 of diversions, sports, and vulgar gossip."

"You see, Mr. Tyrrel," said the Doctor, "that a prudent combatant thinks only of defending himself on that side where he is assaulted. If Mr. Stanley's antagonist had been a vehement advocate for clerical learning as the great essential to his profession, he would have been the first to caution him against the pride and inflation which often attend learning, when not governed by religion. Learning, not so governed, might injure Christian humility, and thus become a far more formidable enemy to religion than that which it was called in to oppose."

Sir John said, smiling, "I will not apply to the clergy what Rasselas says to Imlac, after he had been enumerating the numberless qualities necessary to the perfection of the poetic art—'Thou hast convinced me that no man can be a poet;'—but if all Stanley says be just, I will venture to assert that no common share of industry and zeal will qualify a young student for that sacred profession. I have indeed no experience on the subject, as it relates to the clerical order, but I conceive in general, that learning is the best human preservative of virtue; that it safely fills up leisure, and honorably adorns life, even where it does not form the business of it."

"Learning, too," said I, "has this strong recommendation, that it is the offspring of a most valuable virtue, I mean industry; a quality on which I am ashamed to see pagans frequently set a higher value than we seem to do."

"I believe, indeed," replied Sir John, "that the ancients had a higher idea of industry and severe application than we have. Tully calls them the imperatoriæ virtutes, and Alexander said that slaves might indulge in sloth, but that it was a most royal thing to labor."

"It has been the error of sensible men of the world to erect talents and learning into idols, which they would have universally and exclusively worshiped. This has, perhaps, driven some religious men into such a fear of over-cultivating learning, that they do not cultivate it at all. Hence the intervals between their religious employments, and intervals there must be while we are invested with these frail bodies, are languid and insipid, wasted in trifling and sauntering. Nay, it is well if this disoccupation of the intellect do not lead from sloth to improper indulgences."

"You are perfectly right," said Sir John; "our worthy friend Thompson is a living illustration of
