Take into your consideration,if you please,cases seemingly analogous;but take them as helps only,not as guides.We are really so prejudiced by our education,that,as the ancients deified their heroes,we deify their madmen;of which,with all due regard for antiquity,I take Leonidas and Curtius to have been two distinguished ones.And yet a solid pedant would,in a speech in parliament,relative to a tax of two-pence in the pound upon some community or other,quote those two heroes,as examples of what we ought to do and suffer for our country.I have known these absurdities carried so far by people of injudicious learning,that I should not be surprised,if some of them were to propose,while we are at war with the Gauls,that a number of geese should be kept in the Tower,upon account of the infinite advantage which Rome received IN APARALLEL CASE,from a certain number of geese in the Capitol.This way of reasoning,and this way of speaking,will always form a poor politician,and a puerile declaimer.
There is another species of learned men,who,though less dogmatical and supercilious,are not less impertinent.These are the communicative and shining pedants,who adorn their conversation,even with women,by happy quotations of Greek and Latin;and who have contracted such a familiarity with the Greek and Roman authors,that they,call them by certain names or epithets denoting intimacy.As OLD Homer;that SLY ROGUE Horace;MARO,instead of Virgil;and Naso,Instead of Ovid.These are often imitated by coxcombs,who have no learning at all;but who have got some names and some scraps of ancient authors by heart,which they improperly and impertinently retail in all companies,in hopes of passing for scholars.If,therefore,you would avoid the accusation of pedantry on one hand,or the suspicion of ignorance on the other,abstain from learned ostentation.Speak the language of the company that you are in;speak it purely,and unlarded with any other.Never seem wiser,nor more learned,than the people you are with.Wear your learning,like your watch,in a private pocket:and do not pull it out and strike it;merely to show that you have one.If you are asked what o'clock it is,tell it;but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked,like the watchman.
Upon the whole,remember that learning (I mean Greek and Roman learning)is a most useful and necessary ornament,which it is shameful not to be master of;but,at the same time most carefully avoid those errors and abuses which I have mentioned,and which too often attend it.Remember,too,that great modern knowledge is still more necessary than ancient;and that you had better know perfectly the present,than the old state of Europe;though I would have you well acquainted with both.
I have this moment received your letter of the 17th,N.S.Though,Iconfess,there is no great variety in your present manner of life,yet materials can never be wanting for a letter;you see,you hear,or you read something new every day;a short account of which,with your own reflections thereupon,will make out a letter very well.But,since you desire a subject,pray send me an account of the Lutheran establishment in Germany;their religious tenets,their church government,the maintenance,authority,and titles of their clergy.
'Vittorio Siri',complete,is a very scarce and very dear book here;but I do not want it.If your own library grows too voluminous,you will not know what to do with it,when you leave Leipsig.Your best way will be,when you go away from thence,to send to England,by Hamburg,all the books that you do not absolutely want.
Yours.