11 JULY 1829, Page 12

THE ART OF LATIN POETRY.*

'Nis is a collection of such peculiarities as may be observed by a , critical reader in the perusal of the Latin poets. It is in fact what all persons who desired to write Latin verse would form for themselves either in the memory or a note-book. Sometimes a master or tutor points them out ; sometimes the student collects them as the result of his own examination. Few things can be more absurd than the ex- tensive cultivation of the art of writing Latin verse by the different and successive stages of British youth as they pass through school and college ; if, however, it is an art to be cultivated, then the work before us will be found useful—as an auxiliary only—for the true and only means of acquiring this art, so valued in both our Universities, is by a constant perusal of VIRGIL and Oyu), and by the incessant practice of committing large portions to memory. Perhaps, of all the follies that ever beset mankind, one of the most marked is the value that has been set in this country in our places of education upon the power of writing a dead language. Conceive our youth emulating one another in the study of Pali, and the absurdity will not be unobserved : con- ceive one University lording it over another for its tiperiority in Pali; imagine for a moment the High School of our neighbours disgraced for the moment because a future Prime Minister absolutely discovered errors in the quantity of the syllables of the Pali words, and was able to prove beyond a doubt that the ambitious Cdeves had ventured to use forms of expression absolutely unknown to the classical lips of the antedeluvian Ceylonese. Be this as it may, prizes are given for Latin verse ; Latin verse is the passport to honour, fame, wealth, and public employment. It must therefore be learned. No scholar or versifier is ever made by didactic books, but he may be improved by them : in this point of view we recommend the Art qf Latin Poetry.

* The Art of Latin Poetry, founded on u work of M. C. D. Jant, by a Master of

Arta.and Fellow of a College in Cambridge. Cambridge, 1825.