But this is dreaming. It is too certain that on returning from the Latin island into the atmosphere of modern colleges an evil change would come over our young Latinists like that which came upon the young Montaigne when his father sent him to the college of Guienne, "at that time the best and most flourishing in France." Montaigne tells us that, notwithstanding all his father's precautions, the place "was a college still." "My Latin," he adds, "_immediately grew corrupt, and by discontinuance I have since lost all manner of use of it._" If it were the custom to speak Latin, it would be the custom to speak it badly; and a master of the language would have to conform to the evil usages around him. Our present state of ignorance has the charm of being silent, except when old-fashioned gentlemen in the House of Commons quote poetry which they cannot pronounce to hearers who cannot understand it. NOTE.--An English orator quoted from Cicero the sentence "Non intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia." He made the second vowel in _vectigal_ short, and the House laughed at him; he tried again and pronounced it with the long sound of the English _i_, on which the critical body he addressed was perfectly satisfied. But if a Roman had been present it is probable that, of the two, the short English _i_ would have astonished his ears the less, for our short _i_ does bear some resemblance to the southern _i_ whereas our long i resembles no single letter in any alphabet of the Latin family of languages. We are scrupulously careful to avoid what we call false quantities, we are quite utterly and ignorantly unscrupulous about false sounds. One of the best instances is the well-known "veni, vidi, vici," which we pronounce very much as if it had been written _vinai_, _vaidai_, _vaisai_, in Italian letters. LETTER IV. TO A STUDENT OF LITERATURE. Studies, whatever they may be, always considered, by some a waste of time--The classical languages--The higher mathematics--The accomplishments--Indirect uses of different studies--Influence of music--Studies indirectly useful to authors--What induced Mr. Roscoe to write the lives of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X. Whatever you study, some one will consider that particular study a foolish waste of time.