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The results of this action were highly important to the French, and indeed it rendered their success certain. The Arabs began to disappear, and the Turkish and Moorish soldiers retreated to the city, from which it was not easy to bring them again to the field; symptoms of insurrection among the populace also manifested themselves. In this situation, it has been considered possible that had Bourmont advanced immediately upon Algiers, the Dey would have found it necessary to capitulate; there was however no reason to believe that the disaffection would extend to the garrisons of the fortresses, and the city could not have been reduced while they held out.
On the 23d the vessels from Palma began to come in; the horses were immediately landed, and two small corps of cavalry were added to the troops encamped at Sidi Khalef. The fortifications of the peninsula were also by this time completed, a line of works fifteen hundred yards in length, having been drawn across the neck, and armed with twenty-four pieces of cannon; by this means the whole of the land forces were rendered disposable, as two thousand men principally taken from the _equipage de ligne_[3] of the fleet, were considered sufficient for the security of the place. The provisions, &c. were all landed, and placed within the lines, in temporary buildings which had been brought in detached pieces from France; comfortable hospitals were likewise established there, together with bakeries, butcheries, and even a printing office, from which the _Estafette d' Alger_, a semi-official newspaper, was regularly issued. The communications between Sidi Ferruch and the camp, were facilitated by the construction of a military road, defended by redoubts and blockhouses placed at short intervals on the way.
[Footnote 3: A certain number of young men are annually chosen by lot in France, for the supply of the army and navy, in which they are required to serve eight years. Those intended for the navy, are sent to the dockyards, where they are drilled as soldiers, and instructed in marine exercises for some time before they are sent to sea. The crew of each public vessel must contain a certain proportion of those soldier sailors, who are termed the _equipage de ligne_.]
The Algerines encouraged by the delay of the French, rallied and made another attack upon them at Sidi Khalef early on the morning of the 24th. On this occasion but few Arabs and Kabyles appeared, and the action was sustained on the side of the Algerines, almost entirely by the Turks, the Moorish regulars, and the militia of the city, who had been at length induced to leave its walls. The assailants were spread out on a very extended line, which was immediately broken by the advance of the first division of the French army, with a part of the second in close column. A few discharges of artillery increased the confusion; the Algerines soon began to fly, and were pursued to the foot of the last range of hills which separated them from the city. On the summit of one of these heights, were the ruins of the Star Fort, which had been some years before destroyed, "because it commanded the Casauba, and consequently the city;" it was however used as a powder magazine, and the Africans on their retreat, fearing lest it should fall into the hands of the French, blew it up. The loss of men in this affair was trifling on each side. The only French officer dangerously wounded was Captain Amédée de Bourmont, the second of four sons of the General who accompanied him on the expedition; he received a ball in the head, while leading his company of Grenadiers to drive a body of Turks from a garden in which they had established themselves, and died on the 7th of July.
While this combat was going on, the remainder of the vessels from Palma, nearly three hundred in number, entered the bay of Sidi Ferruch. Their arrival determined Bourmont not to retire to his camp at Sidi Khalef, but to establish his first and second divisions five miles in advance of that spot, in the valley of Backshé-dere, so that the road might be completed, and the heavy artillery be brought as soon as landed to the immediate vicinity of the position on which it was to be employed. The third division was distributed between the main body and Sidi Ferruch, in order to protect the communications. This advantage was however dearly purchased; for during the four days passed in this situation, the French suffered greatly from the Algerine sharp-shooters, posted above them on the heights, and from two batteries which had been established on a point commanding the camp. In this way Bourmont acknowledges that seven hundred of his men were rendered unfit for duty within that period; he does not say how many were killed.
The necessary arrangements having been completed, and several battering pieces brought up to the rear of the French camp, Bourmont put his forces in motion before day on the 29th of June. Two brigades of d'Escar's division which had hitherto been little employed, were ordered to advance to the left and turn the positions of the Algerines on that side; on the right the same duty was to be performed by a part of Berthezéne's division, while Loverdo was to attack the enemy in the centre. They proceeded in silence, and having gained the summits of the first eminences unperceived, directed a terrible fire of artillery upon the Algerines, who having only small arms to oppose to it were soon thrown into confusion and put to flight. The Moors and Turks took refuge in the city and the surrounding fortifications, while the Arabs and Kabyles escaped along the seashore on the southeast, towards the interior of the country.
