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But in copying after these great masters, the moderns have a

more difficult task than they had. We expect from modern hiftorians more detail, facts more clearly proved, greater precision in dates, more attention to customs, laws, manners, commerce, finances, and agriculture. It is with history as with mathematics and natural philofophy, the career is wonderfully enlarged.

It is expected that you write the history of a foreign country in a different manner from that of your own. If you are writing the history of France, you are not obliged to defcribe the course of the Seine or the Loire, but if you are writing the hiftory of the Portugueze conquests in Afia, you must give the topography of the discovered countries. You must lead your reader by the hand along the coasts of Africa and Perfia, you must acquaint him with the manners, the laws, and customs of countries new to Europe. If you have nothing to tell us, but that one barbarian succeeded another barbarian on the banks of the Oxus, what benefit does the public derive from your hiftory? The method which is proper for a history of your own country, is not proper for writing an account of the discoveries of the new world. The history of a city is very different from that of a great empire, and the life of an individual must be written differently from the history of Spain or England.

These rules are sufficiently known; but the art of writing history well will ever be very uncommon. We know that the style of history must be grave, pure, various, and agreeable; there are laws for writing history, as there are for every other species of composition: we have precepts in abundance, but we have few great artists.

We shall make no apology for inserting this article, as no apology, we apprehend, is necessary. Our Readers, however, are not to imagine that all the articles in this work are of equal length or of equal value: there are several of them very short and very fuperficial; but the collection, upon the whole, is a valuable one, equally instructive and entertaining.

R.

De la Maniere d'apprendre les Langues; i. e. The Method of teaching Languages. 8vo. Paris, 1768.

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HE study of languages is so essential a part of modern education, and takes up so large a portion of the time allotted for it, that every attempt to facilitate the acquifition of them is justly entitled to a favourable reception. Whether the method proposed by the ingenious Author of this work will, upon a fair trial, be thought a good one or not, we cannot take upon us to determine, as many schemes appear plausible and practicable in theory, which cannot possibly be reduced to prac

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tice. We will venture, however, to recommend his work to our Readers, as he appears through the whole to be a man of taste and judgment, and writes in a very agreeable and entertaining manner.

The study of languages, fays he in his preface, is one of the most common employments in civilized nations. Almost every gentleman's son is obliged to study Latin, and persons of every age amuse themselves at present in learning Italian, and efpecially English. German is necessary for the gentlemen of the army; and every language in which there are good books, is ufeful to men of letters. Whence is it then that many arts which are less useful have been carried to perfection, while the art of studying languages has made no progress? A rudiments and a dictionary, themes and versions, is a summary of the ancient method, and is indeed the only method that is followed at present in all public fchools, and in the greatest part of the private ones. Is it because the inventors of this method attained perfection at once? This would be a fingular example indeed. The human mind advances, but it does not fly; on the contrary, it proceeds flowly from step to step. The method of operation in new arts is always clumfy and complicated; the moft fimple, the most easy method, and that which it is natural to imagine must have first presented itself to the mind, is the result of time, experience, and reflection, sometimes of chance, and but feldom of inventive genius.

This method, however, which is so much esteemed, and fo generally followed, is not borrowed from the enlightened nations of antiquity. Grammar was known at Rome, it was cultivated at Rome, but it was not made use of to teach languages. The Roman youth learned Greek as they learned Latin, in the houses of their parents, and by converfation only. When they understood the language, they went to the schools of the gram• marians to learn to pronounce properly, to read with taste, and

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Inter into the spirit of authors. But in the ages of ignorance • it was thought an important discovery to apply grammar to the study of Latin. They reasoned perhaps in some such way as this: A language is a collection of words which are joined together according to certain rules which are agreed upon. Let us put all these words together in a dictionary, and all thefe rules in a system of rudiments. With these two elementary works a beginner will be able to make verfions and themes, and thus accustom himself to understand Latin and to write it.

If this specious reasoning was capable of impofing upon an age fond of false refinements and the dupe of them, experience should have undeceived them. A dictionary contains the fignification of words; but when there is a variety of fignifications, it does not teach us which we are to make choice of. A book of rudiments rudiments contains all the rules, but it does not thew us how we are to apply them upon particular occafions. Accordingly the study of Latin, after all the affiftances we have from dictionaries, &c. is still attended with unfurmountable difficulties to the generality of young perfons. Nor is this at all furprising, if we consider the nature of things. For what is language among men? a practical art. Now practical arts are learned by exercise, and not by reasoning. Put a pen between the fingers of a child, guide his hand, and in a short time he will learn to write, without knowing any thing of the theory of writing. Exercise his tongue and his ears, and he will foon understand what you fay to him and be able to answer you, without knowing the rules of the language. Properly speaking, practical arts have no rules: what is called by this name is only a collection of observations made upon the manner in which fuch arts were first exercised by the mere instinct of nature. Hence it is that dexterity does not confist in knowing these rules, but in observing them without reflection, whether we know them or not. All Frenchmen understand their language; how few of them have studied the grammar of it?

