the schoolboy, often frustrates the intentions of education. It is not likely that he should give his thoughts to literary improvement, who is obliged to study how he shall spend the bounty of his aunts and cousins; and whose pocket always enables him to find recreation without seeking it in books. It would be happy if things could be contrived, that for want of employment, he should be driven to those volumes where employment of the pleasantest kind may be always found attended with the most valuable advantages. A profusion of money at a childish age is not uncommonly the cause of subsequent extravagance, and tends to introduce one of the most pernicious and least curable vices, a propensity to gaming. But reasoning can avail little against the partiality of some fond relation, who cannot suffer present pleasure to be neglected by her favourite, for the sake of an advantage which is distant and uncertain.

It is usually supposed that maternal affection is stronger than paternal. There is no doubt but that it often interposes in adjusting the plan of education. Its kind solicitude is too amiable to be censured with asperity. Yet we must assert, that it is not possible that a mother, though sensible and accomplished, should be so well qualified to direct the care of a boy's education in all its parts, as a father. of equal abilities. All the important departments in civil life are filled by men. The pulpit, the bar, the senate-house, are appropriated to men. Men, from the facility with which they travel, and their. superior hardiness, see more of the world than women, who, with the same opportunities, might

indeed make the same observations; but who, in the present state of things, cannot judge of those qualifications, attainments, manners, and characters, which recommend to notice in all the professions of life, and tend to insure success. Hence it is that they are observed to set the highest value on orna. mental accomplishments, of the grace of which their fine taste is peculiarly sensible; and to under-rate the more solid attainments, with the utility and beauty of which their situation often keeps them unacquainted. Many a fond and sensible mother has controverted the necessity of learning Latin, as a dead language, in which there can be no use, while the living languages of France and Italy are more easily attainable, and infinitely more fashionable. Such a judgment is not to be wondered at; nor does it proceed from natural weakness, but from an unavoidable unacquaintance with the charms of the classics, and the utility of Latin in the practice of every liberal art, in the conversation of the enlightened, and in the study of the most admired modern books, which abound in Latin quotations, in allusions to the classics, and in words which cannot be fully understood without understanding the language from which they are derived.

Add to this, that the extreme tenderness of maternal affection will not permit that strict discipline to be exercised on a beloved son, which, though it has nothing in it of harsh severity, resembles not the soft and indulgent treatment of the mother or nurse. Scarcely any thing of value is brought to perfection without some care analogous to this scholastic discipline. The tree will not produce its

No. 143. fruits in sufficient abundance, or with a proper flavour, unless it is chastised in its luxuriances by the hand of art. It is requisite that the stubborn soil should be broken by cultivation. The most serviceable animals are either useless or hurtful, till reduced to obedience by coercion. Man, above all, possessed as he is of stronger powers and acuter perceptions, of ill qualities, no less than good, in a su• perior degree, requires all the aids of art to correct his enormities, and teach him to act a rational and consistent part in the theatre of the world. Although the infliction of salutary discipline may give pain even to those who know it to be salutary, yet they must not, for the sake of sparing their own feelings, act in contradiction to their judgment, and do an irreparable injury to those whom they most tenderly love. Excessive lenity and indulgence are ultimately excessive rigour.

With the excellent effects of Spartan discipline every one is acquainted. Of the lamentable consequences of modern relaxation, daily experience furnishes examples. The puerile age is patient and tractable. Reformation must begin there. Temperance, diligence, modesty, and humility, cannot be too early inculcated. These will lead through the temple of virtue to the temple of honour and happiness. In this progress, strict discipline will sometimes be necessary; but let not the pretence of proper correction give an opportunity for the gratification of vindictive cruelty. Inhumanity, even in a Busby, admits not of palliation. ̧

NO. CXLIV. ON THE POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO

ROWLEY.

THERE are many truths which we firmly be lieve, though we are unable to refute every argument which the extreme subtilty of refined learning may advance to invalidate them. When I read the researches of those learned antiquaries who have endeavoured to prove, that the poems attributed to Rowley were really written by him, I observe many ingenious remarks in confirmation of their opinion, which it would be tedious, if not difficult, to controvert. But I no sooner turn to the poems, than the labour of the antiquaries appears only a waste of time and ingenuity, and I am involuntarily forced to join in placing that laurel, which he seems so well to have deserved, on the brow of Chatterton.

The poems bear so many marks of superior genius, that they have deservedly excited the general attention of polite scholars, and are considered as the most remarkable productions in modern poetry. We have many instances of poetical eminence at an early age; but neither Cowley, Milton, nor Pope, ever produced any thing while they were boys, which can justly be compared to the poems of Chatterton. The learned antiquaries do not indeed dispute their excellence. They extol it in the highest terms of applause. They raise their favourite Rowley to a rivalry with Homer; but they make the very merit of the works an argument against the real author. Is it possible, say they, that a boy could produce compositions so beautiful and so

No. 144. masterly? That a common boy should produce them is not possible; but that they should be produced by a boy of an extraordinary genius, such a genius as was that of Homer and Shakespeare; such a genius as appears not above once in many centuries; though a prodigy, is such an one as by no means exceeds the bounds of rational credibility.

That Chatterton was such a genius, his manners and his life in some degree evince. He had all the tremulous sensibility of genius, all its eccentricities, all its pride, and all its spirit. Even his death, unfortunate and wicked as it was, displayed a haughtiness of soul, which urged him to spurn a world, where even his exalted genius could not vindicate him from contempt, indigence, and contumely.

Against the opinion of his superiority of genius, the miscellanies which he published in a periodical pamphlet are triumphantly produced. But what proof is there that all which are attributed to him are really his own? They are collected after his death; collected, I suppose, by conjecture, and published in a separate volume, with all the typographical errata of the hasty pamphlets from which they are reprinted. But in many of the pieces which were confessedly written by him, there are marks of genius not indeed equal to those of the counterfeit Rowley, but such as prove, that the boy who wrote them could write better. In composing the ancient poems all his attention had been exerted. It was the first, and seems to have been the greatest, object of his life, to raise himself to future eminence by the instrumentality of a fictitious poet of a former age. Nights, if not days, were devoted to the work; for we have it