The French had now only to choose their positions from investing Algiers, which with all its defences lay before them. Besides the Casauba and batteries of the city, they had to encounter four fortresses. On the southeastern side near the sea, half a mile from the walls was Fort Babazon, westward of which, and one mile southward from the Casauba, was the Emperor's castle, presenting the most formidable impediment to the approach of the invaders. This castle was a mass of irregular brick buildings, disposed nearly in a square, the circumference of which was about five hundred yards. From the unevenness of the ground on which it was built, its walls were in some places sixty feet high, in others not more than twenty; they were six feet in thickness, and flanked by towers at the angles, but unprotected by a ditch or any outworks, except a few batteries which had been hastily thrown up on the side next the enemy. In the centre rose a large round tower of great height and strength, forming the keep or citadel, under which were the vaults containing the powder. On its ramparts were mounted {220} one hundred and twenty large cannon, besides mortars and howitzers, and it was defended by fifteen hundred Turks well acquainted with the use of artillery, under the command of the Hasnagee or Treasurer who had promised to die rather than surrender. As it overlooked the Casauba and the whole city, it was clear that an enemy in possession of this spot and provided with artillery, could soon reduce the place to dust; but it was itself commanded in a like manner, by several heights within the distance of a thousand yards, which were in the hands of the French. The next fortress was the Sittit Akoleit or _Fort of twenty-four hours_, half a mile north of the city; and lastly a work called the English fort was erected on the seashore near Point Pescada, a headland about one-third of the way between Algiers and Cape Caxine. The object of the French was to reduce the Emperor's castle as soon as possible, and in the mean time to confine the Algerines within their walls as well as to prevent them from receiving succors. For the latter purposes, it was necessary to extend their lines much more than would have been compatible with safety, in presence of a foe well acquainted with military science; trusting however to the ignorance and fears of his enemies, Bourmont did not hesitate to spread out his forces, even at the risk of having one of his wings cut off by a sudden sortie. Loverdo in consequence established his division on a height within five hundred yards of the Emperor's castle; Berthezéne changed his position from the right to the centre, occupying the sides of mount Boujereah the heights immediately west of the city; while d'Escars on the extreme left, overlooked the Sittit Akoleit, and the English fort. These positions were all taken before two o'clock in the day.
On the right of Berthezéne's corps, was the country house in which the foreign consuls were assembled under the flag of the United States. As its situation gave it importance, General Achard who commanded the second brigade determined to occupy it, and even to erect a battery in front of it. Major Lee the _Commander in Chief_ of the consular garrison, formally protested against his doing either, maintaining that the flag which waved over the spot rendered it neutral ground. The French General did not seem much inclined to yield to this reasoning; but when it was also alleged that the erection of the battery would draw the fire of the Algerine forts upon the house, in which a number of females were collected, as well as the representatives of several nations friendly to France, he agreed to dispense with the execution of that part of his order, but his soldiers were quartered on the premises, and his officers received at the table of the consuls. The latter were, as might have been expected, polished and gallant men; the soldiers were very unruly, and by no means merited the praises which have been bestowed on their moderation and good conduct, in the despatches of their commander and the accounts of the historians.
The night of the 29th passed without any attack on the lines of the French. Before morning the engineers under Valazé had opened a trench within five hundred yards of the Emperor's castle, and various country houses situated in the vicinity of that fortress, were armed with heavy pieces and converted into batteries. As soon as this was perceived from the castle, a fire was opened upon the laborers; but they were already too well protected by the works which had been thrown up, and few of the balls took effect. A sortie was next made by the garrison, and for a moment they succeeded in occupying the house of the Swedish Consul, in which a French corps had been stationed; they were however immediately driven out, and forced to retire to their own walls.
In order to divert the attention of the Algerines during the progress of the works, false attacks were made on their marine defences by the ships of the French squadron. On the 1st of July Admiral Rosamel, with a portion of the naval force, passed across the entrance of the bay, and opened a fire on the batteries, which after some time was returned. Not the slightest damage appears to have been received by either party, the French keeping, as the Admiral says, "à grande portée de canon," that is to say, _nearly_ out of the reach of the fire of the batteries; one bomb is stated to have fallen in the vicinity of Rosamel's ship. The effect of this movement not answering the expectations of the French, as it did not induce the Algerines to suspend their fires on the investing force, it was determined that a more formidable display should be made. Accordingly on the 3d, Admiral Duperré made his appearance before the place, with seven sail of the line, fifteen frigates, six bomb vessels, and two steamers. The frigate Belloné which led the way, approached the batteries and fired on them, as she passed with much gallantry; the other ships kept farther off, and as they came opposite the Mole, retired beyond the reach of the guns, where they continued for some hours, during which each party poured tons of shot harmless into the sea. As the Admiral states in his despatch, "none of his ships suffered any apparent damage, or notable less of men," except from the usual "bursting of a gun on board the Provence, by which ten were killed and fifteen wounded."
