CONCLUDING REMARKS. 228

poets. By collecting in schools casts of a few good
specimens from the antique, and drawings of others, a
taste for the art of design might be excited among
some of the boys. In a large school there are always
a few whose taste for the arts only wants a true
direction. It often happens indeed that drawing is
merely tolerated in schools, like dancing and French,
and consequently no pains are taken in the choice
of a master, or in seeing that his instruction is well
directed. But the department of the drawing-master
might be made to contribute materially both to the
pleasure and the instruction of the pupils; and a
skilful instructor, himself well imbued with a taste
for simple design, would readily show how it could
be made subservient to the better understanding of
what the boys read. Among the boys some would
be found who might unite to a critical acquaintance
with the antient writers the practical skill of a good
draughtsman, and thus we might see a body of artists
formed whose notions should not be derived from im-
perfect transcripts of these great originals, but who
should themselves be the best interpreters of the antient
masters of epic poetry and the drama. Another
Plaxman might arise to restore the scenes as the
poet conceived and the theatre of Athens once dis-
played them.