I shall not press this argument beyond its proper limits. Compared with others it is, I freely admit, of minor importance. I shall offer, therefore, a few remarks, illustrative of this point, and leave them to be estimated according to their real value.

The analysis and study of language possesses a peculiarity which lies at the foundation of my argument; viz. that it is the analysis and study of a production or workmanship of the mind itself, — designed, primarily and solely, to depict its own conceptions and emotions. Every language, in every stage of its cultivation, in its first rude and contracted form, and in its largest development, not only indicates the general intelligence and design of the workman, as in the productions of the pencil or the chisel, but presents also the connected and glowing conceptions of the mind itself, as the object of representation. Every word, every part of speech, every expressive particle, with their delicate relations and connections, had their origin in corresponding mental conceptions. In the rudest and most uncultivated language, may be seen, as in a mirror, the mind with its essential faculties in unceasing activity. Every word is the representative of some definite conception in the mind; every connecting particle is there, because the connection of those conceptions in the mind, demanded a corresponding expression. Every sentence is a proposition, every paragraph, section, or chapter delineates the more or less protracted reasonings of the mind itself; and the whole production, perpetuated by language, is, in its entireness, a counterpart of the connected ratiocinations, the discriminating views, the nice judgments, the glowing sentiments, or the kindling emotions of the mind that gave them birth.

I might further insist on the fact, that the mental process by which a language advances from barrenness to copiousness; from a narrow vocabulary of terms, and their restricted application, to the comprehensive range of a high literary and scientific culture; is the same with that unconsciously brought into play, in the sublime imaginings of the poet. The clown, in his rude efforts at expression by language, as well as the child of inspiration, in his more refined attempts to give "a local habitation and a name" to the dark musings of his soul, employ, unceasingly, the well known metaphor, the soul of language.

True; the knowledge thus obtained is not the formal, technical, and systematic knowledge received from scholastic treatises on logic and metaphysics. But a slight examination of the

manner in which it is obtained, will satisfy us of its reality and utility.

It comes to us both indirectly and directly. Indirectly; in our ordinary use of language, without a design to elicit this information. - Directly; in the minute analysis of language, for the purpose of logical or psychological illustration. Nay, the metaphysician himself, who soars habitually in ethereal regions of pure thought, descends, occasionally, to the murky atmosphere below, and seeks his happiest illustrations from the structure of language.

Further; the analysis of language, for the purpose of detecting the workings of mind, both in its formation and development, and in its application and use, has one advantage over speculative methods. It spreads before us the mind as it is, as it was, and as it will ever be, in its essential faculties and their characteristic operation. No theory is to be built up; no hypothesis to be supported; no preconceived notions to be established; but plain, uncontrovertible, and unchangeable facts, with deductions almost instinctively made from those facts, characterize the analysis of language as a source of information concerning our mental powers.

The influence of the indirect mode is silently but efficiently exerted in our earliest years. So that, when the formal, technical, and systematic instructions of the school are first presented to the young mind, they find a foundation already formed on which to rest. As a man who resorts daily to a mirror, for the adjustment of a portion of his dress, forms an acquaintance with his own features, although not themselves the direct object of attention; so, in the daily use of language, for literary purposes, we form, unconsciously, an acquaintance with the general features of mind, although not directly an object of our regard.

Again; I argue the importance of the study of language, as a means of intellectual culture,

II. From the fact that it secures the seasonable, symmetrical, and simultaneous exercise of all our intellectual faculties.

When I speak of this exercise as seasonable, I mean that it adapts itself to every age, sex, and condition. For the purposes of intellectual culture, it lends its aid, not only to quicken the germ, to expand the flower, to form the seed; but also to produce the blushing fruit.

When I speak of this exercise of the intellectual faculties as

symmetrical, I mean that this department of study secures fo those faculties their consistent and proportionate degree of ac tion, and prevents a morbid accumulation of vigor in any one part. It can do more than any other study, to keep our mental powers revolving each in its appropriate orbit, and exemplify the imaginary" music of the spheres.

When I speak of this exercise of our faculties as simultaneous, I mean that, by this study, the powers of the mind are conjointly brought into action, and not in distant succession. They move onward together. They come into the field with their combined force, and not by detachments. It is this circumstance that renders the phrase "mental discipline," so pregnant with meaning.

Finally, when I speak of this study as calling into exercise all the powers of the mind, I mean that no one is left unexercised. It is not a partial but an universal influence; not the education of a few, and the consignment of the rest to inefficiency and decay; but the drawing forth and cherishing, invigorating and enlarging, the capabilities of all.

