nient determination in favour of the pencil. The allurements of beauty, heightened by the grace of accomplishments, have, it must be confessed, persuaded very wise men to turn traitors to the lawful sovereignty of intellect; but there is room for surmise in all such instances, that the power of beauty would have done as much alone, and that the accomplishments, if at all accessories to the offence, shared but a small part of the guilt. If display, and not use; if to gain an idle admirer, and not a faithful friend, be the object of the education of females, the prevailing practice is well contrived for the purpose. It may then be demanded with reason, of what use are literary attainments to woman? Why must the lovely trifler be condemned to the drudgery of travelling with painful steps in the hard track of elementary learning, in order to arrive at a correct and radical knowledge of words and things. The terror with which the minds of many men of undoubted courage are still agitated, on the proposal of giving much more exercise and light to the understanding of woman, seems to have sprung from the strange apprehension, that if her youth be principally devoted to the study of letters, literature must become not the enter tainment and the solace, but the business, of her life; that it is impossible to give solidity to her mind, without at the same time infecting her manners with pedantry; that if habits of mental application and reflection be formed, the needle will be exchanged for the pen, and that the whole sex, armed with this formidable weapon, will rush into the field of literary conflict, each more terrible than the modern chevalier D'Eon, or the Amazon of antiquity: "Penthesilea furens, mediisque in millibus ardet." To expose the vanity of such apprehensions, it is only necessary to remark, that but a small proportion of well-educated men ai ct literary fame; the far greater part are content to possess the advantages of learning without wishing to enrol themselves among men of letters. There is no reason to expect a different issue, if the generality of women were well taught. Besides, it is well provided by nature, that no practice shall be long prevalent in either sex, which is known to be generally odious to the other. But it is not the present design to enter upon a formal refutation of an opinion, which it is probable at no very remote period will be pronounced obsolete.

A prejudice of more recent date, and much more liberal in its aspect, must now pass under review. This respects not the objects of education, but the pursuits by which those objects are best secured. Its advocates have taken care to clothe it in terms sufficiently popular and inposing, and such as seem to justify the imputation of prejudice and pedantry to its opponents. Education, they say, should be so conducted as to store the mind with the knowledge, not of words, but of facts and things. The time which is occupied in forming an acquaintance with the learned languages, as they are called, might be employed more advantageously in collecting various information from the different sources of natural and civil history, gcography, astronomy, and experimental philosophy. The child should be taught to read the book of nature, to drink in knowledge at the fountain-head, to explore the properties of things rather than bestow great labour, and often with little success, on the dissection of languages which have long been numbered with the dead. To come to a fair decision on this question, it is necessary to explain that there is no dispute as to the place which should be assigned to mathematical studies: they are strictly elementary, and yield precedence to none. The only question is, Whether language, as well as science, should be studied in its elements, or whether the time which is given to classical learning, would be better employed in storing the memory with historical facts, philosophical discoveries as far as they can be made intelligible, and with whatever is most curious in art and nature? The question must also be made general; and all those cases must be excluded in which the kind of education is determined by the particular profession to which the child is destined. The opposite opinions will be best tried by considering what are the objects of education, and what are the most probable means of attaining them. Education has two objects: the acquisition of knowledge and of habits. The latter of these is the most impor tant. That course of instruction must be acknowledged to be the best, which is best adapted to develop the powers of the mind, and to call them into vigorous action, to qualify the mind to become its own instructor, to acquaint it with its own uses, and enable it to think, combine, compare, discriminate, decide betwixt contending probabilities, detect errors, and discover truths. As words

are

are the instruments which must be employed in all these operations, it is evident that great advantages must accrue from a precise acquaintance with them, from the habit of tracing them to their elements, of analysing sentences, and exercising the sagacity in annexing such meaning to phrases, and connecting them in such order, as will bring out sense and beauty from the whole. Memory, judgment, taste, discrimination, and invention, have each its due exercise in such an employment; and the child that has been trained in such habits, will come to the investigation of facts, and the study of things in riper years, with advantages never enjoyed, and therefore not to be justly estimated, by those who have been differently trained. If the knowledge acquired by this process were of less value than it is, the habits produced by it would be alone a recommendation of great authority. But the acquisition of knowledge was named as one of the great objects of education; and it should be added, of such branches of knowledge in particular, as, though of extensive and constant use in the application, are generally unattainable at a later period. The description of places and of plants, the history of nations and of animals, the characters of men and of minerals, are subjects which engage the industry or entertain the leisure of men, more or less through the whole of life: but an elementary knowledge of language, and the possession is of some value, must be obtained during the years of education, or not at all. What has been said is dictated by nothing less than a wish to under-rate the studies which are recommended by the advocates of an opposite system. All that is meant is, to express and to justify the conviction, that by substituting such pursuits in the place of those which have been generally assigned to early youth, nothing would be gained even to them, and much would of necessity be lost to elegant and polite literature. The youth that has been conducted to the penetralia of philosophy through the vestibule of classical learning, will have acquired such habits, and such an accurate knowledge and use of language, as will give him a decided advantage over his unlearned competitors; and his progress in scientific pursuits will, cæteris paribus, be so much more rapid than their's, that at the same age he will not fall far behind them in that sort of knowledge which is the sum

