his further advancement. These alone will indeed render him ingenious in his closet, but will avail little at the bedside without other aid. To these must be added a most accurate observation of the human frame in all its fluctuations of health, disease, and convalescence. The reading of cases strictly delineated, is found to be the best succedaneum where actual practice and observation are precluded. System is in general delusive and insufficient.

To the professed lawyer, scarcely any book on the subject of law is uninteresting or useless. But he who pursues the study merely as an accomplishment in a comprehensive plan of education, will find all the necessary lights in the volumes of Grotius, Puffendorf, Burn, and Blackstone.

He who wishes to gain a complete knowledge of grammar, may succeed in his attempt without loading his memory with the works of Priscian, or of those thousands who have toiled in this circumscribed province. Let him, after having studied grammatically the elements of Latin and Greek, digest the Hermes of Harris, and the Introduction of Lowth.

The art of rhetoric never yet formed an English orator. It is one of those artificial assistances of genius, which genius wants not, and of which dulness can little avail itself. But as there are excellent books written on it, the general scholar must pay it his attention. Let him then read Cicero on the Orator, and Quinctilian's Institutes, and he need not trouble himself with those meagre treatises which give a hard name to the natural modes of expression, and teach us that, like Hudibras, we cannot ope our mouths, but out there flies a trope.

attend to logic, may with propriety neglect all the rubbish of the schools, and next to the Stagyrite himself, study only the works of Saunderson, Wallis, Watts, and Harris.

If the barren field of metaphysics is ever capable of repaying the toil of cultivation, it can only be when the attention is confined to such authors as Locke, Hucheson, and Beattie.

If ethics are to be considered in the systematical method of a science, the moral philosophy of Hucheson may be recommended as one of the clearest, the most elegant, and the concisest treatises that have appeared upon them. The numerous writers who have fabricated fanciful and destructive systems, may be suffered to sink in the gulf of

oblivion never to emerge.

In natural philosophy, the airy fabrics of hypothetical visions ought not to claim the attention of a moment. The sun of Newton has absorbed the radiance of all other luminaries in this department. His works and those of his followers will, of course, supersede the infinite number of folios, which, to use the expressions of Horace, may be sent to wrap up frankincense and perfumes, the only way in which they can now be useful. He to whom the works of the great philosopher are unintelligible, may acquiesce with security in the illustrations of Pemberton and Rowning. The lover of natural history, zoology, and botany, will not be at a loss in the selection of books, while fame resounds the names of Buffon, of Pennant, of Linnæus. The Romances of Pliny and his imitators will have no charms with the lover of truth.

To the classical scholar, the proper books are usually pointed out by the superintendants of his education; and when once he has tasted them, his

of modern productions. Every one knows who were the best authors in the Augustan age; and the chief caution necessary is, that the text of a Virgil, a Horace, an Ovid, may not be lost in the attention given to the tedious comments of a few Dutchmen. I have known those who have toiled through the classics, cum notis variorum, much less acquainted with them than he who never read them but in Sandby's edition. In attending to Burman and Heinsius, they overlooked the text; which was lost like a jewel in a dunghill. These laborious annotators explain what needs not explanation, and, with a little critical knavery, pass by a real difficulty without notice. I am convinced that a taste for the classics is rather impeded than promoted by the Dauphin edition, in which boys are initiated: but in which the words of the author are choaked, like wholesome plants among weeds, by the notes and interpretation. To be possessed of comments on the classics is however desirable, for difficulties will sometimes occur which at first sight perplex the most ingenious; but I should prefer, for common reading, such editions as that of Jones's Horace.

Directions for the formation of the lady's library have often been wanted by those, who, with an inclination for the elegant amusement of reading, have been unable to indulge it without danger, because they had none to guide them in their choice. In my humble opinion, the following books might have a place in it, not only without hazard of ill consequences, but with great advantage to taste, and to that personal beauty which arises from mental.. All the periodical publications of repute that have been written on the model of the Spectator, Rollin's Works, Plutarch's Lives, Shaks

rians of their own country, may be strongly recommended. To these, for the sake of imbibing a classical taste, may be added the best translations of the ancients, Pope's Homer, Dryden's Virgil, and Melmoth's Pliny. If French books are required, those of Boileau, Fontenelle, Le Pluche, and some select pieces of Voltaire and Rousseau, may with propriety be admitted. Novels, it is feared, will not be dispensed with. Those then of Richardson and Fielding, are allowed, yet not without reluctance. Every thing indelicate will of course be excluded; but perhaps there is not less danger in works called sentimental. They attack the heart more successfully, because more cautiously. Religious books will find a place, but not without restriction; for there is a species of devotional composition, which, by inflaming the passions and imagination, contributes to corruption, while it seems to promote the warmest piety. From their sensibility of heart and warmth of fancy, the softer sex is supposed to be most inclined to admit the errors of mystics and enthusiasts.

No. CLXXV.

Cursory Remarks on the Odyssey, on Pope's Translation, Mr. Spence's Essay, &c.

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IT is generally agreed, that the Odyssey is inferior to the Iliad. It is thought by Longinus, as well as by other critics, to have been the production of Homer's old age, when it may reasonably be supposed the ardour of his genius was in some degree abated. "In the Odyssey," says that critic, may be justly said to resemble the setting sun, whose grandeur still remains without the original heat of his beams. Like the ocean, whose very shores when deserted by the tide, mark out how wide it sometimes flows; so Homer's genius, when ebbing into all those fabulous and incredible ramblings of Ulysses, show plainly how sublime it once had been. I am speaking of old age, but it is the old age of Homer."

It is certain, that if the Odyssey is not to be placed in the same rank with the Iliad, so neither ought it to obtain so low a class as to be overlooked and disregarded. It has, however, been neglected by the moderns, and they who have been able to repeat the Iliad, have scarcely deigned to read the Odyssey. Every school boy is acquainted with the anger of Achilles and its consequences, while he neither knows nor is solicitous to learn the adventures of the wise Ulysses: though wisdom it may be supposed, would be commonly a better model for his imitation than valour.

An ingenious writer has endeavoured to vindicate the Odyssey from the neglect in which it has long