To converse with the accomplished, is the obvious method by which to
become accomplished ourselves. This general observation is equally
applicable to the study of polite writers of our own and of other
countries. But there are some reasons, upon account of which we may
expect to derive a more perceptible advantage from the ancients. They
carried the art of composition to greater heights than any of the
moderns. Their writers were almost universally of a higher rank in
society, than ours. There did not then exist the temptation of gain to
spur men on to the profession of an author. An industrious modern will
produce twenty volumes, in the time that Socrates employed to polish one
oration.
Another argument flows from the simple circumstance of their writing in
a different language. Of all the requisites to the attainment either of
a style of our own, or a discernment in that of others, the first is
grammar. Without this, our ideas must be always vague and desultory.
Respecting the delicacies of composition, we may guess, but we can never
decide and demonstrate. Now, of the minutiae of grammar, scarcely any
man ever attained a just knowledge, who was acquainted with only one
language. And if the study of others be the surest, I will venture also
to pronounce it the easiest method for acquiring a mastery in philology.
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