The high character for courage and skill which Admiral Duperré has acquired by his long and distinguished services, precludes the possibility of imagining that there could have been any want of either of those qualities on his part in this affair. Indeed he would have been most blameable had he exposed his ships and men to the fire of the fortresses which extend in front of Algiers, at a period when the success of the expedition was certain. The "moral effect" of which the Admiral speaks in his despatch, might have been produced to an equal or greater extent, by the mere display of the forces in the bay; the only physical result of the cannonade, was the abandonment of some batteries, on Point Pescada, which were in consequence occupied by d'Escar's forces. The whole attack if it may be so termed, was probably only intended to repress any feelings of jealousy which may have arisen in the minds of the naval officers and men, by thus affording them at least an ostensible right to share with the army the glory of reducing Algiers.
BAI.
Bai was the Egyptian term for the branch of the Palm-tree. Homer says that one of Diomede's horses, Phœnix, was of a palm-color, which is a bright red. It is therefore not improbable that our word _bay_ as applied to the color of horses, may boast as remote an origin as the Egyptian Bai.
{221}
THE CLASSICS.
Amid the signs of the times in the present age--fruitful in change if not of improvement,--we have observed with pain not only a growing neglect of classical literature, but continued attempts on the part of many who hold the public ear to cast contempt on those studies which were once considered essential to the scholar and the gentleman, which formed such minds as Bacon's and Milton's, and which afforded the most delightful of occupations to the leisure of a Newton and a Leibnitz. In every age there has been a class of men who from a depravity of taste, or else a passion for singularity, have maligned all that is ancient or venerable. And sometimes with a strange perversity of purpose, we see men wasting their opportunities in a mischievous ridicule of useful pursuits which they might have advanced and illustrated to the benefit of themselves and mankind. Thus the seventeenth century, deeply imbued as it was with the spirit of classical inquiry and the love of ancient literature, gave birth to a Scarron and a Cotton, of whom the latter particularly was fitted for higher pursuits, and the former perhaps worthy of a better fate. But if in a spirit of indulgence for misguided genius we pardon the offence of their jest for its wit, and feel that in so doing we are involuntarily paying that tribute which is due to talent even when misapplied, let us beware of extending the same indulgence to those who from ignorance undervalue pursuits which they cannot appreciate, or to those who contemn like the fox in the fable, objects which they have vainly sought to obtain, or worse than all, to those who have no better motive for their censure than the wish to pilfer without detection, from the rich stores of those whom they have banished from the public eye, and driven from their rightful abodes in public recollection by a course of systematised slander. It would perhaps be unjust to say that the opposers of the ancient and learned universities of England, who have chiefly wrought the evil influence upon English literature to which we have been alluding, belong all of them to one of these three classes, but that many of them may be ranked with the last we cannot doubt, when we see what things they often send forth to the world as _their own_, and this too with an air of the greatest pretension. That some of these persons were actuated by better motives we must admit when we trace to its origin the history of this partially successful war against classical studies. The two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, those ancient abodes of learning, to a certain degree undoubtedly deserved the reproach of lagging behind the march of mind, in denying to modern literature the share of attention to which it was justly entitled. Absorbed in explorations of the past, and wedded to the love of antiquity in all their associations, they sought literature in her earliest haunts, and delighted most in their olden walks, which they loved for the very frequency with which they had trodden them. The system of study which had trained so many of their sons to eminence, seemed to them the best, and they were too slow in moulding its forms to the progress of science. It was endeared to them not only from the nature of its pursuits, but from past success, and it was no mean ambition which stimulated their sons to tread in the paths which a Bacon or a Clarendon, a Newton or a Locke, had trodden before them. And yet a little reflection should have taught them that if these glorious models of human excellence had left science where they found it, their reputations had never existed. A fierce opposition at length sprung up to a system of study so narrow and exclusive,--the growing wants of education demanded a university in London, which project was opposed by many of the friends of the old institutions. The elements of a party thus formed, were soon combined, and as the controversy waxed warmer, they attacked not only the venerable temples of learning, but the very study of the ancient languages itself, at first, perhaps, because the most celebrated abodes of this species of literature were to be found in the universities to which they had become inimical. Like every other literary controversy for some time past in England, this question connected itself