of their attainments. At the same time he will have secured no contemptible place in the rank of scholars: to make profound philologists of course is not proposed by any plan of education which is intended for general use. It must however be conceded, that the good which ought to be derived from the old mode of literary education, is not generally obtained. If the failure is to be attributed to any error in the conduct of it, a remedy, if there be one, ought to be applied; but if none exists, it would be difficult to establish the utility of a process in its general application, which is found to be generally abortive. It is not too much to demand, that after the consumption of seven or eight years almost exclusively in the study of the languages of antiquity, such a proficiency shall have been made in them by every ordinary capacity, as will make it easy to preserve and extend an acquaintance with them, by giving to the pursuit a portion of that leisure which cannot be commonly wanting even in a life of activity and business. It might even be reasonably expected, that in those years so much knowledge shall have been worked into the mind, and such mental habits engendered and naturalized, as shall give the possessor a certain, and not an inconsiderable, elevation in the scale of intellect, through the rest of life; and that even on the supposition of the total abandonment of his youthful studies, in a necessary compliance with the claims of his particular profession. If however neither of these results is or can be generally secured, if in a large proportion of cases little is gained, either in knowledge or in habit, so little that it is almost below estimation when weighed against the product of a ninth part of a good life, and that part naturally the most productive, if an evil of such magnitude exists, and in inseparable connection with that mode of education, the superior advantages of which, when it succeeds, have been just displayed, every unprejudiced mind must admit that for general utility it would be better to substitute any system of instruction which can be shewn to be more certain in its operation, though otherwise less beneficial in its tendency. It would however be rash to act on this conclusion, till it be fully ascertained that the failure so generally lamented, eught to be imputed to the system itself, and not to any error in the practical application of it. Several centuries have

ROW

now elapsed since the restoration of letters in Europe. Has every possible facility been supplied to the young student of ancient literature at his commencement; or might not the difficulty of the ascent have been worn down to a more gentle declivity? Is any considerable portion of time, which might be usefully employed in gaining a radical knowledge of the language, and in extending acquaintance with the productions of its greatest ornaments, expended in acquiring a sort of mechanical dexterity in Latin versification; a dexterity of little ornament, and of no practical value, in any of the uses of life? May not the ease of the preceptor have been consulted more than the interests of the scholar? Is not the abortion of time and labour to be attributed in part to the number of pupils consigned to the care of one principal superintendant, whose inspection can scarcely be more particular, and must be, from the nature of the case, more unsatisfactory and fallacious than that of the field-officer on a review? Is the business of the school prepared as well as repeated in classes; or are such arrangements made as shall oblige every pupil to prepare his work singly, and not in classes, which afford an easy refuge to indolence, while one of the class who possesses more talent or more industry than his companions, becomes interpreter to the rest, and as his judgment alone is exercised, he only is benefited by the labour? If such customs exist, and if all or any of them are principal causes of the failure of the prevailing mode of education in its most important objects, or whatever else may have rendered it inefficacious in innumerable instances, in which the blame cannot be thrown upon nature, he will not have employed his thoughts amiss, who shall apply them to the removal of such obstacles in the first stages of mental improvement.

Henrietta-street, Brunswick-square.

J. MORELL.

esting objects that we had surveyed. The most prominent of these were Ludeley Castle, and Hailes Abbey; the first situated rather more than seven miles from Cheltenham, and the second scarcely two miles further on the same road. We left home at noon on the preceding day, and soon reached Prestbury, a pleasant village at the distance of about a mile from Cheltenham, which place, in common with many others in the immediate vicinity of the town, occasionally receives such company as cannot there be suitably accommodated.

