moderate the vehemence of our defires, fortify our minds, and are enabled to fuftain adversity.

Among the antient Greeks, the study of the Poets conftituted an effential part in their celebrated systems of education. Plutarch obferves, in his treatise on this curious and interefting fubject, that, as mandrakes planted among vines, imparting their virtue to the grape, correct its acidity, and improve its flavour; fo the poetic art, adorning the precepts of philofophy, renders them eafy and agreeable. Socrates, according to Xenophon, was asfiduous in applying the works of Homer and Hefiod to the valuable purposes of moral instruction. Difcourfing on the character of Therfites, he displayed the meannefs of calumny, and the folly of prefumption; he argued, that modefty was the companion of merit, and that effrontery was the proper object of ridicule and reproach.

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proach. Difcourfing on the ftory of Circe, he illuftrated the fatal effects of intemperance; and rehearfing the fable of the Syrens, he warned his difciples against the allurements of falfe delight.. This great teacher of virtue was fo fully convinced of the advantages resulting from the connection of poetry with philofophy, that he affifted Euripides in compofing his tragedies, and furnished him with many excellent fentiments and obfervations. The propriety of bestowing attention on the study of human nature, and of borrowing affiftance from the poets, and especially from Shakespeare, will be more particularly illustrated in the following remarks.

The study of human nature has been often and variously recommended. "Know thyself," was a precept so highly esteemed by the venerable fages of antiquity, that they afcribed it to the Delphian oracle *. A 2

* Cic. de legibus,

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By reducing it to practice, we learn the dignity of human nature: Our emulation is excited by contemplating our divine original: And, by difcovering the capacity and extent of our faculties, we become defirous of higher improvement. Nor would the practice of this apophthegm enable us merely to elevate and enlarge our defires, but also, to purify and refine them; to withstand the follicitations of groveling appetites, and subdue their violence: For improvement in virtue confifts in duly regulating our inferior appetites, no less than in cultivating the principles of benevolence and magnanimity. Numerous, however, are the defires, and various are the paffions that agitate the human heart. Every individual is actuated by feelings peculiar to himself, infenfible even of their existence; of their precife force and tendency often ignorant. But, to prevent the inroads of vice, and preferve.

our

our minds free from the tyranny of lawless paffions, vigilance must be exerted where we are weakest and most exposed. We must therefore be attentive to the ftate and conftitution of our own minds; we must discover to what habits we are most addicted, and of what propenfities we ought chiefly to beware: We must deliberate with ourselves on what resources we can moft affuredly depend, and what motives are beft calculated to repel the invader. Now, the ftudy of human nature, accuftoming us to turn our attention inwards, and reflect on the various propenfities and inclinations of the heart, facilitates felf-examination, and renders it habitual.

Independent of utility, the ftudy of the human mind is recommended in a peculiar manner to the curious and inquifitive; and is capable of yielding delight by the novelty, beauty, and magnificence, of the A 3 object,

object. Many find amufement in fearch-, ing into the conftitution of the material world; and, with unwearied diligence, pursue the progrefs of nature in the growth of a plant, or the formation of an infect. They fpate neither labour nor expence, to fill their cabinets with every curious production: They travel from climate to climate: They fubmit with chearfulness to fatigue, and inclement feafons; and think their induftry fufficiently compenfated, by the discovery of fome unusual phaenomenon. Not a pebble that lies on the fhore, not a leaf that waves in the foreft, but attracts their notice, and stimulates their inquiry. Events, or incidents, that the vulgar regard with terror or indifference, afford them fupreme delight: They rejoice at the return of a comet, and celebrate the blooming of an aloe, more than the birth of an emperor. Nothing is left unexplored: Air,

ocean,