ment have been advised of this voyage and its objects, as the enclosed copy of a passport, granted by Mr Edward Thornton, kis Britannic Majesty's charge d'affaires to the United States, will evidence.

The cold season having now nearly arrived, we have determined to fortify ourselves, and remain the ensuing winter, in the neighbourhood of this place. During our residence here, or future progress on our voyage, we calculate that the injunctions contained in the passport before mentioned will, with respect to ourselves, govern the conduct of such of his Britannic Majesty's subjects, as may be within communicative reach of us. As individuals, we feel every disposition to cultivate the friendship of all well-disposed persons; and all that we have at this moment to ask of them, is a mutual exchange of good offices. We shall, at all times, extend our protection as well to British subjects as American citizens, who may visit the Indians of our neighbourhood, provided they are well-disposed; this we are disposed to do, as well from the pleasure we feel in becoming serviceable to good men, as from a conviction that it is consonant with the liberal policy of our government, not only to admit within her territory the free egress and regress of all citizens and subjects of foreign powers with which she is in amity, but also to extend to them her protection, while within the limits of her jurisdiction.

If, sir, in the course of the winter, you have it in your power to furnish us with any hints in relation to the geography of the country, its productions, either mineral, animal, or vegetable, or any other information which you might conceive of utility to mankind, or which might be serviceable to us in the prosecution of our voyage, we should feel ourselves extremely obliged by your furnishing us with it.

We are, with much respect,

Your ob't. serv'ts.

MERIWETHER LEWIS, Capt. 1st U. S. R. Inf.
WILLIAM CLARK, Capt.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE.-FOR THE PORT-FOLIO.

[We have received through the medium of the Trustees of Bedford Academy, (Penn.) an address delivered at the opening of the new academy, on the 6th of January, 1812, by the Rev. JAMES WILSON, president of that seminary. To this sensible and well written essay, we give publication with much pleasure. We regret only that our limits constrain us to omit the details relative to the rapid progress and flourishing state of the institution, as well as the excellent moral instruction with which the president introduces the more immediate object of his address. We have indeed rarely seen the cause of classical literature so ably yet so concisely asserted as in the ensuing pages, which justify the highest hopes of the establishment over which the writer presides.]

MY PUPILS,

THE most of you are young and incapable of appreciating, in its full extent, the value of those improvements in literature which you are now making. I shall, however, endeavour to bring the few observations, which I am about to make, within the sphere of your understanding. You are nearly all engaged in the study of the learned languages; and it is natural that you should inquire what advantages will result to you from a know. ledge of these languages, now spoken by no nation on earth, in the form in which you learn them. It is reasonable that, if pos sible, you receive a satisfactory answer.

An elucidation of this subject is peculiarly important in our times, when some modern pretenders to literary reform are la bouring to banish at once all classical literature from our seminaries, or are attempting to confine it to limits so narrow as to render it both contemptible and useless. If the war which these gentlemen are engaged in carrying on against classical learning, is a laudable enterprise, then that plan of education which has been selected for you, and which you are now executing, is not only unprofitable; it is calculated to waste, in a criminal manner, both your time and your exertions. But I trust the reverse of all this is truth-truth confirmed by evidence the most conclusive and irresistible.

I trust I shall be able to satisfy you that the study of the ancient languages forms not only a highly ornamental, but also a most valuable and interesting branch of education; and that those who attempt to expel it from our temples of science are, how

ever honest their views, pursuing measures highly unpropitious to literary and moral improvement.

In attempting to elucidate this subject, I shall confine my remarks chiefly to these five points.

1. The aids afforded by ancient languages in acquiring a knowledge of antiquity, and of political and moral truth.

2. The advantages which arise from them in philological inquiries.

3. The helps we derive from them in theology.

4. The facilities which a knowledge of the Latin tongue furnishes in the acquisition of foreign living languages.

5. The improvement in taste both in delicacy and correctness, which is produced by an accurate and extensive acquaintance with Greek and Latin essayists, historians, and poets.

