hausisse in deliciis habere.”

Mr. Black, junr., studies this paper, and considers that he has gained something from it. Accordingly, when he sees his father, he mentions to him Mr. White, his kindness, his papers, and especially the above, of which he has taken a copy. His father begs to see it; and, being a bit of a critic, forthwith delivers his judgment on it, and condescends to praise it; but he says that it fails in this, _viz._, in overlooking the subject of _structure_. He maintains that the turning-point of good or bad Latinity is, not idiom, as Mr. White says, but structure. Then Mr. Black, the father, is led on to speak of himself, and of his youthful studies; and he ends by giving Harry a history of his own search after the knack of writing Latin. I do not see quite how this is to the point of Mr. White’s paper, which cannot be said to contradict Mr. Black’s narrative; but for this very reason, I may consistently quote it, for from a different point of view it may throw light on the subject treated in common by both these literary authorities.

2.

_Old Mr. Black’s Confession of his search after a Latin style._

“The attempts and the failures and the successes of those who have gone before, my dear son, are the direction-posts of those who come after; and, as I am only speaking to you, it strikes me that I may, without egotism or ostentation, suggest views or cautions, which might indeed be useful to the University Student generally, by a relation of some of my own endeavours to improve my own mind, and to increase my own knowledge in my early life. I am no great admirer of self-taught geniuses; to be self-taught is a misfortune, except in the case of those extraordinary minds, to whom the title of genius justly belongs; for in most cases, to be self-taught is to be badly grounded, to be slovenly finished, and to be preposterously conceited. Nor, again, was that misfortune I speak of really mine; but I have been left at times just so much to myself, as to make it possible for young students to gain hints from the history of my mind, which will be useful to themselves. And now for my subject.

“At school I was reckoned a sharp boy; I ran through its classes rapidly; and by the time I was fifteen, my masters had nothing more to teach me, and did not know what to do with me. I might have gone to a public school, or to a private tutor for three or four years; but there were reasons against either plan, and at the unusual age I speak of, with some inexact acquaintance with Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, and Xenophon, Horace, Virgil, and Cicero, I was matriculated at the University. I had from a child been very fond of composition, verse and prose, English and Latin, and took especial interest in the subject of style; and one of the wishes nearest my heart was to write Latin well. I had some idea of the style of Addison, Hume, and Johnson, in English; but I had no idea what was meant by good Latin style. I had read Cicero without learning what it was; the books said, ‘This is neat Ciceronian language,’ ‘this is pure and elegant Latinity,’ but they did not tell me why. Some persons told me to go by my ear; to get Cicero by heart; and then I should know how to turn my thoughts and marshal my words, nay, more, where to put subjunctive moods and where to put indicative. In consequence I had a vague, unsatisfied feeling on the subject, and kept grasping shadows, and had upon me something of the unpleasant sensation of a bad dream.

“When I was sixteen, I fell upon an article in the _Quarterly_, which reviewed a Latin history of (I think) the Rebellion of 1715; perhaps by Dr. Whitaker. Years afterwards I learned that the critique was the writing of a celebrated Oxford scholar; but at the time, it was the subject itself, not the writer, that took hold of me. I read it carefully, and made extracts which, I believe, I have to this day. Had I known more of Latin writing, it would have been of real use to me; but as it was concerned of necessity in verbal criticisms, it did but lead me deeper into the mistake to which I had already been introduced,—that Latinity consisted in using good phrases. Accordingly I began noting down, and using in my exercises, idiomatic or peculiar expressions: such as ‘oleum perdidi,’ ‘haud scio an non,’ ‘cogitanti mihi,’ ‘verum enimvero,’ ‘equidem,’ ‘dixerim,’ and the like; and I made a great point of putting the verb at the end of the sentence. What took me in the same direction was Dumesnil’s Synonymes, a good book, but one which does not even profess to teach Latin writing. I was aiming to be an architect by learning to make bricks.

