eye of the student. He is thus introduced to one great author after another. First comes Caesar, whose plain but vigorous style is the true image of the great Roman general and statesman, who changed the greatest of republics into an Empire. Then appears Xenophon with his lifelike descriptions; Livy with his eloquent history of Rome, full of ardent patriotism; then Cicero, the most gifted and versatile of all the Romans, with his brilliant style, his sparkling wit, his cutting irony and stern denunciation of corruption. Then the student admires Ovid's elegant verses, Virgil's grand and stately lines, Horace's refined and tasteful stanzas. Then rises before him the great philosopher Plato, who portrays in fascinating dialogues the wise man of heathen antiquity, Socrates. If properly taught, but then only, the student is sure, after the struggle of a few months, to form an intimate friendship with the 'Father of Poetry', immortal Homer. He will soon realize the greatness of the blind old man, who lived in the mouths of a hundred generations and a thousand tribes; who, as Cardinal Newman says, "may be called the first apostle of civilization;" whose Odyssey and Iliad formed a source of purest enjoyment to many of the greatest men of history: to Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Newman, Gladstone, and countless others. We could continue and mention the powerful harangues of the prince of orators, Demosthenes, the grand and soul-stirring tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles. But we have enumerated enough to show what wealth and variety of intellectual food is placed before the classical student in the course of a few years. By these studies his aesthetical sense is developed, he acquires imperceptibly that precious gift, which we call taste.
