LETTERS TO HIS SONS DURING THEIR EDUCATION. MY DEAR D Edinburgh, October 22, 1813. I am much pleased with the account you give me of your kind reception at Runcorn, and hope, that by your own diligence and good conduct, you will merit the continuance of your god-father's instructions. On many accounts your removal into Cheshire, this winter, will, I hope, be very much to your advantage. My constant employment would have prevented me from attending to you, and without daily attention, at this critical period, you could make no progress in Greek. Under Mr Keyt, I trust your progress will be equally creditable to him and yourself; he used to be a sound scholar, and it would be strange to suppose, that the added experience of twenty years had impaired his knowledge or his powers of communication. In this important point therefore, you are at present within reach of all that I could wish for you, and it remains for you to make a good use of the opportunity. I am surprised to find Mr Keyt use Moore's Grammar. As far as mere accidence goes, I think Moore's plan certainly excellent; his third declension is admirable, but the Grammar is only a fragment, and much indeed falls to be supplied from the viva vox of the teacher, or from some other grammar. I send you Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, and lament that I have not a Cicero de Officiis to send; but Mr Keyt can probably put you in the way of procuring books from London or Liverpool, and I do not think it worth while to delay the present box, while any books may be sought for in Town; and for the future, I am sure it will be an economy both of time and money, to purchase what you want in England. I thought your prize Quintilian too fine for a jaunt into Cheshire, and it is not very probable that Mr Keyt may require you to read an author usually reserved for a later period. Rollin is one of the only scholars I know of, who made Quintilian an elementary book. I hope Mr Keyt will not allow your versification to be neglected; as a means of improvement in writing prose Latin, verse is to be practised.-Mr K. will, I doubt not, require you frequently to abridge what you read; and the more you do so, the better for you. At your time of life, it is infinitely better than original composition. I am pleased at the arrangement of your day. Of hours thus regularly disposed of, the fruit will, I hope, be good. Your threat of reading a |