ful. The great philologer, whose reputation as the collector of ancient Greek inscriptions was at that time at its height, proved a most kindly and entertaining host, flinging aside the learning, which he wore so lightly, on the occasions when he received his students, and keeping them in continual merriment with humorous stories and passages from Sterne or Smollett, which he read aloud with much spirit. His academic lectures were on Tacitus, but he went into every particular with such erudite minuteness that during the whole session the class accomplished only one book of the history. This was a little disappointing, as John Blackie had only a single session to spend at Berlin, but in later years he appreciated the lesson in close and effective study.

These classes at the Friedrich Wilhelm University by no means exhausted the studies undertaken for this winter. He made the acquaintance of a young theologian, a proficient in Greek, whom he engaged to read Homer with him four times a-week. They translated into German, so that from their work he reaped a double benefit. He soon made friends amongst the students, and with one of them he concluded terms of mutual edification. He undertook to teach his friend English in return for five hours' weekly help with the German classics. The contract repaid

STUDIES IN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION.

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both, and on John's side led to a careful study of Goethe's Faust,' while we find him brushing up his own language for the benefit of his friend. To make his lessons better, he studied the pronunciation of English as given in Walker's Dictionary, and so began a habit which outlasted this necessity. Throughout life he took pains with his pronunciation, and while never forfeiting the unadorned simplicity of Scottish intonation, he accepted the best authority as his guide in accent and quantity about all words apt to ring uncertain changes on Scottish lips. He writes home describing the new aspect of his own language as a subject for such study, and it is evident that by this time German had become the easier form of expression.

In view of his travels in Italy, he had thoughts of adding to this well-filled time-table two hours weekly at Italian, and he did add lessons in fencing, although they were rather for the sake of his health than for further accomplishment.

His health continued to show the benefit of his autumn tour. Only the cold in his head returned with the winter's work. His anxious father insisted on his consulting a doctor, and he tells his experience with merry relish and constant assertion of his own wellbeing. A friend recommended Dr Behrens, who lived in the Dorothea Strasse.

That's most capital, and just behind the University. I can manage the business in five minutes' time, and then in the evening, when I write my letter, I shall have something to say of the doctor and his prescriptions. But it most unluckily happens that there is a classical book-shop there, where Greek, Latin, and German books can be procured at a moderate price. Into this shop I went, and found several books for which I had been looking weeks before. Now there happened to be only a single louis in my pocket. This I had destined for the physician, at least part of it. Here therefore was an auction in my head, the books and the physician bidding for the louis. The claims of the one were in my estimation much greater than those of the other: the consequence was, the doctor lost his prey.

Finally the visit was effected, and Dr Behrens and his lively patient were mutually diverted. He did his father's bidding, but assured the doctor that he was quite well. The cold in his head was, however, sufficiently in evidence to require a prescription, and Dr Behrens ordered a vapour bath and daily exercise. As his lodgings were were a mile a mile away from the University, he found it difficult to wedge in a farther walk, so he compromised the matter by taking fencing lessons twice a-week, as already stated, and these calling for considerable muscular play, dislodged the enemy for a time.

His letters intimate that a change, of which he was quite conscious, was coming over his

WIDENING VIEWS OF LIFE.

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views of secular life. This was the very change desired by Mr Blackie, who had seen his son gradually forfeiting certain powers of mind and temper by brooding and self-concentration. His horizon was contracted, not because he selected the most important in preference to the subordinate interests of life, but because he selected the former at the expense of the latter, and failed to see that all the energies with which we are endowed are good, and that our study must be how best to use all, not to employ some and disuse the rest. Mr Blackie and Dr Forbes believed that, thrown upon his own resources, his mind would regain its equilibrium, and that healthy enjoyment would take the place of which a moping self-sufficiency had deprived it. Perhaps, too, the wise father saw that something of this moping self-sufficiency was due to the unremitting vigilance of a too anxious family circle. All young natures shrink into themselves and become partially paralysed under the discipline of domestic nagging, and there is no doubt that the very pride and affection of which he was the centre at home took too constantly this form. He alludes to it playfully in one of his letters, and bids the "female pillars" take note that he is now a travelled fellow who knows the world and will wear his

knowledge with some dignity when he returns, with mind and manners polished beyond their

ken.

In one respect his practice indicated this change. He began to frequent the excellent Berlin theatre, scrupulously avoiding the Sunday performances, but attending on those week-days when the play was either Goethe's, Schiller's, or Kotzebue's, the last dramatist being then counted of classical rank. He found himself in this way agreeably introduced to some of the masterpieces of German literature, and profited too by the pronunciation, which was most carefully studied by good German actors. It was easy to read at home the plays with whose action he was thus made acquainted.

His father, much astonished to hear that he had broken the serious resolves which barred the theatre as a snare of the devil, wrote to ask him what "new light" guided his doings. His answer treats rather of the complete change in his standpoint than of the particular instance; but as the expression of a most important mental transition, part of this letter deserves quotation:

Powers for whose exercise there is no necessity cannot be developed. If we suppose that a person is naturally of a weak, pliant, and irresolute disposition, timid and retir