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the hour of trial, are humbled to the

dust.

It is fortunate when good purposes and when many beneficial objects may be secured by following the same course. Precisely the same. methods of early education, which tend to form a sound well judging understanding, fit for the essential purposes of human life and conduct, will also add the grace and charm of that varied and easy conversation, which is the result of a happy choice of literature, and of a refined taste.Taste is in reality only the rapid application of judgement to a certain class of feelings and of objects.— This facility of judgement and de cision is acquired by practice, and the earlier the exercise is commenced the more certainty there is of ultimately

acquiring facility, and that ease which is essential to grace-that ease which seems instinctive or natural, but which is in reality the consequence of prac tice, and the reward of labour.

Having now proved, at least to: our own satisfaction, the truth and accuracy of our survey, by coming round to the points from which we set out, and to the same coincidingobjects, we shall leave it to parents: to examine at leisure the views we have laid before them.-In the mean time we take leave of them with an humble but earnest hope that the little, the very little which we here offer towards their assistance in the early rational education of the taste' and judgement of their children, may as far as it goes be found practically useful.

THE MAN OF ROSS.

"But all our praises why should Lords engross? Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross."

Pope.

THESE lines appear as simple as possible, and yet upon trying whether they were clearly understood by a sensible child ten years of age, I was surprized to find that she did not comprehend them perfectly,-she did not know the meaning of engross, which signifies to take the whole of any thing, leaving no part for others. Nor had she any notion of what was meant by desiring the honest muse to rise. Some of my young pupils must

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not, therefore, be affronted, if I dwell upon what to them may appear easy; because, probably, others may be glad to have these very things explained.

It is common for poets to begin with invoking or calling upon the Muses for their assistance. The Muses were supposed by the Greeks and Romans to be nine in number, and to preside over different sciences and different sorts of learning. Thus one Muse presided over astronomy-another over warlike poetry-another over history -another over tragedy another over comedy-another over descriptive poetry-and when a writer began his work, it was usual to call upon the Muse that was supposed to preside over the subject upon which he was going to write. The Muse whom Pope invokes, when he is going to

write about the Man of Ross, he calls honest, because it is but honest and just that the virtues of men in the middle and lower classes of society should be celebrated, as well as those of Lords and great men, who should not be permitted to engross all praise to themselves.

"Pleas'd Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,

And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds."

Ross is a town situate on the banks of the Wye, which is a river that falls into the Severn.

The Latin name for the Wye is Vaga, which signifies wandering, as the Wye flows in a winding course. The Severn is in Latin called Sabrina, and it flows with great rapidity. The poet says that the Wye and the Se

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