study, he translated twenty lines of the story of
Ceyx and Alcyone, from Ovid, consulting the dictionary only twice: he
was then desired to translate the passage which he had read into
English verse; and in two or three hours he produced the following
version. Much of the time was spent in copying the lines fairly, as
this opportunity was taken of exciting his attention to writing and
spelling, to associate the habit of application with the pleasure of
voluntary exertion. The _curious_ may, if they think it worth their
while, see the various _readings_ and corrections of the translation
(V. Chapter on Conversation, and Anecdotes of Children) which were
carefully preserved, not as "_Curiosities of Literature_," but for the
sake of truth, and with a desire to show, that the pupil had the
patience to correct. A _genius_ may hit off a few tolerable lines; but
if a child is willing and able to criticise and correct what he
writes, he shows that he selects his expressions from choice, and not
from chance or imitation; and he gives to a judicious tutor the
certain promise of future improvement.

"Far in a vale there lies a cave forlorn,
Which Phoebus never enters eve or morn,
The misty clouds inhale the pitchy ground,
And twilight lingers all the vale around.
No watchful cocks Aurora's beams invite;
No dogs nor geese, the guardians of the night:
No flocks nor herds disturb the silent plains;
Within the sacred walls mute quiet reigns,
And murmuring Lethe soothing sleep invites;
In dreams again the flying past delights:
From milky flowers that near the cavern grow,
Night scatters the collected sleep below."

S----, the boy who made this translation, was just ten years old; he
had made but three previous attempts in versification; his reading in
poetry had been some of Gay's fables, parts of the Minstrel, three
odes of Gray, the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, the Tears of Old
May-day, and parts of the second volume of Dr. Darwin's Botannic
Garden; Dryden's translations of the fable of Ceyx and Alcyone he had
never seen; the book had always been locked up. Phaedrus and Ovid's
Metamorphoses were the whole of his Latin erudition. These
circumstances are mentioned thus minutely, to afford the inquisitive
teacher materials for an accurate estimate of the progress made by our
method of instruction. Perhaps most boys of S----'s age, in our great
public seminaries, would, upon a simi