ooks, but only as tools for
different purposes: these tools are often very mischievous; if we
could improve them, we should get our work much better done. The
barbarous translations, which are put as models for imitation into the
hands of school-boys, teach them bad habits of speaking and writing,
which are sometimes incurable. For instance, in the fourteenth edition
of Clarke's Cornelius Nepos, which the preface informs us was written
by a man full of indignation for the common practices of
grammar-schools, by a man who laments that youth should spend their
time "in tossing over the leaves of a dictionary, and hammering out
such a language as the Latin," we might expect some better translation
than the following, to form the young student's style:

"No body ever heard any other entertainment for the ears at _his_
(Atticus's) meals than a reader, which we truly think very pleasant.
Nor was there ever a supper at his house without some reading, that
their guests might be entertained in their minds as well as their
stomachs; _for_ he invited those whose manners were not different from
his own."

"He (Atticus) likewise had a touch at poetry, that he might not be
unacquainted with this pleasure, we suppose. _For_ he has related in
verses the lives of those who excelled the Roman people in honour, and
the greatness of their exploits. _So_ that he has described under each
of their images, their actions and offices in no more than four or
five verses, _which_ is scarcely to be believed _that_ such great
things could be so briefly delivered."

Those who, in reading these quotations, have perhaps exclaimed, "Why
must we go through this farrago of nonsense?" should reflect, that
they have now wasted but a few minutes of their time upon what
children are doomed to study for hours and years. If a few pages
disgust, what must be the effect of volumes in the same style! and
what sort of writing can we expect from pupils who are condemned to
such reading? The analogy of ancient and modern languages, differs so
materially, that a literal translation of any ancient author, can
scarcely be tolerated. Yet, in general, young scholars are under a
necessity of _rendering_ their Latin lessons into English word for
word, faithful to the taste of their dictionaries, or the notes in
their translations. This is not likely to improve the freedom of their
English style; or, what is of much more consequence, is it likely to
preserve in the pupil