Accordingly it is pretty generally agreed that the best way of learning languages is use and practice. But how are languages which are no longer spoken to be learned by practice? This obstacle is not unsurmountable. Languages are made use of for the purposes of writing as well as of speaking, why then may they not be learned from books as well as from conversation. The only difficulty is to make books understood by him who is ignorant of the language in which they are written. M. du Marsais has found out a very fimple method of doing this: he places over Latin words such French words as correfpond to them. Other authors have imitated and even improved this method. The form is merely a matter of indifference; the only effential thing is, always to join a known word to an unknown one, so that in reading a book written in an unknown lanpuage, we may understand the words and the thoughts of the author.

This method of learning dead languages has so many advantages over the common method, that it is dificult to conceive why it was not adopted as foon as it was known. I know well the power of custom, but I know likewise that, in France efpecially, the charms of rovelty balance the force of custom. This method therefore, I am apt to fufpect, is not fufficiently understood. It has been thought to be a different system, which the advocates for novelty want to substitute in the place of the old one; and what is to be gained by changing one sistem for another?-The method we have mentioned is disfigured by this complaisance for public prejudices, and does not appear to be what it really is, a plain imitation of nature.

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Children learn

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the language of their parents without hearing a word of declenfions or conjugations. What neceffity therefore is there of mentioning them for another language? Ufe and custom will teach them the meaning of Latin nouns and verbs by their termination, as it teaches them the meaning of prepositions and adverbs. They will be ignorant, it is true, of their grammatical denomination; but of what consequence is their being ignorant that PATRUM is the genitive plural, provided they know that it fignifies des pères? It is true likewise that they will not Jearn, by means of one verb, the fignification of all fimilar tenses; but nature leads us to the same point by a shorter and easier way. She teaches us to judge of like things by analogy : you have told me that AMABAM signifies j'aimois; you have no occafion to tell me that CANTABAM signifies je chantois; analogy alone teaches me this.

Another reason may have prevented the success of this method. Till now, one fort of elementary books only has been thought of, viz. a literal version, accompanied with a tranflation. Now such a book is neither sufficient for beginners, nor for those who have made some progress in the study of languages; it contains too many difficulties for the one, and too few

for the other.

Without pretending to make any discovery, therefore, I flattered myself that I should be usefully employed in treating this subject. By placing the method I have mentioned in its true light, I apprehend that I should clearly shew the advantages of it; and by giving the necessary illustrations, that I should facilitate the practice of it. The plan I have pursued is this :

I begin with tracing the origin of all languages in order to shew what they are compounded of, and to explain clearly how nature teaches children to speak and to understand the language of their country. I shew, in the next place, that the method of learning languages by means of literal versions is, an imitation of the method of nature. In order to explain and illustrate this method, I consider wherein any two languages differ from one another, and take the French and Latin languages for my examples. I find four essential differences, all which I unite in the first elementary book, which leaves no difficulties for beginners to furmount. But in order to quicken their progress, I foon take this book from them, and substitute a second in its place, with a few flight difficulties in it; after this a third, and then a fourth, with difficulties increasing by degrees. By this means their labour is always proportioned to their strength, and their assistance to their wants. The very first day, the student understands a few lines of an author, because his elementary book tells him every thing; as he goes on, his book assists him lefs, and yet he continues to improve, till he comes at last to

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have no farther occasion for assistance, and knows enough of Latin to read an author. In order to render this reading more agreeable and useful, I enter into a pretty long detail concerning the beauties of style, and the manner of transferring them from one language to another. I proceed next to consider how the student may learn to write and even to speak Latin, and conclude with a short specimen of elementary books, in a few lines of Greek, German, English, Spanish and Italian. It will appear that the principles I have established are general, though I have exemplified them in the Latin tongue. In a word, I proposed to refolve this problem-When one language is known, how is another to be learned by means of reading? I have spared neither time nor pains to resolve it, and shall think I have done fome small service to letters, if I have contributed to facilitate an acquaintance with the best writers of antiquity and of foreign

countries.

Such is the general view our Author gives of his plan, and the manner in which he prosecutes it. If any of our Readers are defirous of having a fuller view of it, they must have recourse to the work itself, where they will find many ingenious and fome new observations. - We cannot conclude without expreffing our wishes, that the Author would favour the Public with fome elementary books, for the use of Greek and Latin students, as he seems well qualified for such a task, and as the method he proposes for learning languages, renders the assistance of such books absolutely necessary.

R.

De la Population de I Amerique. Of the Population of America, &c. Concluded.

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N our laft Appendix we gave the Reader a view of the Author's general design, with an abstract of his scheme to account for the peopling of America. The solution of that queftion, however, makes but an inconfiderable part of the work. By far the greater part is employed in a very critical and laborious enquiry into the causes and extent of the deluge, and in the discussion of several other topics, which he apprehends have fome relation to his main argument. As his general hypothefis, that the original inhabitants of America were antediluvians, supposes the deluge to have been only partial, he fets himself to establish that point, and remove the objections that lie in his way. This part of his work he introduces with some reflections on the inspiration of the facred writers, and the style of Scripture; and endeavours to shew, from other fimilar passages, that the expreffions, in the Mosaic account of the deluge, which feem to imply its universality, are not to be taken in a strict sense, but in a greater latitude; and relate only to those countries which

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