with the party politics of the day, and thus many changed sides on the literary, that they might be together on the political question. Strange as it may seem, it has been for some time a reproach against the English that the Tories would not encourage the Whig literature, and vice versâ. No reader of the British periodicals for the last twenty years can have failed to remark this fact, which serves to account for the progress of the literary heresy which has already done so much to degrade English literature and to deprave the tastes of those who read only the English language. We shall not pause to inquire further into the effects produced by this illicit connexion between politics and literature in England, although it presents a highly interesting subject of inquiry, and one which must deeply occupy much of the attention of the historian who may hope hereafter to give an accurate account either of the political or literary condition of that country for many years past. Neither is it our purpose to arraign at the bar of public opinion those who have draggled the sacred "_peplon_" itself in the vile mire of party politics, although we sincerely believe that they will have a heavy account to settle with posterity for this unhallowed connexion. We merely allude to it by way of pointing out one of the causes of the heresy which we mean to combat, from the belief that it is mischievous, and the more especially as it diverts public attention from the particular want of American literature. Unhappily our reading in this country is chiefly confined to the English novelists and the periodicals of the day, from which we derive a contempt for the lofty and venerable learning of antiquity, and a belief that instead of too little, we bestow too much attention upon classical literature in America! That the novelists and trash manufacturers of the reviews should foster this opinion is not at all surprising, for they find their account in it. And yet it stirs the bile within us when we see a paltry novelist who cannot frame his tale without borrowing his plot, or conduct his dialogue without theft, affect to despise the study of those authors whom he robs without any other restraint than the fear of detection; or when we hear them offer to substitute their lucubrations for the writings of the great masters of antiquity--men who put forth opinions upon the most difficult questions in moral or physical science, and support them only by a dogmatism which would look down all opposition and frown upon any inquiry into the grounds of their doctrines, who, like Falstaff, will give no reasons for their moral or political opinions, and yet insinuate by their {222} air of pretension that they are "plenty as blackberries"--sciolist novelists who doubt what is believed by all the most intelligent of their race, and believe what no other persons but themselves can be brought to believe--men who insinuate their superiority over the great models of the human race by affecting to despise whatever they have offered to the public view and modestly intimating their reliance upon their own superior resources. Problems in morals and politics which have filled with doubts and difficulties the minds of Bacon or Locke, of Montesquieu or Grotius, are now settled at a stroke of the pen by our novelist philosophers. Nothing is more common than to see the solution of some one of them by the dandy hero of some fashionable novel, who, sauntering from the dance to the coterie of philosophers in blue, solves the difficulty _en passant_, and fearing that this trifling occupation of so mighty a genius may attract attention, then hastens to divert public observation from his sage aphorism and impromptu philosophy by flirting with his friend's wife or playing with his poodle. The conception of a costume is the only occupation worthy of his fancy, and the composition of a dish the only subject which he would have the world to think capable of tasking his powers of attention and reflection; and yet all the learning of all the schools is shamed by the display of this literary _faineant_ who acquired his knowledge without study, whilst inspiration only can account for the wisdom with which he is instinct. A nation has groaned through long centuries of almost hopeless bondage--the clank of a people in chains is heard from the Emerald isle--a cry of distress fills the air--a mighty orator, an O'Connell, arises before them, filling the public mind with agitation and pointing the way to revenge. In the energy of despair a portion of the captives have broken their manacles--they rush to liberate their fellows--the air is full of their cry for revenge--the conclave of Europe's wisest statesmen is at fault--a king trembles on his throne--and what, gentle reader, do you suppose is to be the result of these mighty throes and convulsions? why, just nothing, literally nothing at all. A Countess of Blessington surveys the scene from afar; reclining on an Ottoman, beneath a cloud of aromatic odors she recollects the subject of conversation at her last "soiree;" the idea flits across her brain with a gentle pang as it flies, that the energy of O'Connell is becoming exceedingly vulgar, and that the convulsions of a revolution so near her would be extremely trying to her nerves, not to mention those of Messrs. Bulwer and D'Israeli. Her resolution is taken, and at spare intervals between morning visits and soirees, she writes the "_Repealers_," which is at once to settle the agitations of a kingdom, and annihilate O'Connell himself. She has no sooner finished, than washing her hands "forty times in soap and forty in alkali," she despatches