course, that “every English gentleman reads Horace;” but this is one of those general assertions which rest upon very loose ground. An ordinary observer of the habits of the class might find himself somewhat at a loss for instances.
In the case of ladies, and of the large body of general readers who have received either no classical education, or a very imperfect one, probably less is now known of Homer, Virgil, or Horace, than in the days when Pope’s, Dryden’s, and Francis’s translations were first published, and took their place for the time on every literary table.
There appears a strong probability that the study of Greek and Latin, which has so long been our exclusive idea of a “liberal” education, will hereafter be confined within a narrower circle. Yet some knowledge of the ancient classics must continue to be the key to much of our best English literature. If, as some educational reformers suggest, a systematic course of English reading be substituted for Latin and Greek in our “middle-class” schools, such a training will necessarily involve the careful study of the masters of English thought and style, and more especially of those earlier authors whose taste was formed very much upon the old classical models, and whose writings are full of allusions to their characters and imagery.