“Then I fell in with the _Germania_ and _Agricola_ of Tacitus, and was very much taken by his style. Its peculiarities were much easier to understand, and to copy, than Cicero’s: ‘decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile;’ and thus, without any advance whatever in understanding the genius of the language, or the construction of a Latin sentence, I added to my fine words and cut-and-dried idioms, phrases smacking of Tacitus. The Dialogues of Erasmus, which I studied, carried me in the same direction; for dialogues, from the nature of the case, consist of words and clauses, and smart, pregnant, or colloquial expressions, rather than of sentences with an adequate structure.”

Mr. Black takes breath, and then continues:

“The labour, then, of years came to nothing, and when I was twenty I knew no more of Latin composition than I had known at fifteen. It was then that circumstances turned my attention to a volume of Latin Lectures, which had been published by the accomplished scholar of whose critique in the _Quarterly Review_ I have already spoken. The Lectures in question had been delivered terminally while he held the Professorship of Poetry, and were afterwards collected into a volume; and various circumstances combined to give them a peculiar character. Delivered one by one at intervals, to a large, cultivated, and critical audience, they both demanded and admitted of special elaboration of the style. As coming from a person of his high reputation for Latinity, they were displays of art; and, as addressed to persons who had to follow _ex tempore_ the course of a discussion delivered in a foreign tongue, they needed a style as neat, pointed, lucid, and perspicuous as it was ornamental. Moreover, as expressing modern ideas in an ancient language, they involved a new development and application of its powers. The result of these united conditions was a style less simple, less natural and fresh, than Cicero’s; more studied, more ambitious, more sparkling; heaping together in a page the flowers which Cicero scatters over a treatise; but still on that very account more fitted for the purpose of inflicting upon the inquiring student what Latinity was. Any how, such was its effect upon me; it was like the ‘Open Sesame’ of the tale; and I quickly found that I had a new sense, as regards composition, that I understood beyond mistake what a Latin sentence should be, and saw how an English sentence must be fused and remoulded in order to make it Latin. Henceforth Cicero, as an artist, had a meaning, when I read him, which he never had had to me before; the bad dream of seeking and never finding was over; and, whether I ever wrote Latin or not, at least I knew what good Latin was.

“I had now learned that good Latinity lies in structure; that every word of a sentence may be Latin, yet the whole sentence remain English; and that dictionaries do not teach composition. Exulting in my discovery, I next proceeded to analyze and to throw into the shape of science that idea of Latinity to which I had attained. Rules and remarks, such as are contained in works on composition, had not led me to master the idea; and now that I really had gained it, it led me to form from it rules and remarks for myself. I could now turn Cicero to account, and I proceeded to make his writings the materials of an induction, from which I drew out and threw into form what I have called a science of Latinity,—with its principles and peculiarities, their connection and their consequences,—or at least considerable specimens of such a science, the like of which I have not happened to see in print. Considering, however, how much has been done for scholarship since the time I speak of, and especially how many German books have been translated, I doubt not I should now find my own poor investigations and discoveries anticipated and superseded by works which are in the hands of every school-boy. At the same time, I am quite sure that I gained a very great deal in the way of precision of thought, delicacy of judgment, and refinement of taste, by the processes of induction to which I am referring. I kept blank books, in which every peculiarity in every sentence of Cicero was minutely noted down, as I went on reading. The force of words, their combination into phrases, their collocation—the carrying on of one subject or nominative through a sentence, the breaking up of a sentence into clauses, the evasion of its categorical form, the resolution of abstract nouns into verbs and participles;—what is possible in Latin composition and what is not, how to compensate for want of brevity by elegance, and to secure perspicuity by the use of figures, these, and a hundred similar points of art, I illustrated with a diligence which even bordered on subtlety. Cicero became a mere magazine of instances, and the main use of the river was to feed the canal. I am unable to say whether these elaborate inductions would profit any one else, but I have a vivid recollection of the great utility they were at that time to my own mind.

“The general subject of Latin composition, my dear son, has ever interested me much, and you see only one point in it has made me speak for a quarter of an hour; but now that I have had my say about it, what is its upshot? The great moral I would impress upon you is this, that in learning to write Latin, as in all learning, you must not trust to books, but only make use of them; not hang like a dead weight upon your teacher, but catch some of his life; handle what is given you, not as a formula, but as a pattern to copy and as a capital to improve; throw your heart and mind into what you are about, and thus unite the separate advantages of being tutored and of being self-taught,—self-taught, yet without oddities, and tutorized, yet without conventionalities.”

