ing at the same
time really sound scholarship in several languages, and an ardent
enthusiasm for literature. He urged Roscoe to study languages, and used
especially, in their evening walks together, to repeat to him passages
from the noblest poets of Italy. In this way Roscoe was led to attempt
Italian, and, having once begun, went on till he had mastered it. "It
was in the course of these studies," says his biographer, "that he first
formed the idea of writing the Life of Lorenzo de' Medici."

LETTER V.

TO A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN WHO REGRETTED THAT HIS SON HAD THE TENDENCIES OF
A DILETTANT.

Inaccuracy of the common distinction between amateur pursuits and more
serious studies--All of us are amateurs in many things--Prince
Albert--The Emperor Napoleon III.--Contrast between general and
professional education--The price of high accomplishment.

I agree with you that amateurship, as generally practised, may be a
waste of time, but the common distinction between amateur pursuits and
serious studies is inconsistent. A painter whose art is imperfect and
who does not work for money is called an amateur; a scholar who writes
imperfect Latin, not for money, escapes the imputation of amateurship,
and is called a learned man. Surely we have been blinded by custom in
these things. Ideas of frivolity are attached to imperfect acquirement
in certain directions, and ideas of gravity to equally imperfect
acquirement in others. To write bad Latin poetry is not thought to be
frivolous, but it is considered frivolous to compose imperfectly and
unprofessionally in other fine arts.

Yet are we not all of us amateurs in those pursuits which constituted
our education--amateurs at the best, if we loved them, and even inferior
to amateurs if we disliked them? We have not sounder knowledge or more
perfect skill in the ancient languages than Prince Albert had in music.
We know something of them, yet in comparison with perfect mastery such
as that of a cultivated old Greek or Roman, our scholarship is at the
best on a level with the musical scholarship of a cultivated amateur
like the Prince Consort.

If the essence of dilettantism is to be contented with imperfect
attainment, I fear that all educated people must be considered
dilettants.

It is narrated of the Emperor Napoleon III. that in answer to some one
who inquired of his Majesty whether the Prince Imperial was a musician,
he replied that he discouraged dilettantism, and "