er, which had no productions of its own to
compete with them, and its traditional authority has not yet become
extinct; not that the moderns have produced such works of genius as to
supersede them, for those of the imagination are not to be accumulated
to greater perfection, from age to age, like those of science. Indeed
the works of the ancients, relative to the latter, are now only useful
as instances of the progress of the human mind; nor could they be
otherwise, as science is more or less perfect in proportion to the
ages that have preceded; as it is the last man's knowledge, added to
that of all his predecessors, or, as Sir John Herschel far better
expresses it, it "is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically
digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one;" and thus a
respectable philosopher of the present day may possess more knowledge
than even such powerful and original minds as those of Confucius or
Zoroaster, Aristotle or Pythagoras: he is not like the goose I now see
wading through the mud, and that can't build its nest a jot better
than the sacred ones of the Capitol could.

With regard to works purely imaginative, perhaps the very converse of
this will be found to be the case. The bard of Chios is not
superseded by those of the Lakes, who, as far as all beauty imparted
by the force of originality is concerned, even labour under a
disadvantage, for every author is conscious that a strong memory is a
dangerous thing, and will interfere with his originality in spite of
himself.

If then the sublimest soarings of the human imagination conveyed to
our minds, and clothed in all the beauties of language, are desirable,
we shall seldom regret the hours we have expended over Homer or
Virgil, Demosthenes or Cicero.

But although this comparatively exclusive attachment to the classics
may be Eton's most prominent characteristic, I suspect it to be by no
means the most important or beneficial one.

The contrast and contact, resulting from the sheer multitude of
varying dispositions, refined by the gentlemanly tone of character
indigenous to the college, afford advantages superior to all the rest
put together.

There are three other prominent features in the economy of Eton, which
I have touched on in former pages, namely, those of fagging, flogging,
and attendance in church during the week days.

As regards the two former intellectual characteristics, I must admit
that I am unusually obtuse; fo