“Why, my dear father,” says young Mr. Black, “you speak like a book. You must let me ask you to write down for me what you have been giving out in conversation.”

_I_ have had the advantage of the written copy.

§ 4.

General Religious Knowledge.

1.

It has been the custom in the English Universities to introduce religious instruction into the School of Arts; and a very right custom it is, which every University may well imitate. I have certainly felt it ought to have a place in that School; yet the subject is not without its difficulty, and I intend to say a few words upon it here. That place, if it has one, should of course be determined on some intelligible principle, which, while it justifies the introduction of Religion into a secular Faculty, will preserve it from becoming an intrusion, by fixing the conditions under which it is to be admitted. There are many who would make over the subject of Religion to the theologian exclusively; there are others who allow it almost unlimited extension in the province of Letters. The latter of these two classes, if not large, at least is serious and earnest; it seems to consider that the Classics should be superseded by the Scriptures and the Fathers, and that Theology proper should be taught to the youthful aspirant for University honours. I am not here concerned with opinions of this character, which I respect, but cannot follow. Nor am I concerned with that large class, on the other hand, who, in their exclusion of Religion from the lecture-rooms of Philosophy and Letters (or of Arts, as it used to be called), are actuated by scepticism or indifference; but there are other persons, much to be consulted, who arrive at the same practical conclusion as the sceptic and unbeliever, from real reverence and pure zeal for the interests of Theology, which they consider sure to suffer from the superficial treatment of lay-professors, and the superficial reception of young minds, as soon as, and in whatever degree, it is associated with classical, philosophical, and historical studies;—and as very many persons of great consideration seem to be of this opinion, I will set down the reasons why I follow the English tradition instead, and in what sense I follow it.

I might appeal, I conceive, to authority in my favour, but I pass it over, because mere authority, however sufficient for my own guidance, is not sufficient for the definite direction of those who have to carry out the matter of it in practice.

2.

In the first place, then, it is congruous certainly that youths who are prepared in a Catholic University for the general duties of a secular life, or for the secular professions, should not leave it without some knowledge of their religion; and, on the other hand, it does, in matter of fact, act to the disadvantage of a Christian place of education, in the world and in the judgment of men of the world, and is a reproach to its conductors, and even a scandal, if it sends out its pupils accomplished in all knowledge except Christian knowledge; and hence, even though it were impossible to rest the introduction of religious teaching into the secular lecture-room upon any logical principle, the imperative necessity of its introduction would remain, and the only question would be, what matter was to be introduced, and how much.

And next, considering that, as the mind is enlarged and cultivated generally, it is capable, or rather is desirous and has need, of fuller religious information, it is difficult to maintain that that knowledge of Christianity which is sufficient for entrance at the University is all that is incumbent on students who have been submitted to the academical course. So that we are unavoidably led on to the further question, viz., shall we sharpen and refine the youthful intellect, and then leave it to exercise its new powers upon the most sacred of subjects, as it will, and with the chance of its exercising them wrongly; or shall we proceed to feed it with divine truth, as it gains an appetite for knowledge?

Religious teaching, then, is urged upon us in the case of University students, first, by its evident propriety; secondly, by the force of public opinion; thirdly, from the great inconveniences of neglecting it. And, if the subject of Religion is to have a real place in their course of study, it must enter into the examinations in which that course results; for nothing will be found to impress and occupy their minds but such matters as they have to present to their Examiners.

Such, then, are the considerations which actually oblige us to introduce the subject of Religion into our secular schools, whether it be logical or not to do so; but next, I think that we can do so without any sacrifice of principle or of consistency; and this, I trust, will appear, if I proceed to explain the mode which I should propose to adopt for the purpose:—

I would treat the subject of Religion in the School of Philosophy and Letters simply as a branch of knowledge. If the University student is bound to have a knowledge of History generally, he is bound to have inclusively a knowledge of sacred history as well as profane; if he ought to be well instructed in Ancient Literature, Biblical Literature comes under that general description as well as Classical; if he knows the Philosophy of men, he will not be extravagating from his general subject, if he cultivate also that Philosophy which is divine. And as a student is not necessarily superficial, though he has not studied all the classical poets, or all Aristotle’s philosophy, so he need not be dangerously superficial, if he has but a parallel knowledge of Religion.

