adapted to convey the thought. His thoughts are not the misty exhalations from a stagnant brain; not vague and undefinable, but precise and definite; characteristic of the man; and his words are the exact representatives of his clear, distinct, and connected thoughts. Each idea and its verbal representative, forms an item, an ingredient, a link. The whole is compacted of these. If one be obscurely, distortedly, or imperfectly seen, the face of the whole is darkened. We must, therefore, discriminate. We must separate, and analyze, and compare, and distinguish, and cautiously judge, in order to form a luminous whole from these luminous parts.

And how can this be done by a vague translation. It is impossible. But let the translation be searching and discriminating, and we shall not fail to "shout the harvest home."

And now, who that has the soul of a student, can rest satisfied to drag through a whole chapter of an author of talents, enveloped in a palpable mist; and finding, or, at least, expressing, not one distinct idea, where there are, perhaps, a dozen-dozen, well defined, valuable, and ingenious.

I do not hesitate, then, to assert, that every clear discernment of an actual difference in shades of thought, and a discriminating transfer of the same into our vernacular tongue, renders the mind itself more efficient, raises its standard of intellectual excellence, sharpens it for future discrimination, whets its appetite for intellectual toil, and confers an enjoyment which the literary lounger never felt.

3. I would specify, as an advantage of the exercise of translating, its peculiar adaptedness to call into play and to strengthen the judgment. I have anticipated, in part, my observations on this head, while speaking of the faculty of discrimination with which the judgment cooperates, to a certain extent, in adapting the words and idioms of our vernacular tongue to those of the foreign author. But the demand for the exercise of judgment is not limited merely to this part of the process. This faculty is eminently brought into play in estimating the fitness of the several parts of a sentence to each other and to the whole, and in accurately adjusting the whole in our vernacular tongue. The larger divisions again the sentences, the paragraphs, the sections, the chapters, must be subjected to a nice examination as regards their bearing on each other; and the translation, by a cautious exercise of judgment, must be made to express full force of these relations and connections. This higher de

the

gree of exercise of the judgment borders hard upon the difficult but important exercise of critical skill and acumen, which tasks, at times, the utmost strength of the best disciplined mind.

Thus it appears that the exercise of the judgment, afforded by the practice of translating, is adapted to all ages, conditions, and degrees of literary culture. It silently exerts its benign influence in the constructing and parsing of the grammar-school; it enlarges its sphere of action in the more extended studies of the college-course; and it attains its highest and most difficult exercise in the critical researches of the closet.

The classical scholar well knows, from actual experience, how diversified are the degrees of intellectual exercise, particularly of the judgment, demanded in the translation of a single ode of Pindar, or a choral piece of Aeschylus. First comes the indispensable exercise of judgment in connecting the parts of each sentence the words, the clauses, one by one, in order to construe and translate it. While this is going on, from sentence to sentence, the connection of the several sentences must be clearly seen and accurately expressed; then of each paragraph, of each greater division, until the whole stands forth, in all its completeness and symmetry. And, after the whole has been thus compacted, by an exercise of the closest attention, of the most acute discrimination, of the nicest judgment and the most cautious reasoning, what scholar, however ripe, does not sometimes find occasion, to cry evoŋza svoŋza, when some unnoticed and unappreciated connection is brought to light by a careful revision.

4. It will be seen, from what has been already said, that the reasoning powers are not permitted to slumber, during this exercise of translating. It will be perceived, however, that the kind of reasoning here employed is not that of the pure mathematics —that noble exemplification of pure thought; but the mixed mode of ratiocination which busies itself with contingency and probability, which is unceasingly employed at the bar, in the pulpit, in the hall of legislation, in the popular assembly, and in the familiar lecture.

In these cases, as all will admit, the rigid method of mathematical reasoning cannot be brought into actual use, while the mixed mode, of which I speak, as so manifestly cultivated in the exercise of translating, finds its ready application in all the situations of life where mind is brought into collision with mind.

I would not, however, dispense with the previous invigorating influence of the pure mathematics, if the circumstances permit

us to avail ourselves of the study. If, unhappily, this is not the case, the mind, as is abundantly proved by daily observation, may be disciplined to meet the collisions of opinion, the intricacies of discussion, and the tug of debate, by a faithful improvement of the exercise of translating. I would prefer, however, in all cases, to have the intellect first tempered by pure mathematical study, and then it will receive a keener and more permanent edge by the kindly aid of languages.

"If, therefore," says Klumpp, a German writer of eminence, "mathematical instruction is to operate beneficially as a means of mental cultivation, the chasms which it leaves must be filled up by other objects of study, and that harmonious evolution of the faculties procured, which our learned schools are bound to propose as their necessary end."

