the poet expresses it,

" To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,"

may be an after consideration, when the pupils become masters

themselves. It is then, when their genius has received its utmost

improvement, that rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us

not destroy the scaffold until we have raised the building.

The directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of

those students who, being more advanced, are arrived at that

critical period of study, on the nice management of which their

future turn of taste depends. At that age it is natural for them

to be more captivated with what is brilliant than with what is

solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to painful and humiliating

exactness.

A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly

handling the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed,

captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the

objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate those

dazzling excellences, which they will find no great labour in

attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the

difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too late; and

there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour after

the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious

mastery.

By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of

advancing in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at

their utmost perfection; they have taken the shadow for the

substance; and make that mechanical facility the chief excellence