ave learned as far as "_hoc--hac--hoc_" in Latin,
and affect an acquaintance with Horace, by shameful quotations. He may
have reached as far as the multiplication table in arithmetic, and try
to solve the problems of Euclid as though he had them at his
finger-ends. If he has read the "Child's Astronomy," he will walk with
you through the starry heavens and the university of worlds, with as
much confidence as though he was a Ross or a Herschel. He labours at
the sublime and brings forth the ridiculous. He is a giant according to
his own rule of measurement, but a pigmy according to that of other
people. He thinks that he makes a deep impression upon the company as to
his literary attainments; but the fact is, the impression is made that
he knows nothing as he ought to know. He may, perchance, with the lowest
of the illiterate, be heard as an oracle, and looked up to as a Solon;
but the moment he rises into higher circles he loses caste, and falls
down into a rank below that with which he would have stood associated
had he not elevated himself on the pedestal of his own folly. He is
viewed with disgust in his fall; and becomes the object of ridicule for
the display of his contemptible weakness. His silence would have saved
him, or an attempt commensurate with his abilities; but his preposterous
allusions to subjects of which he proved himself utterly ignorant
effected his ruin.

The _Spectator_, in No. 105, gives an illustration of a pedant in _Will
Honeycomb_. "Will ingenuously confesses that for half his life his head
ached every morning with reading of men over-night; and at present
comforts himself under certain pains which he endures from time to time,
that without them he could not have been acquainted with the gallantries
of the age. This Will looks upon as the learning of a gentleman, and
regards all other kinds of science as the accomplishments of one whom he
calls a scholar, a bookish man, or a philosopher.

"He was last week producing two or three letters which he wrote in his
youth to a lady. The raillery of them was natural and well enough for a
mere man of the town; but, very unluckily, several of the words were
wrongly spelt. Will laughed this off at first as well as he could; but
finding himself pushed on all sides, and especially by the Templar, he
told us, with a little passion, that he never liked pedantry in
spelling, and that he spelt like a gentleman, and not like a scholar.
Upon this Will had recou