A veiy good rebuke of affectation, said Six–Charles (and your ladyship hints it was an effica — cious one). It serves to shew, that men, in their different attainments, may be cywr///// useful; in other words, that the knowledge of polite literature leads not to everij part of useful science. I remember, that my Harriet distinguishes very properly, in some of her letters to her Lucy, between language and science; and that poor Mr. Walden (that 1 thnik was his name) was pretty much disconcerted, as a

Transcribed from a collection of papers, intitled, The Plain-dealer, in two VoIh. Vol. I. No,,j7. pedant may sometimes be, when (and he bowed to his Harriet) he has a natural genius to contend with. She blushed, and bowed And I remember, Sir, said she, you promised to give me your animad-versions on the letters I consented you should see: Will you be pleased to correct me now?

Correct you, ray dearest life! What a word is that? 1 remember, that, in the conversation in whichyou were obliged, against your will, to bear so considerable a part, you demonstrated, that ge-nius, without deep learning, made a much more shining figure, in conversation, than learning with-out genius: but, upon the whole, I was a little apprehensive, that true learning might suffer, if languages were too slightly treated. Mr. Walden made one good observation, or rather remembered it, for it was long ago made, and will be always of weight, that the knowledge of languages, any more than the advantage of birth, was never thought lightly of by those who had pretensions to either. The knowledge of the Latin language, in particu-lar, let me say, is of singular use in the mastery of every science.

There are who aver, that men of parts have no occasion for learning: but, surely, our Shakespeare himself one of the greatest geniuses of any country or age (who, however, is an adept in the superior learning; the knowledge of nature) would not have been a sufferer, had he had that greater share of luiiuan learning whicli is denied him by some critics.

Ikit, Sir Charles, said Mr. Deane, don’t you think that Shakespeare, who lived before the great Milton, has an easier, pleasanter, and more intelligible man-ner of writing, than Milton? If so, may it not be ‘/wiiig to Milton’s greater learning, that Shakespeare has the advantage of that immortal poet in perspi-cuity?

Is the fact certain, my dear Mr. Deane, that Milton wants perspicuity? 1 have been bold enough sometimes to think, that he makes a greater display of his reading, than was quite necessary to his unbounded subject. But the age, in which Shake — speare flourished, might be called, The age ol English learning, as well as of English bravery. The queen and her court, the vei-y ladies of it, were more learned than any court of our English sovereigns was before, or hath been since. What a prodigy of learning, in the short reign of Edward the Vlth, was the Lady Jane Grey! Greek, as well as Latin, was familiar to her: so it was to Queen Elizabeth. And can it be supposed, that the natural geniuses of those ladies were more confined, or limited, for their knowledge of Latin and Greek? Milton, though a little nearer us, lived in harsher and more tumultuous times.