the production to Mr. Bulwer, who looking upon the work pronounces it good; and lo! the succeeding number of the New Monthly shall teach you the wonderful virtues of the moral medicaments which come from the Countess of Blessington's specific against Irish agitation. But who is Mr. Bulwer himself? for in this age so wonderful for accomplishing great ends by little means, it has become necessary to know him. Why a literary magician, a sprite of Endor, who by the potency of his charm conjures up the spirits of the mighty dead. Evoked by him the departed prophets arise. A Peter the Great, and a Bolingbroke, a Pope and a Swift, not to mention others of somewhat lesser note, come forth and speak at his command as once they spoke. The departed oracles of English literature are no longer mute. But the visits of the dead are of necessity short. They have no time now for such chit-chat as some may suspect they have hazarded whilst living. They come on a mission of importance which they have barely time to accomplish. The hidden secrets of policy are to be revealed, mightly oracles in philosophy and criticism are to be declared. Truths fall like hailstones, and wit descends in showers. But lo! what figure is that which stalks across the scene and comes to take his part in this play of phantasmagoria with which we have just been entertained. Does he belong to the land of shadows or the world of reality? "Under which king, Bezonian, speak or die." It is an impersonation of the mental and moral qualities of Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer himself, not a prophet--but more than a prophet. The "most wonderful wonder of wonders." Pope and Swift are overpowered by his wit. The star of Bolingbroke pales before the superior effulgence of this luminary, and Peter the Great, mute in astonishment, stands "_erectis auribus_" to catch the oracles of government which flow from the godlike man. The scene changes--whither doth he go? He seizes the reins of government, he retrieves the affairs of a mighty empire by way of recreating a mind exhausted with the play of its mighty passions, and then wearied with the amusement, he turns in quest of other pursuits. The rule of an empire and the affairs of this world are objects too petty for the employment of his mind; he looks for some higher subject, and finds it in himself--the only subject in creation vast enough to fill the capacity of his spirit. He communes with the stars--he talks to the "TOEN," and the "TOEN" replies to him, and finally, big with his mighty purpose he achieves the task of writing "his confessions." And as my lord Peter concocted a dish containing the essence of all things good to eat, so this book is full of something that is exquisite from every department of thought. Such are the books which have displaced the writings of the masters of antiquity and the old household books of the English tongue. You may not take up a review or periodical now-a-days, but it shall teach you the folly of bestowing your time upon the study of the ancients, now that their writings afford so much that is more worthy of attention. Alas! that such should be the priesthood who administer the rites in the temple of English literature--the money changer has indeed entered the temple, when those who write for money come in to expel all who have written for fame. How often does it happen now-a-days that the writer of a bawdy novel, derives reputation enough from that circumstance, to assume the chair of criticism, and exposing a front of hardened libertinism to the scorn of the good and the contempt of the wise, avails himself of his situation to frown down every attempt to resuscitate our decaying literature, by the introduction of better models, and to restore health to the public taste, which this very censor has contributed to deprave? There is no more common occupation with such a man than the correction of the errors of the most illustrious statesmen and philosophers in magazine articles of some six or eight pages; the French revolution is the {223} favorite theme of his lofty speculations, and Napoleon's the only character which he will exert himself to draw. With how much of the lofty contempt of a superior spirit does he speak of the labors of a Bentley, a Porson, a Parr, or an Elmsley; of a Gessner, a Brunck, a Heyne, a Schweihauser or a Wolffe. The anxious labors, for years, of such men as those go for nothing with him--they serve only to excite his scorn, or else afford him the favorite subjects of his ridicule. With the ingratitude of a malignant spirit, or the coarseness of ignorance, he reviles the self-denying students who may be truly said to have renounced the world in their enthusiastic search after the buried lore of antiquity--men who have paled before the midnight lamp in their ceaseless efforts to penetrate the obscurity of the past--lonely eremites, who feed the lamps that cast their dim light on the votive offerings which antiquity has laid upon the altar of knowledge--men who have dwelt apart from their race and denied themselves the common pleasures of life, that they might without distraction restore the decaying temple of ancient literature, and recover for the use of their own and future generations, treasures which else had been buried and forgotten; who have lived in the past until they have imbibed its spirit, and return like travellers full of the wisdom of unknown lands, and rich with the accumulated experience of past ages to shower their treasures and their blessings upon the ungrateful many who despise them for their labors and taunt them for their gifts, that they too may learn what