e smiled.
"Because," said S----, "I was thinking of the _song_,[54] the _hymn_
to adversity;

"And from her own she learned to melt at other's wo."

A recollective memory of books appears early in children who are not
overwhelmed with them; if the impressions made upon their minds be
distinct, they will recur with pleasure to the memory when similar
ideas are presented.

July 1796. S---- heard his father read Sir Brook Boothby's excellent
epitaph upon Algernon Sidney; the following lines pleased the boy
particularly:

"Approach, contemplate this immortal name,
Swear on this shrine to emulate his fame;
To dare, like him, e'en to thy latest breath,
Contemning chains, and poverty, and death."

S----'s father asked him why he liked these lines, and whether they
put him in mind of any thing that he had heard before. S---- said, "It
puts me in mind of Hamilcar's making his son Hannibal swear to hate
the Romans, and love his countrymen eternally. But I like _this_ much
better. I think it was exceedingly foolish and wrong of Hamilcar to
make his son swear always to hate the Romans."

Latin lessons are usually so very disagreeable to boys, that they
seldom are pleased with any allusions to them; but by a good
management in a tutor, even these lessons may be associated with
agreeable ideas. Boys should be encouraged to talk and think about
what they learn in Latin, as well as what they read in English; they
should be allowed to judge of the characters described in ancient
authors, to compare them with our present ideas of excellence, and
thus to make some use of their learning. It will then be not merely
engraved upon their memory in the form of lessons, it will be mingled
with their notions of life and manners; it will occur to them when
they converse, and when they act; they will possess the admired talent
for classical allusion, as well as all the solid advantages of an
unprejudiced judgment. It is not enough that gentlemen should be
masters of the learned languages, they must know how to produce their
knowledge without pedantry or affectation. The memory may in vain be
stored with classical precedents, unless these can be brought into use
in speaking or writing without the parade of dull citation, or formal
introduction. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, to some prosing tormentor, "I
would rather a man would knock me down, than to begin to talk to me of
the Punic wars." A public speaker, who rises in the H