orations, and the most important treatises of rhetoric and
philosophy; and as I read, I applauded the observation of
Quintilian, that every student may judge of his own proficiency, by
the satisfaction which he receives from the Roman orator. I tasted
the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I
imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense
of a man. Cicero in Latin, and Xenophon in Greek, are indeed the
two ancients whom I would first propose to a liberal scholar; not
only for the merit of their style and sentiments, but for the
admirable lessons, which may be applied almost to every situation of
public and private life. Cicero's Epistles may in particular afford
the models of every form of correspondence, from the careless
effusions of tenderness and friendship, to the well guarded
declaration of discreet and dignified resentment. After finishing
this great author, a library of eloquence and reason, I formed a
more extensive plan of reviewing the Latin classics, under the four
divisions of, 1. historians, 2. Poets, 3. orators, and 4.
philosophers, in a chronological series, from the days of Plautus
and Sallust, to the decline of the language and empire of Rome: and
this plan, in the last twenty-seven months of my residence at
Lausanne (Jan. 1756--April 1758), I nearly accomplished. Nor was
this review, however rapid, either hasty or superficial. I indulged
myself in a second and even a third perusal of Terence, Virgil,
Horace, Tacitus, &c.; and studied to imbibe the sense and spirit
most congenial to my own. I never suffered a difficult or corrupt
passage to escape, till I had viewed it in every light of which it
was susceptible: though often disappointed, I always consulted the
most learned or ingenious commentators, Torrentius and Dacier on
Horace, Catrou and Servius on Virgil, Lipsius on Tacitus, Meziriac
on Ovid, &c.; and in the ardour of my inquiries, I embraced a large