It is well remarked by an able writer in a late Edinburgh Review," the difference between different studies, in their contracting influence, is great. Some exercise, and consequently develop, perhaps, one faculty on a single phasis, or to a low degree; whilst others, from the variety of objects and relations they present, calling into strong and unexclusive activity the whole circle of the higher powers, may almost pretend to accomplish alone the work of catholic education."

This is strong language, but the offspring of a thinking and observing mind.

I might, now, in elucidation of this part of my argument, direct attention to the usual elementary and grammatical studies of the Greek and Latin languages, and point out the influence of those studies on the expanding intellect; but I forbear, for the following reasons: First, the space allotted to me would not suffice to dwell on this subordinate part of my subject, conjointly with those of higher moment. Secondly, this part of the subject has been again and again insisted on by able advocates of the study of languages. And thirdly, it is virtually embraced in the exercises of translation and of etymology to which, as some of the most efficient means of intellectual culture, I design particularly to invite attention.

The business of translating may be regarded in a twofold

light-first, as aiming to transfer into our vernacular tongue, an entire work, or works, of a foreign author, for the general purposes of literature: secondly, as an exercise more limited in its character, resorted to for the purposes of intellectual culture and mental discipline, (in a college course,) and commonly denominated, "recitations in the languages." To this view of the subject, the remarks I have to offer will be exclusively limited. The assertion I am about to make may appear presumptuous. I venture, however, to make it on the strength of some experience and observation, that a good translator is a rare phenomenon one who can express, with precision, the sense, the whole sense, and nothing but the sense, of the author, in a consistent vernacular dress;—who will not content himself with a mass of vague and disconnected words, but aims unceasingly to adapt his vernacular idiom and style to the style and idiom of his author: nay, further, who can even be dense and vigorous with Thucydides; verbose and playful with Herodotus ; sublime and simple with Homer; sententious with Tacitus; and copious with Cicero, - presenting, not a meagre, nerveless skeleton; but "a thing of life,” a form exhibiting the unequivocal marks of health and vigor.

But why is this attainment so uncommon? Why is the exercise so difficult? Is it owing to the fixedness of attention, and concentration of thought, which it demands? The nice and even painful discrimination which it requires? The exquisite precision in the application of our words, without which it always proves a failure? Certainly, the mind that can grapple with the mathematics its formidable array of lines, and angles, and superficies, and solids, its stereographic projections, its fluxions, and interminable series, need not shrink, on the score of intellectual hardness, from the exercise of translation, in its highest perfection, and its largest demands.

Or, shall we look for the cause in the indifference with which the exercise is almost universally regarded; and the too prevalent ignorance of its direct and important bearing on intellectual discipline and mental culture.

Let us inquire, then, what is requisite for the production of a good translation; and what advantages does the exercise proffer.

In translating a passage, we aim to transfer the thoughts and sentiments of a foreign author, and also to transfuse the spirit, the force, the expressiveness, or other characteristics of the passage,

into our vernacular tongue. To accomplish this, with tolerable success, supposes an acquaintance, more or less minute, with the original language; a well-defined conception, in our own minds, of the thought to be transferred; and an adequate familiarity with our own tongue, as the medium of communication.

The first thing then to be done is to compass the meaning of the original author. The necessity of grammars and dictionaries, and other elementary helps, for this purpose, is so manifest, I need not dwell upon it here. As regards the manner of using them, however, and the opportunities afforded by their proper use, for a most efficient intellectual exercise, a few observations may not be superfluous.

A grammar is frequently regarded with a superstitious veneration, as if it had fallen from heaven, complete and infallible; or, had sprung from the brain of some inspired philosopher, like Minerva, in panoply entire, from the cranium of Jove. Whereas, all mystery apart, a grammar presents us with facts, originally scattered abroad in the vast field of the language, carefully collected, arranged and classified, with deductions of general principles or rules, from these facts; the correctness of which deductions, as they are founded on facts originally drawn from the language, must be again tested by researches in the language. "The object of grammatical science," says an able writer, "is to determine the means by which mankind are able to carry on trains of thought in their own minds, and to communicate them to others an object certainly as interesting and worthy of research as any that can be propounded for human consideration. In this point of view," he continues, "grammar may be regarded strictly as a science of induction."

The most obvious use of a grammar, then, is, to furnish us with those forms of inflexions and constructions, a knowledge of which is necessary for the successful and rapid acquisition of a language, and which, if not obtained through the medium of a grammar, must be obtained by a more laborious process from the language itself.

But having once started, we ought, as far as possible, to elicit the grammar and particularly the syntax-from the language itself, in the progress of our reading. This gives to the study of the languages a peculiar zest. We put in requisition our own powers. We rouse our latent energies. We delight in our own discoveries. We experience a generous feeling of independence. Meanwhile, the mind, in all its faculties, not