3.

However, it may be said that the risk of theological error is so serious, and the effects of theological conceit are so mischievous, that it is better for a youth to know nothing of the sacred subject, than to have a slender knowledge which he can use freely and recklessly, for the very reason that it is slender. And here we have the maxim in corroboration: “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

This objection is of too anxious a character to be disregarded. I should answer it thus:—In the first place it is obvious to remark, that one great portion of the knowledge here advocated is, as I have just said, historical knowledge, which has little or nothing to do with doctrine. If a Catholic youth mixes with educated Protestants of his own age, he will find them conversant with the outlines and the characteristics of sacred and ecclesiastical history as well as profane: it is desirable that he should be on a par with them, and able to keep up a conversation with them. It is desirable, if he has left our University with honours or prizes, that he should know as well as they about the great primitive divisions of Christianity, its polity, its luminaries, its acts, and its fortunes; its great eras, and its course down to this day. He should have some idea of its propagation, and of the order in which the nations, which have submitted to it, entered its pale; and of the list of its Fathers, and of its writers generally, and of the subjects of their works. He should know who St. Justin Martyr was, and when he lived; what language St. Ephraim wrote in; on what St. Chrysostom’s literary fame is founded; who was Celsus, or Ammonius, or Porphyry, or Ulphilas, or Symmachus, or Theodoric. Who were the Nestorians; what was the religion of the barbarian nations who took possession of the Roman Empire: who was Eutyches, or Berengarius, who the Albigenses. He should know something about the Benedictines, Dominicans, or Franciscans, about the Crusades, and the chief movers in them. He should be able to say what the Holy See has done for learning and science; the place which these islands hold in the literary history of the dark age; what part the Church had, and how her highest interests fared, in the revival of letters; who Bessarion was, or Ximenes, or William of Wykeham, or Cardinal Allen. I do not say that we can insure all this knowledge in every accomplished student who goes from us, but at least we can admit such knowledge, we can encourage it, in our lecture-rooms and examination-halls.

And so in like manner, as regards Biblical knowledge, it is desirable that, while our students are encouraged to pursue the history of classical literature, they should also be invited to acquaint themselves with some general facts about the canon of Holy Scripture, its history, the Jewish canon, St. Jerome, the Protestant Bible; again, about the languages of Scripture, the contents of its separate books, their authors, and their versions. In all such knowledge I conceive no great harm can lie in being superficial.

But now as to Theology itself. To meet the apprehended danger, I would exclude the teaching _in extense_ of pure dogma from the secular schools, and content myself with enforcing such a broad knowledge of doctrinal subjects as is contained in the catechisms of the Church, or the actual writings of her laity. I would have students apply their minds to such religious topics as laymen actually do treat, and are thought praiseworthy in treating. Certainly I admit that, when a lawyer or physician, or statesman, or merchant, or soldier sets about discussing theological points, he is likely to succeed as ill as an ecclesiastic who meddles with law, or medicine, or the exchange. But I am professing to contemplate Christian knowledge in what may be called its secular aspect, as it is practically useful in the intercourse of life and in general conversation; and I would encourage it so far as it bears upon the history, the literature, and the philosophy of Christianity.