The bare mention of this outline is sufficient to carry conviction, if he is not already convinced, into the bosom of every elegant classical scholar. But to you, my pupils, it requires to be filled up; and especially in this age when you will meet with such a herd of smatterers to discountenance your present pursuits-smatterers who know nothing of the value of classical education, and therefore oppose it;-who without the requisite qualifications, invade the pulpit, the bar, and the temple of Esculapius, as the Egyptian mice invaded, at Pelusium, the bowstrings and shield-straps of the Assyrian army.

A discussion of these five points, as full and as minute as they merit, you are not to expect at present. They embrace a wide field of literary investigation.

The knowledge of antiquity forms, as all confess, a highly important department of human science. The happiest means to put us in possession of this knowledge, with accuracy, is the means which ought to be resorted to: and we contend, that, were every excellent Greek, Latin, and oriental writer, translated into the English language, yet the mere English scholar could form but an imperfect view of the manners and customs and modes of thought in ancient times.

Clothe the histories of Thucydides and Cornelius Tacitus in the best garb which the English language furnishes, and you, in

a great measure, clothe the republics of Greece and the Roman empire, in an English dress: so intimate is the connexion between thought and the language in which it is clothed.

But read these excellent historians in the originals, and you remount to venerable antiquity: Grecian and Roman statesmen, heroes, and philosophers, tread the stage arrayed in all the sober grandeur of ancient times.

Were you to pluck the beard from the bust of a Roman senator, and clothe it in the most fashionable dress of modern times, would you exhibit accurately a Roman? No; except the stature and the robust form, a modern fine gentlemen stands before you. Translations of ancient authors pluck the beard from antiquity; while the originals present it in all its hoary-headed majesty.

The profound Latin and Greek scholar can, at pleasure, transport himself into Greece in all its refinement-walk in the groves of the academy, and saunter along the banks of Ilissus, where every grove is rendered vocal by the sweet melodious strains of Apollo's lyre-he can see Rome in its glory, associate himself with the shades of heroes and sages, and hear the Roman senate-house ring with Tully's eloquence. To be thus conveyed beyond the regions of English language and English thought and English feeling, gives a new tone to the mind, an expansion of thought and a manliness to the feelings, both of youth and age, which no English translation can effect. But all the valuable classic writers are not translated. Rich mines of knowledge are yet covered from the view of the mere English scholar. Again suppose all the historians of ancient times were translated into modern tongues, and the study of the ancient languages neglected, and all knowledge of them lost; in three or four centuries the originals would be lost, and all times before the origin of modern writers would be numbered among the fabulous ages.

Why are the accounts we have transmitted to us of the infancy of ancient empires, Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, accounted fables? Doubtless, because we no longer understand the historical language of the pillars, the knots, and the hieroglyphics, in which those events, for which we seek, were re

corded. If you wish to lose all knowledge of antiquity, banish from your schools the ancient languages: if you wish it preserved, retain them. I might now develop the assistance which we derive from these languages, in political and moral investigations; how they enable us to trace with precision the rise,. progress, and fall of states, and the causes which either forwarded or retarded these events-and I might explain to you the advantages which they afford, in our attempts to unfold the human character, as they present man placed in an endless variety of circumstances: but these I wave for the present.

I shall now attend to the second topic, the advantages which arise from these languages in philological inquiries. I say philological, in order to avoid the word etymology, which has become so disgusting of late.

From the revival of letters by the munificence of the Medici, in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, until the time of Dr. Johnson, etymology was fashionable among the learned. Since Horne Tooke's Diversions of Purley made their appearance, etymology has been nearly hissed off the stage. It is probable that the etymologists and anti-etymologists have both gone to extremes. But I think the course which literary men now take, much less propitious to learning, than that which they pursued before the Diversions of Purley appeared. It is indeed vain to attempt, to ascertain from its derivation the precise meaning of every English word, which we can trace into a foreign language. No two nations think precisely in the same way, much less those which speak different languages. Hence words, in passing from one nation and tongue into another nation and tongue, generally lose a part of their signification, sometimes the whole of it, and have annexed to them other thoughts, or shades of thought accommodated to the nature of that language which has adopted them. But this very circumstance proves that we can never acquire an accurate knowledge of ancient times, without a knowledge of ancient language. This revolution, which words experience in their migrations from language to language, presents the fairest opportunity for arriving at certainty in our investigations of subjects so subtile as thought and the symbols of thought.