perity of his country, having turned his thoughts entirely to politics and to finance. I know not if it was an ill-natured amufement which I recei ved the other morning from seeing him attack his old acquaintance Sanguine in the coffee-house, and drive him from the fire-place to the window, from the window to the door, and from the door out into the street, with a paper of obfervations on Mr Pitt's plan for reducing the national debt. Sanguine was dumb with vexation and contempt, which Profpect (who was full of bustle and of enjoyment from this new-fprung scheme) very innocently conftrued into the filence of attention, and concluded his purfuit, by thrufting the paper into the other's hand, telling him, that when next they met he should be glad to have his fentiments on the probability of the plan, and the juftnefs of the calculations.

It would, I believe, Sir, confiderably increase the stock of human happiness, if you could perfuade men like Mr Sanguine, that mifanthropy, comfortless as it is, is yet more an indulgence than a virtue; that a war with the world is generally 'founded on injustice; and that neither the yieldings of complacency, nor the fportfulness of good-humour, are inconfiftent with the dignity of wisdom. I am, &c.

V.

MODERATUS.

No 67. SATURDAY, May 13. 1786.

Studiumque immane loquendi. Ovid.

N°

O body will deny the fuperiority of the modern over the ancient world in almoft all the arts and fciences. But perhaps that fuperiority is not more obfervable when we think of the articles of modern acquirement in detail, than when we confider the facility which the present times have introduced in the art of obtaining knowledge in general; or, when that idea is applied to the young, the highly improved fyftem of Education which we have invented, fo much fimpler and more concife than that which the ignorance of our forefathers led them to adopt. Were it not beneath the dignity of the subject, one might apply to our prefent fyftem of education, what fome venders of little books of Arithmetic, Mathematics, and Aftronomy, have advertised of their performances-it is Education "made eafy to the meaneft capacities."

The ancient fyftem for the acquifition of knowledge, was by liftening to the inftructions of the VOL. II. C c

wife

wife and experienced; and in fome of the old schools, a probationary filence of a very long period was infifted on for that purpose. In those times, that might perhaps be fuitable enough; 'but now, when life, according to fome philofophers, is fo much fhortened, and there are fo many more things to talk about, the ancient mode would furely be very prepofterous. Indeed there is much reason to doubt if, even in ancient times, this method of liftening was fo much practifed as has sometimes been represented. Pytha goras, it is prefumed, like fome philofophers of our own days, chose to talk for all the reft of the company, and enjoined filence to his scholars, that he might have hearers; but Socrates, who had been taught better breeding by his wife, let them have more than word about with him. Plutarch indeed, another of their wife men, fays, in a Treatife upon Education, that "man has two powers, which give him the pre-eminence over all other animals, understanding and fpeech; that the firft is made to command, and the latter to obey; that understanding or mind is fuperior to accident or fortune, that fickness or disease has no power over it, and that the wrinkles of age do not diminish its beauty; that time, which conquers all things, has no effect on it, but, by a privilege peculiar to itself, it maintains its youth in

old

old age." This Plutarch, however, was himself one of the most talkative fellows in the world, and delighted in ftory-telling beyond any man of his time; and the defcription he has given as above, of understanding or intelligence, applies equally to the other faculty he meant to fet it over, to wit, that of fpeech. We have every day examples to convince us, that neither loss of fortune, bad health, or old age, has any power over the tongue; to it, indeed, the circumstance of its fuperior vigour when old applies fo ftrikingly, that one would almoft fuppofe an error in the text, and that there was here a mistake, which thofe Greeks had a hard word to exprefs, but which fignified, that one had put first what fhould have been last: On this fuppofition, what the author really meant to say is, that it is the business of the tongue to command, and the part of the understanding to obey.

Now this, when fo corrected, is pretty nearly the modern idea, which is, that knowledge is to be acquired fully as much, or rather more, by fpeaking than by hearing; and this rule, like all other rules of education, is to be attended to from the earliest years. Mothers, who, according to the ableft opinions on the head, are the beft inftructors of early youth, have particularly an excellent method of inculcating this doctrine Cc 2

on

When

on their pupils. As they grow up, thofe pupils are to be confirmed in the practice of it. brought into company, they are to be particularly cautioned against that antique bafhfulness which used to difqualify young people from.this attainment; as far indeed as youth might be ufed by way of argument for filence, they are to forget altogether their being young, and to talk, with the authority of experience, and the loquacity of age, in all places, public and private. Neither the Church nor the Playhoufe is to be excepted; and in public exhibitions of greater moment, if a young man, for example, happens to get into the Houfe of Commons, and gives himfelf any trouble about what is going on there, it is wonderful how much he may learn merely by speaking, as the daily examples of Orators, who get up without knowing any thing of what they are to talk about, evinces.

There is one part of the courfe of modern education, which might at first view be supposed unfavourable to this mode of acquiring knowledge and that is the article of travelling; because it often happens, that, from a want of the languages of those countries through which he is to pass, a young traveller cannot speak fo much as is proper for the purpofe. But this may be almoft entirely remedied in Paris, and other ca