It is to be considered that our students are to go out into the world, and a world not of professed Catholics, but of inveterate, often bitter, commonly contemptuous, Protestants; nay, of Protestants who, so far as they come from Protestant Universities and public schools, do know their own system, do know, in proportion to their general attainments, the doctrines and arguments of Protestantism. I should desire, then, to encourage in our students an intelligent apprehension of the relations, as I may call them, between the Church and Society at large; for instance, the difference between the Church and a religious sect; the respective prerogatives of the Church and the civil power; what the Church claims of necessity, what it cannot dispense with, what it can; what it can grant, what it cannot. A Catholic hears the celibacy of the clergy discussed in general society; is that usage a matter of faith, or is it not of faith? He hears the Pope accused of interfering with the prerogatives of her Majesty, because he appoints an hierarchy. What is he to answer? What principle is to guide him in the remarks which he cannot escape from the necessity of making? He fills a station of importance, and he is addressed by some friend who has political reasons for wishing to know what is the difference between Canon and Civil Law, whether the Council of Trent has been received in France, whether a Priest cannot in certain cases absolve prospectively, what is meant by his _intention_, what by the _opus operatum_; whether, and in what sense, we consider Protestants to be heretics; whether any one can be saved without sacramental confession; whether we deny the reality of natural virtue, or what worth we assign to it?

Questions may be multiplied without limit, which occur in conversation between friends, in social intercourse, or in the business of life, when no argument is needed, no subtle and delicate disquisition, but a few direct words stating the fact, and when perhaps a few words may even hinder most serious inconveniences to the Catholic body. Half the controversies which go on in the world arise from ignorance of the facts of the case; half the prejudices against Catholicity lie in the misinformation of the prejudiced parties. Candid persons are set right, and enemies silenced, by the mere statement of what it is that we believe. It will not answer the purpose for a Catholic to say, “I leave it to theologians,” “I will ask my priest;” but it will commonly give him a triumph, as easy as it is complete, if he can then and there lay down the law. I say “lay down the law;” for remarkable it is that even those who speak against Catholicism like to hear about it, and will excuse its advocate from alleging arguments if he can gratify their curiosity by giving them information. Generally speaking, however, as I have said, what is given as information will really be an argument as well as information. I recollect, some twenty-five years ago, three friends of my own, as they then were, clergymen of the Establishment, making a tour through Ireland. In the West or South they had occasion to become pedestrians for the day; and they took a boy of thirteen to be their guide. They amused themselves with putting questions to him on the subject of his religion; and one of them confessed to me on his return that that poor child put them all to silence. How? Not, of course, by any train of arguments, or refined theological disquisition, but merely by knowing and understanding the answers in his catechism.

4.

Nor will argument itself be out of place in the hands of laymen mixing with the world. As secular power, influence, or resources are never more suitably placed than when they are in the hands of Catholics, so secular knowledge and secular gifts are then best employed when they minister to Divine Revelation. Theologians inculcate the matter, and determine the details of that Revelation; they view it from within; philosophers view it from without, and this external view may be called the Philosophy of Religion, and the office of delineating it externally is most gracefully performed by laymen. In the first age laymen were most commonly the Apologists. Such were Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Aristides, Hermias, Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius. In like manner in this age some of the most prominent defences of the Church are from laymen: as De Maistre, Chateaubriand, Nicolas, Montalembert, and others. If laymen may write, lay students may read; they surely may read what their fathers may have written. They might surely study other works too, ancient and modern, written whether by ecclesiastics or laymen, which, although they do contain theology, nevertheless, in their structure and drift, are polemical. Such is Origen’s great work against Celsus; and Tertullian’s Apology; such some of the controversial treatises of Eusebius and Theodoret; or St. Augustine’s City of God; or the tract of Vincentius Lirinensis. And I confess that I should not even object to portions of Bellarmine’s Controversies, or to the work of Suarez on laws, or to Melchior Canus’s treatises on the Loci Theologici. On these questions in detail, however,—which are, I readily acknowledge, very delicate,—opinions may differ, even where the general principle is admitted; but, even if we confine ourselves strictly to the Philosophy, that is, the external contemplation, of Religion, we shall have a range of reading sufficiently wide, and as valuable in its practical application as it is liberal in its character. In it will be included what are commonly called the Evidences; and what is a subject of special interest at this day, the Notes of the Church.

* * * * *

But I have said enough in general illustration of the rule which I am recommending. One more remark I make, though it is implied in what I have been saying:—Whatever students read in the province of Religion, they read, and would read from the very nature of the case, under the superintendence, and with the explanations, of those who are older and more experienced than themselves.

Lecture V.

A Form Of Infidelity Of The Day.