DITOR OF 'THE FRIEND,' SIGNED 'MATHETES.'

(_b_) ANSWER TO THE LETTER OF 'MATHETES.'

1809.

ADVICE TO THE YOUNG.

INTRODUCTION TO 'THE FRIEND,' VOL. III. (1850).

(_a_) LETTER TO THE EDITOR BY 'MATHETES.'

[Greek: Para Sextou--ten ennoian tou kata physinzen, kai to semnon
aplastos,--ose kolakeias men pases proseneseran einai ten omilian
autou, aidesimotaton de par' auton ekeinon ton kairon einai kai ama
men apathesaton einai, ama de philosorgotaton kai to idein
aithropon saphos elachison ton eautou kalon hegoumenon ten autou
polymathien].

M. ANTONINUS.[25]

[25] L. i. 9. But the passage is made up from, rather than found in,
Antoninus. Ed. of _Friend_.

From Sextus, and from the contemplation of his character, I learned
what it was to live a life in harmony with nature; and that
seemliness and dignity of deportment, which insured the profoundest
reverence at the very same time that his company was more winning
than all the flattery in the world. To him I owe likewise that I
have known a man at once the most dispassionate and the most
affectionate, and who of all his attractions set the least value on
the multiplicity of his literary acquisitions.

_To the Editor of 'The Friend.'_

SIR,

I hope you will not ascribe to presumption the liberty I take in
addressing you on the subject of your work. I feel deeply interested in
the cause you have undertaken to support; and my object in writing this
letter is to describe to you, in part from my own feelings, what I
conceive to be the state of many minds, which may derive important
advantage from your instructions.

I speak, Sir, of those who, though bred up under our unfavourable system
of education, have yet held at times some intercourse with nature, and
with those great minds whose works have been moulded by the spirit of
nature; who, therefore, when they pass from the seclusion and constraint
of early study, bring with them into the new scene of the world much of
the pure sensibility which is the spring of all that is greatly good in
thought and action. To such the season of that entrance into the world
is a season of fearful importance; not for the seduction of its
passions, but of its opinions. Whatever be their intellectual powers,
unless extraordinary circumstances in their lives have been so
favourable to the growth of meditative genius, that their speculative
opinions must