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leveller that blends all the arbitrary distinctions of social life. He who would study the history of man in his moral and physical condition—he who proposes to himself to investigate the sources of the thoughts and opinions of the world,—or he who would render himself familiar with the capabilities of his own language, must cultivate an acquaintance with the writers of antiquity; he must take up his abode in the nursery of time. An inquisitive and ardent mind will take nothing upon trust; he will trace the streams of knowledge to their source; he will investigate its springs before he avails himself of the force of the current. “If there be,” says Godwin, “in the present age, any powers of reasoning, any acquaintance with the secrets of Nature, any refinement of language, any elegance of composition, any love of all that can adorn or elevate the human race, this is the source from which they ultimately flowed.” That of ancient Rome is the adopted language of the great congress of medicine and science throughout the world. The common university of medicine has employed it in the individual nations composing it. It is the language of Celsus, the adopted language of Haller, of Boerhaave, of Morgagni. Its cultivation is more directly indispensable to the practitioner of medicine, than to any other member of society. It is the accomplishment of all refined and educated society. But classical study should have no monopoly of the early mind, since, however valuable, it forms but the substratum of acquirement. Its excessive cultivation generates a learned folly, which in a remarkable degree disqualifies its possessor for the acquisition of that working knowledge demanded in our intercourse with the world. And I may take the liberty to remark, that no
