CONTRIBUTORS.

No subject is of more interest to the student than that of Literary Culture. When this art is properly joined to scholastic discipline, we have the truly educated man. No one will deny that this important part of our College education is too much neglected. We propose to trace, briefly, the course of literature, to show, that while we may not reach "that highest heaven of invention" which the ancients attained, still, high places in the art can be reached by the modern writer. The age of man and thought, taken in connection with the unchangableness of human nature, places an almost insurmountable barrier against any very decided or extensive originality of mind. How often do we find that what pleases us, to-day, as an elo. quent thought or startling precedent, had passed into a "classic," or well-known custom, in the earliest ages of the race. An old Roman philosopher, in the last days of the Empire, struck with the idea, gave expression to a remarkable truism, "Nil sub sole novum." And Saxe, a poet of our own day, says, in the preface to his book, "The rest of the poems, for aught I can say, are as original as the verses of other men, who have the misfortune to write at this rather late day in the history of letters." Let us consider, then, the mode of literary culture in those days when the fairest and most beautiful flowers of poetry and philosophy were plucked, from the great garden of thought.

Education, in all its forms was, at first, an expensive luxury. A few carefully executed manuscripts, formed the library of the Grecian student, that only a few, on account of the cost, could enjoy. A class of "Rhetors" arose who, in a great degree, took the place of the modern press, and who, in a great measure, instructed and moulded the mind of Greece. They imparted their learning by public lectures and readings, displaying a vigor and originality of thought, which modern times can never hope to rival. In this way, we are told that Heroditus gave to the world his beautiful history,-reading it before the assembled crowds at the Olympic games, and Prodicus, that prince of sophists, there engraved upon the mind of Greece his charming allegories. In such a way was the Athenian mind educated and refined. Not only did they excel in philosophy. They manifested an unremitting love for poetry and eloquence, and often in want of the reality, they pursued the shadow. There is poor, blind Homer, for whose immortal fame seven cities have contended, in default of the real, gave to the world the picture of an ideal war, in measures of such grandeur and earnestness, that he is justly styled the "King of verse." In Rome, this same plan of education was adopted, and thus did these great nations, by the combination of scholastic, with æsthetic culture, reach the highest places in literature. The emperors were willing patrons, and Nero, wicked in every other respect, has earned some thanks for the founding of schools, where authors could proclaim their knowledge to the people. In these chosen places Lucan recited his Pharsalia, Quintilian, his rhetorical treatise; and others, whose works refined and elevated the Roman mind. Their mission was two-fold,-it produced a magnificent race of orators and writers, that gave dignity and renown to the Republic and Empire. It also propagated a taste for literature, which preserved those literary traditions and works, for the want of which, modern eloquence and culture, might have been long delayed. It was indeed delayed, by that long night which rested upon the world, subsequent to the overthrow of the Roman Empire. It was an age where ignorance and superstition were the landmarks, and men's minds, darkened and held in thraldom by the chicanery of Catholicism, knew no other, but to suffer in silence and groan in secret. In the midst of this universal gloom, when society was pernicious, and culture neglected, because of that oppression which was antagonistic to everything good or noble,--a thunder-cloud burst over the world. Men disputed the divinity of the Pope, and Martin Luther, by one blast of that mighty theology forged in Heaven's foundry, broke forever the "fetters of the human mind."