beauties. The thoughts, the figures, the language, the verse, are unrivalled. Dryden and Gray, I might perhaps add Pope, have profited largely from the happy combinations, and the bold application of language to be found in this poem. Milton taught us the full force of the English language. And his imagination was so active, his knowledge was so unbounded, that every line is replete with curious information, with striking sentiment, or with poetical fancy. At the same time he draws a picture as no other man could have drawn it; for the entire foundation of his narrative of the Fall, is founded upon the most slender authority imaginable, two or three short passages in the Epistle of St. Jude. There are neat pocket editions of all the Epics, and I recommend them to your attention. 1 LETTER XXVII. Choice of Reading, and Authors. MY DEAR CHILdren, Possessed of these general views of Poetry, or the Belles Lettres, as the literature of fancy and taste is called, you will be qualified to enter upon a course of amusing and instructive reading; but mark me, much will depend on your interpretation of these words. By amusing and instructive reading, I do not mean the froth of circulating libraries-the hasty productions whose claims to attention depend on newspaper paragraphs and advertisements-the literary mushrooms engendered by the stomachs rather than the genius of authors, which spring up today and die to-morrow;-no,-I mean those productions of mind which, during the last two thousand years, have survived the arts of puffing, and claim by their intrinsic merit the homage of succeed. ing ages. Far be it from me, however, to damp the ardour of living merit when it aims at the applause of posterity. If none aspired and none were encouraged to aspire, we should have had no monuments even of the genius of past ages. I protest only against those who do not affect to aspire, who feed the appetite of the day, who flatter any popular prejudice, who pamper any false taste, and who, having no purpose but gain, sacrifice principles, honour, and virtue, to effect their object by means of advertisements and circulating libraries. Far from decrying living merit, I lament that more certain means do not exist of distinguishing it; that contemporary criticism does not honestly and impartially discriminate; and that true genius often lives in rags and dies in want, because the speaking-trumpets of literature are in the hands of knaves, or directed by coteries of writers whose sole object is to serve their own base purposes. But for amusing and instructive reading, at least till you are at mature years, I refer to the translations of the classic authors, and to the best works of the standard authors in our native language. For example, I would not have you prefer any works of the day to Pope's Homer, Dryden's Virgil, Francis's Horace, Hoole's Tasso, and Milton's Paradise Lost. Till you have read these it would be monstrous to waste your time on inferior productions. In like manner, till you have read all the poetry of Pope, Gray, Cowper, and some others, it would be dangerous to your taste, and really a waste of time, to read the sonneteers of the day. But with these foundations well laid, I leave you afterwards to your own discretion. In like manner till you have read the select prose works of Addison, Johnson, and Blair, a good Grecian, Roman, and English history, and some able works of standard biography, in which Boswell's Johnson should never be forgotten; nor till you have read the best novels of Richardson, Fielding, and Burney ought you to be eager to read any ephemeral prose works. When, however, you have sedulously gone through this delightful task, you may then do as you please, for with a mind so disciplined and so prepared, you must be perverse indeed if you do wrong. I charge you, however, to remember, that with reference to the mind, novel reading is very similar to the drinking of spirits and fermented liquors in regard to the body. These produce an unnatural excitement, which renders wholesome food and liquors either insipid or useless; and novels, aided by the boundless variety of fiction, and the highwrought scenes of rival authors, in like manner create an unnatural excitement of mind which renders truth insipid, and the incidents of real life an apparent dull monotony. Of course I always proscribed them just as I would prohibit dram drinking, and for the same, and even stronger reasons; and I exhort every young woman to shun their seductions, and adhere to matter-of-fact literature, or moral poetry, till her mind is formed. She who requires the stimulus of wine before she is twenty, is in danger of premature old age; and she who indulges in novel reading before that age, is in danger of becoming dissatisfied with the ordinary occurrences of life, and of passing her latter days in a state of ennui and misery. Partial as you know I am to the study of ARITHMETIC, you will not be surprised at my drawing your early attention to that subject. I am aware that most of you will turn even from its name as a dry and perplexing pursuit, but you err in this conclusion, for it is only forbidding because it is not duly and regularly pursued. In general, young ladies do not enter deeply enough into the practice and science of numbers to feel the pleasures which it affords. Among men no subject has had more enthusiastic devotees. Tens of thousands in different ages have employed half their lives in studies founded on this science, and more fame has resulted from their discoveries than from any other attainments in the entire circle of human knowledge. I assure you, from my own experience and from long observation on others, that no study produces a habit of such close thinking as the solution of amusing questions in arithmetic; and there is no more certain indication of a strong understanding than a rapid proficiency in this science. I have been far from desiring my pupils to stupify themselves by dull studies; but mark this truth, that what are called dull studies are generally the whetstones of the mind. Frivolity only produces frivolity; but wisdom cannot be obtained without earnest labour; and by labour in the season of youth, when your minds have no other occupation but their own improvement. You read, in your books of Voyages and Travels, that savages have confused ideas of numbers, and after counting ten usually refer to the hair of their heads as to a countless multitude. This is what might be expected of savages; but you are not savages, and therefore must manage hundreds and thousands, and even millions, as adroitly as they manage ten units. Our perfection arises from a lucky notation, or mode of writing numbers, the happy invention of the Arabians, and till then arithmetical operations, in civilized nations, were operose and perplexing.. . Our ancestors seem to have stopped at twelve, for up to that number we have distinct expressions; 1 that is, we have special words from one to twelve, and afterwards they are compounded. This compounding, and the recurrence from ten to ten, lays however the foundation of arithmetic. After twelve we say three and ten, or thirteen; four and ten, or fourteen, and so on; but after nine and ten, or nineteen, we change the expression to two tens, or twenty; then to three tens, or thirty, and so on. Now this lucky nomenclature, or naming of numbers, though founded on the even effects of ten, ten times ten, and so on, enabled mankind at once to calculate and express their calculations in writing. Remember, therefore, that the number 10 and its peculiarities in division and multiplication, are the foundations of arithmetical notation, while arithmetic as a science depends on these circumstances of notation and nomenclature. We write one thing thus, I, that is one with a comma after it; and ten things thus, 10; one hundred things thus, 100; or one thousand thus, 1000;-all multiples or products of 10, as 10 times 1, 10 times 10, 10 times 100, and so on. Every remove of the 1 to the left hand adds ten times to its value, and this is effected by adding a 0. Now this could not happen in regard to 9, 8, 12, or any other number. Hence 1, 10, &c. are the bases of arithmetical expression, or numeration as it is called in the books; and we are enabled by it to reckon hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, &c. just as the first figure is carried more and more to the left hand. But before I dismiss this subject, I must call your attention to another subject of much consequence in reading books, and even a common newspaper. You often see numbers expressed on each side the dot or comma; as 5,5 or 53,75 and the like. These expressions often puzzle young ladies, though with a slight attention they need not be puzzled. The figures on the left of the dot are.whole numbers, as 5 things or 53 things, and the figures on the right |