honey of our youth; to obtain the substantial
nourishment of European knowledge, a library of ten thousand volumes
will not avail nor satisfy our inquiries, nor supply our researches
even on a single topic!

Let not, however, the votaries of ancient literature dread its neglect,
nor be over-jealous of their younger and Gothic sister. The existence of
their favourite study is secured, as well by its own imperishable
claims, as by the stationary institutions of Europe. But one of those
silent revolutions in the intellectual history of mankind, which are not
so obvious as those in their political state, seems now fully
accomplished. The very term "classical," so long limited to the ancient
authors, is now equally applicable to the most elegant writers of every
literary people; and although Latin and Greek were long characterised as
"the learned languages," yet we cannot in truth any longer concede that
those are the most learned who are "inter Graecos Graecissimi, inter
Latinos Latinissimi," any more than we can reject from the class of "the
learned," those great writers, whose scholarship in the ancient classics
may he very indifferent. The modern languages now have also become
learned ones, when he who writes in them is imbued with their respective
learning. He is a "learned" writer who has embraced most knowledge on
the particular subject of his investigation, as he is a "classical" one
who composes with the greatest elegance. Sir David Dalrymple dedicates
his "Memorials relating to the History of Britain" to the Earl of
Hardwicke, whom he styles, with equal happiness and propriety, "Learned
in British History." "Scholarship" has hitherto been a term reserved for
the adept in ancient literature, whatever may be the mediocrity of his
intellect; but the honourable distinction must be extended to all great
writers in modern literature, if we would not confound the natural sense
and propriety of things.

Modern literature may, perhaps, still be discriminated from the ancient,
by a term it began to be called by at the Reformation, that of "the New
Learning." Without supplanting the ancient, the modern must grow up with
it; the farther we advance in society, it will more deeply occupy our
interests; and it has already proved what Bacon, casting his
philosophical views retrospectively and prospectively, has observed,
"that Time is the greatest of innovators."

When Bayle projected his "Critical Dictionary," he probably had n