in thofe extoll'd remains of Grecian Lawgivers, Lycurgus, Solon, 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 employ. ments are well conquer'd, then will the choife hiftories, heroic poems, and Attic

tragedies

tragedies of ftatlieft, and moft 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 spirit 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 discourse 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, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To which Poetry would be made fubfer quent, or indeed rather precedent, as: being leffe futtle and fine, but more fimple, fenfuous, and paffionate. I meant 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 poe tics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Caftelvetro, Taffo, Maxzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true Epic poem, what of a Dra matic, what of a Lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand mafter peece to obferve. This would make them foon

perceive

perceive what despicable creatures our common rimers and play-writes be, and fhew them, what Religious, what glorious and magnificent ufe might be made of Poetry both in divine and humane things. From hence and not till now will be the right feafon of forming them to be able writers and compofers in every excellent matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an univerfall infight into things. Or whether they be to fpeak in Parlament or counfell, honour and attention would be waiting on their lips. There would then alfo appear in pulpits other vifages, other geftures, and ftuffe otherwife wrought then what we now fit under, oft times to as great a

triall

triall of our patience as any other that they preach to us. Thefe are the ftudies wherein our noble and our gentle youth ought to bestow their time in a difciplinary way from twelve to one and twenty; unleffe they rely more upon their ancestors dead, then upon them-' felves living. In which methodicall courfe it is fo fuppos'd they must pro-' ceed by the fteddy pace of learning onward, as at convenient times for memories fake to retire back into the middle ward, and fometimes into the rear of what they have been taught, untill they lrave confirm'd, and folidly united the whole body of their perfeted knowledge, like the last embattelling of a Romane

legion.