a thing it is to cast pearls before swine; and who, superior to the unmerited scorn of this world, and to all the temptations of its grovelling pleasures, meekly bear their ill treatment with no other emotion than the fear that the benefits thus painfully acquired and freely bestowed, may turn out to be coals of fire which they have been heaping upon unthankful heads. And are men who labor for such objects as these to be ridiculed as looking to things too small, because they sojourned so long in the gloom of past ages, that their optics have been enlarged to discern not only the mouldering monument, but the smallest eft that crawls upon it? Shall they be taunted because they have learned to live in mute companionship with their books, and like the lonely prisoner, love objects which to others may seem inconsiderable, but are endeared to them by all the force of a long association, whose chain is interwoven link by link with the memory of their past? And if, like Old Mortality, they love to restore each mouldering monument, and retrace every time-worn inscription that may serve to renew their silent communion with the hallowed and dreamy past, surely the occupation may be pardoned, if not for its uses to others, at least for the quiet affection and sweet enthusiasm of the dream which it serves to awaken in the mind which is busy in the employment. But the utilitarian spirit of the present age is ever ready to measure the value of these pursuits by that pecuniary standard which alone it uses. What are their fruits? Will they move spinning jennies or propel boats? are they known on 'Change? how do they stand in the prices current, and in what way will they put money in the purse? Strangely as this may sound in the ears of those who love knowledge for itself and its spiritual uses, and absurd as these things would have appeared to the literary world a century ago, we much fear that we must return answers to them satisfactory, in part, at least, before we can even obtain an attentive hearing to what we shall say of their higher excellences. It is true that classical attainments are in few instances the objects of pecuniary speculation, nor is it our purpose to hold out temptations to literary simony to those who, insensible of the peace which the love of knowledge sheds abroad in the human heart, would hope to sell or purchase that precious gift, for mere money. If this were the only end which the student had in view, we should regret to see him perverting to unworthy purposes the sacred means to higher ends. To such a man learning has no temptations to offer, for its best rewards he can never obtain without a change of heart. We can no more unite the love of knowledge and of Mammon than serve the two masters spoken of in Scripture. It is the rare excellency of this holy taste that it releases us from servitude to the unworthy desires which are too apt to fill the minds of those who have never known what it was to thirst after the waters of truth. It is indeed the redeeming spirit of the human mind, which casts out the evil passions by which it had been possessed and torn. But there is a class of students burning for distinction and ambitious of eminence rather than wisdom, to whom we would appeal under the hope that in the pursuit of their own lesser ends they will cultivate tastes which may serve to awaken them to the more precious uses of knowledge. If then we can show these that the study of the ancient languages affords not only an admirable, but perhaps the best exercise for training tender minds into healthful habits of thought and reflection, that in looking to an economy of the time which measures the little span of human life, it is the pursuit in which the youthful mind can do most in acquiring human knowledge, we shall at least hold out strong temptations to these studies, even to those hasty and incautious inquirers who reject every thing for which they have no present use. But if we go farther, and demonstrate that the man who would thoroughly understand modern literature, must seek its foundations in that of the ancients,--that the poet and philosopher, the orator and statesman, who would train his mind to a successful pursuit of his favorite object, must look to the great masters of antiquity for the best models of his art, surely we shall persuade him to apply the means which a knowledge of the dead languages affords him, to the study of the literature which they embody. And shall he pause here in his career? is it to be supposed that he will still look to knowledge only for the earthly honors which it will enable him to obtain when he has in view the higher rewards which the love of truth has within itself? Will he be content with the narrow horizon which first bounded his prospect when he has taken a more elevated view of creation? Feeling that every sensible addition which his knowledge makes to his wisdom is another link by which he mounts in the chain of spiritual existence, he will lose the original ends for which he was laboring in the nobler objects which unfold themselves to his mind. He learns to disregard what men may say of him, sustained by the proud consciousness of what he is. And like the mariner who has become weary of coasting adventures, he boldly puts forth to sea in quest of that unknown land which his spirit has seen in its dreams. These are the higher uses of the pursuit of knowledge, and although we are far from asserting that classical {224} studies are the only pursuits that are thus rewarded, yet we will hazard the assertion, that there are none more eminently fitted for strengthening the human mind and elevating its character.