I regret, however, that I cannot pursue this part of my subject beyond these general remarks. I shall, therefore, dismiss it with a single observation. It will be readily seen that the assertion I ventured to make, that the well-directed study of the languages, and particularly the exercise of translating, calls forth the intellectual powers simultaneously into symmetrical and general action, is established in the very effort to point out the peculiar advantages of the exercise ;- so much so, that any formal and separate discussion would appear to all an unnecessary repetition.

I cannot close without a few words on the bearing of etymological investigations on intellectual culture, which yet remains to fill out the plan of the present Essay.

I am aware, that the bare mention of the name, suggests to some minds nothing but the mis-spent time, the idle fancies, the silly vagaries, and the absurd hypotheses, of some of its votaries. And no language, perhaps, has been made the subject of so much idle contention, so many wild hallucinations, and so much ingenious speculation, on the score of etymology, as the Greek; while it must ever remain a truth, which no one, possessing even a moderate acquaintance with the language will attempt to gainsay, that no language, at present accessible to us, will more amply repay the labor of etymological research judiciously, skilfully, and cautiously brought to bear on its unrivalled radical and derivative structure.

I labor here under a difficulty, the nature of which will be at once understood. In order to make myself intelligible to the mass of readers, I am constrained to avoid those verbal illustra

tions so abundantly furnished by the Greek language, but intelligible only to the initiated. I must, of necessity, confine myself to general remarks, the full force and due application of which will not, perhaps, be recognized by all.

I need scarcely remind the classical reader of the chequered fate of this much abused, but still transcendently important branch of philological study. Its very abuses impress us with a sense of the uncommon difficulty of the pursuit, and prove the interest which it has awakened. But the day of its thraldom to enthusiasm and caprice, is nearly, would I might say, quite, at its close. The suspicion and discredit into which it was unavoidably brought by the indiscreet, but well meant, and ingenious lucubrations of a Valkenaer, a Lennep, and a Hemsterhusius, is giving place to a correct appreciation of its importance, under the auspices of a Hermann, a Buttmann, a Schneider, a Blomfield, and a Passow. We may confidently hope that the dark ages of Greek etymology are fled forever. And thanks to a kind Providence, whose watchful eye regards even the interests of literature, we have yet such a language to spread before the student of every age and degree of intellectual culture - the novice and the initiated- the raw inquirer, and the ripe scholar; which, for the purposes of etymological exercise, and intellectual culture, accommodates itself to all-a language whose acknowledged radical character forms one of the most beautiful features in its wonderful structure.

Even the youngest student, while yet a fledgling, and venturing timidly from spray to spray, can comprehend the first rudiments of the etymological arrangements of the Greek language, and trace the most ordinary and regular modifications of form, that ramify in all directions from the original stock or root, with associated significations, to distinguish and classify which, constitutes one of the best exercises for strengthening the judgment, enlarging the capacity of the mind, and gratifying its love of system and order.

How is it possible, without decided intellectual advantage, to form an acquaintance with certain radical forms of the Greek language the ultimate radicles on which repose, indissolubly united in one common stock, those vigorous branches that shoot in every direction, themselves the proximate sources of other inferior and remoter branches, till the whole amazing production stands before us, a perfect model of system, symmetry, and order.

And if, while yet a novice, the student is instructed, delighted, and intellectually profited by the exercise, what will be his additional enjoyment and enlargement of mind, when, by the aid of the comparative anatomy of languages, amid his riper studies, he discovers, in other languages, even in his own, the innumerable shoots that have been transplanted from the main stock to form a new root and send forth new branches in a strange soil.

I close with the wish that this whole subject, in all its bearings on intellectual culture, the nice analysis of language that reflects, as in a mirror, the essential faculties of the soul;the exercise of translating, so rich in promise of intellectual advantage to its faithful votaries; and last, but not least, the exercise afforded by etymological research, that boasts also an undoubted utility apart from the mental discipline that it eminently promotes that all these uses of language as a means of intellectual culture may be duly appreciated and their application to the practical purposes of education universally made. Then, with one voice, we shall respond to every ruthless attempt to tear from our college course the study of the Greek and Latin languages: "Procul O! procul este profani."

ARTICLE IV.

THE CHARACTER DEMANDed in the CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

The Ministry we need: Three Inaugural Discourses delivered at Auburn, N. Y. June 18, 1835. New York: Taylor & Gould.

By George Shepard, Prof. of Sacred Rhetoric, Bangor Theol. Seminary.

THIS book, as the title purports, is made up of three discourses, delivered on the occasion of the induction of the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D. D. into the office of professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology, in the Auburn Theological Seminary. The sermon is by the Rev. J. W. Adams of Syracuse, an alumnus of the institution; the charge by the Řev. Eliakim Phelps of Geneva; the inaugural address by the professor elect.