forgotten fame? And who will believe that the wise, pious, and eloquent Bishop Porteus was born, and gambolled away his boyhood on the sunny shores of the majestic York-river? They are all forgotten! and we neglect the vivid and truthful romance of our own beautiful land, to learn the nursery tales of fickle Greece, and factious Rome. In the shifting of the social scene, naught has been left to remind us of the busy drama once acted in Virginia, and even garrulous tradition now doubts its existence, while our feet hourly trample on the sepulchered silence of all that once adorned, dignified, and elevated human nature. I do not wish to give you a learned essay on books, nor to advise you what authors to read. Your taste is now matured, and that faculty will see that justice is done to its delicacy. The great object of study is to teach us _how_, and not _what_ to think; and the principal art of authorship is the power of pilfering with judgment from the ruins of ancient lore. But trust not to this poor and suspicious honor. Rely for success on the daring emprise of your own genius, and should it fail to lift you from the earth, descend not to the dunghill of pedantry. Be a poet for the women--a historian for the men--and a scholar for your own happiness. Confirm your taste by satiating memory with the beauties of the Spectator, and let Horace hourly talk you into the dignity and elegance of the sensible gentleman. Be accurate, rather than extensive, in your knowledge of history, and a recollection of dates will give you victory in every contest. Learn the technicalities of geometry; for this will satisfy the groping mathematician, while the world will take your pedantry for wisdom, and your crabbed words for learning. There has been, and ever will be, an everlasting conflict between the radiant course of genius, and the mole-hill track of diagrams and problems. Strength of mind is claimed as the attribute of mathematical study, while we forget that any other study, pursued with the same strictness of attention, will equally fashion the mind into system and method, while it will be free from the slavish obedience and indurated dulness, which result from the memory of lines and proportions.