Immediately beyond this place is the hamlet of Southam, where the venerable mansion of T. B. Delabere, esq. is an object of no inconsiderable attraction. Those who are versed in antiquarian lore, have fixed the date of its erection in the reign of Henry VII, and have considered it to be one of the completest specimens of the domestic architecture of that period which the rage for modernizing has spared. It consists of two stories only, and the principal apartments appear to have undergone little change. Some curious painted bricks, bearing heraldic and enigmatical devices, a magnificent chimney-picce, and several fragments of stained glass, originally from Hailes Abbey, are preserved here. Many portraits also of illustrious personages, as well as of various branches of the Delabere family, form a part of the decorations of this interesting mansion. Among these are two of Edward VI. upon pannel, probably by Holbein; and another, that with some appearance of reason, is supposed to represent Jane Shore, the "merrye mistresse” of Edward IV. It is recorded of this extraordinary woman as unusual accomplishments, that she could read and write. She is therefore with much propriety placed before a table contemplating a book. Her complexion is beautifully fair, and her hair a bright auburn. She is attired in crimson satin, with slashed sleeves puffed with white; and round her neck a imedallion bearing the profile of a man, is suspended by a gold chain.

Beyond Southam, the road begins somewhat abruptly to ascend, and the surrounding scenery merits attention, not so much from its extent as its richness and variety. Verdant fields reach almost to the summit of the hill, where the protruding crags are finely relieved by the shadowy foliage of a neighbouring

grove.

The adjacent vales are either thickly planted with fruit-trees, or divided into irregular meadows, whose bedge.

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rows are decorated with luxuriant timber. The prospect opens as we advance, and the windings of the road, which passes over the steepest part of the hill, are seen at intervals through the trees. The summit, which is called Cleeve Cloud, presents a lovely view of the vale of Gloucester, bounded by the mountains of Malvern and of Wales, and affords also to the lover of antiquities, the remains of a Roman camp. From this eminence we descend to the town of Winchcombe, leaving in a sequestered nook immediately under the hill to the right, a house of ancient appearance, called Postlip, near which is the source of a considerable brook, on whose banks several paper-mills are erected. This manufacture, which is the only one carried on in the neigh. bourhood, produces a very inadequate supply of labour to the surrounding

poor.

Winchcombe, according to the usual custom of the Anglo Saxons, is placed in a retired situation, surrounded by hills. The town is large, but apparently not very opulent, and wears a cheerless aspect of its once magnificent abbey not a vestige now remains. Tradition alone has preserved the knowledge of its site, which was a plot of ground immediately below the church-yard, and to this, to gether with an adjoining house, the appellation of the Abbey is still applied. In turning over the soil for agricultural and other purposes, many massy foundations have been removed, and innumerable human bones disturbed. Stone coffins have also not unfrequently been found; and indeed several of these are now to be seen in the gardens of the cot. tagers appropriated to menial uses.

In this abbey, which was founded by Kenwulph, king of Mercia, in the year 800, the remains of monarchs, and of many others of illustrious rank, were doubtless deposited. The archbishop of Canterbury, and twelve other prelates, assisted at its dedication, when the ge. nerous Kenwulph led to the altar the captive king of Kent, and there, in the presence of a splendid concourse of nobility, released him without ransom.

Kenelm, the son and successor of the founder, fell an early victim to the ambitious machinations of an unnatural sister, who hoped by his destruction to secure the throne. The miraculous discovery of his body forms the subject of an amusing legend, but is too long to be repeated here. Kenelm, in

consequence of this supernatural interposition, was at length canonized; and the numerous pilgrimages that were made to his shrine, greatly augmented the revenues of the house.

This monastery was richly endowed; and its abbot was one of those who had the privilege of a mitre, and of a seat in the House of Lords. The building is reported to have been exceedingly magnificent, but it was speedily demolished after the dissolution of religious houses. So prosperous however was its state previous to that period, that it is said to have been "equal to a little university;" indeed, students from thence were regularly maintained at Oxford, where certain apartments in Gloucester-hall, now Worcester College, were known by the name of Winchcombe Lodgings.

