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them right and firm, inftructing them more amply in the knowledge of vertue and the hatred of vice: while their young and pliant affections are led through all the morall works of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and thofe Locrian remnants; but ftill to be reduc't in their nightward ftudies wherewith they close the dayes work, under the determinat fentence of David or Solomon, or the evangels and Apoftalic Scriptures. Being perfit in the knowledge of perfonall duty, they may then begin the study of Economies. And either now, or before this, they may have eafily learnt at any odde hour the Italian tongue. And foon after, but with warineffe, and good antidote, it would

would be wholfome anough to let them, taft fome choife comedies Greek, Latin, or Italian: thofe tragedies alfo that treate of houfhold matters, as Trachinia, Alceftis and the like. The next remove must be to the ftudy of Politics: to know the beginning, end, and reafons of political focieties; that they may not in a dangerous fit of the com-mon-wealth be fuch poor, fhaken, uncertain reeds, of fuch a tottering confcience, as many of our great counsellers have lately fhewn themselves, but ftedfaft pillars of the State. After this they are to dive into the grounds of law, and legall juftice; deliver'd firft, and with best warrant by Mofes; and as farre as humane prudence can be trusted,

in

in thofe extoll'd remains of Grecian Lawgivers, Lycurgus, Solen, Zaleucus, Charondas, and thence to all the Romane Edicts and tables with their Iuftinian; and fo down to the Saxon and common laws of England, and the Statutes. Sundayes alfo and every evening may be now understandingly spent in the highest matters of Theology, and Church Hiftory ancient and modern: and ere this time the Hebrew tongue at a fet hour might have been gain'd, that the Scriptures may be now read in their own originall; whereto it would be no impoffibility to adde the Chaldey, and the Syrian dialect. When all thefe employments are well conquer'd, then will the choife hiftories, heroic poems, and Attic

tragedies

tragedies of statlieft, and most regal argument, with all the famous Politicall orations offer themselves; which if they were not only read; but fome of them got by memory, and folemnly pronounc't with right accent, and grace, as might be taught, would endue them even with the fpirit and vigor of Demofthenes or Cicero, Euripides, or Sophocles.

And

now laftly will be the time to read with them thofe organic arts which inable men to difcourfe and write perfpicuoufly, elegantly, and according to the fitted. ftile of lofty, mean, or lowly. Logic therefore fo much as is ufefull, is to be referr'd to this due place withall her well coucht heads and Topics, untill it be time to open her contracted palm into a

grace

gracefull and ornate Rhetorick taught out of the rule of Plato, Ariftotle, Plalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To which Poetry would be made fubfequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being leffe futtle and fine, but more fimple, fenfuous, and paffionate. I mean not here the profody of a verfe, which they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of grammar; but that fublime art which in Ariftotles poetics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Caftelvetro, Taffo, Maz

oni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true Epic poem, what of a Dramatic, what of a Lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand mafter peece to obferve. This would make them foon

perceive

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