An abrupt turn to the right at some distance below the church, leads directly to Sudeley Castle, which forms a picturesque object from almost every point in the vicinity of the town. This edifice was erected in a style of uncommon splendor, about the year 1442, by Ralph lord Boteler, a statesman of great power and influence in the court of Henry VI. The attachment of this nobleman to the house of Lancaster, exposed him to the animosity of the adherents to the rival house of York, when that party gained the ascendancy in the state. His princely mansion was then resigned into the hands of Edward IV. and remained vested in the crown until it was granted by Edward VI. to his uncle, lord Thomas Seymour. This castle, which from neglect was rapidly hastening to decay, its new possessor completely and magnificently repaired. He afterwards made it his principal residence; and here Katherine Parr, the widow of the late king, to whom lord Seymour had recently been united in marriage, died and was buried. After having again twice reverted to the crown, it was at length bestowed by queen Mary upon sir John Brydges, who was afterwards further rewarded with the title of baron Chandos of Sudeley. It continued in the possession of his descendants until the year 1654, when it was carried by a female into another family, aud is now the property of earl Rivers.

During the unhappy contest between Charles I. and the parliament, Sudeley, which was held for the king, was twice besieged. Then it was that this magnificent edifice, in common with so many others, was reduced to a heap of ruins.

Since that period a very small part of it enly has been habitable; but from the strength and solidity of its original fabric, its remains will probably long defy the destructive hand of time, and will exhibit for centuries to come, a melancholy monument of the architectural taste of the era of its erection.

The transient view which we had Caught of Sudeley, as we approached Winchcombe, excited our curiosity, and although the evening was advancing, we resolved to take a nearer survey of this interesting pile. After crossing a brook at the extremity of the town, we followed a foot-path that brought us directly to the, castle. Here the sombre foliage of the venerable oak, or the spreading elm, apparently coeval with the prosperity of the place, is no longer to be scen. A few trees however of modern growth, form an agreeable relief to the heavy portal near which we entered the garden. From this spot we had at once a complete view of the ruin. The chapel was immediately before us, and to the right extended a long line of buildings in various stages of decay. The horizon, skirted with dark clouds, increased the gloom, which the sober tints of twilight threw over the massy towers and the tottering arches, while the deepening shades beautifully harmonized the rambling ivy with the Gothic tracery of which it seemed to form a part, as its fantastic branches clothed the dilapidated window, or entwined the shattered pinnacle.

The chapel is indeed a most beautiful object, and appears originally to have been a very complete specimen of architectural excellence. It is now roofless and desolate, its decorations are entirely defaced, and its very walls seem to be upheld by the profusion of ivy with which they are covered. At the west end is a window, ornamented on each side with a beautiful canopied niche, and Summounted by a square turret, In a small side chapel, to which some endow ment is annexed, divine service is still once a fortnight performed.

Proceeding from the garden through the portal, which is surrounded with battlements, and in very good preservation, we entered a square court, in which there appeared to be no object that claimed particular attention. It merely seems to have contained the accommodations necessary for the numerous domestics and retainers, which a

baronial residence of such magnitude required. From hence we advanced to an inner court, which once enclosed the state apartments, and in which many splendid relics of former grandeur still remain. Although now converted into a farm-yard, and its original extent with some difficulty explored, it may still be perceived that at each corner stood a tower, and that one side was occupied by the great hall, whose magrillbent window, even in its preser, baf denglished state, exhibits a mode, that Dr lightness and elegance as per aps suldom been equalled, and probably never surpassed. The ox is now stalled and the horse fed, where the voice of mirth was wont to be heard; where the sons of power and the daughters of pleasure were wont to assemble. Here the proud and aspiring Seymour planned schemes of aggrandizement that were fatally frustrated, and here too the amiable but unfortunate Katherine, after escaping the caprice of a tyrant, whose tender regard involved almost certain destruction, at length fell a victim to the ambition of him with whom she had fondly hoped to enjoy that happiness, which the possession of a crown had failed to confer.

The square tower to the right of this court is still known by the name of the water-tower, and may be supposed once to have contained a reservoir for the general supply of the castle. Attached to the prison-tower is a considerable building, the gloomy apartments of which, from their size and strength, may very naturally be concluded to have formed a necessary appendage to the arbitrary system of feudal tyranny. The turret itself is traditionally reported to have had no entrance but from above. The unhappy victims must therefore have been lowered with cords into this dreadful abode of darkness and despair. When an opening was some years ago burst into it, a human skeleton, perhaps that of its last sad inhabitant, is said to have been found. The watch-tower may still be ascended, although some of its steps are destroyed. It has a light appearance, and is of an octagon shape, and through the apertures at the top, the country may be reconnoitered in every direction.

The views round Sudeley are, for the most part, confined and uninteresting. The park, with its ornamental timber, is totally destroyed. On one side, however,