believe, that no fmall pains are taken to traduce my character, and to ridicule my taste in dress, and all the circumftances of external behaviour. It is kindly hinted, that a little awkwardnefs and impropriety may be excufed in a learned lady, and that drefs and decorum are beneath the notice of a poetess. I have no reason to think that my perfon is particularly difagreeable; yet, I know not how it is, I am avoided by gentlemen who are ambitious of the company of other ladies. They have dropt, in the hearing of fome of my friends, that though they think me extremely clever, yet they cannot reconcile the ideas of female attractions and the knowledge of the Greek. They do not mean to detract from my praife; but they muft own, that I am not the woman after their hearts. They entertain a notion, that a lady of improved understanding will not fubmit to the lefs dignified cares of managing a household. She knows how to make verfes, fays the witling, but give me the woman who can make a pudding. I must confefs, I ever thought it the most valuable recommendation of a wife to be capable of becoming a converfible companion to her hufband; nor did I ever conceive that the qualifications of a cook-maid, a laundrefs, or a houfe-keeper, were the moft defirable accomplishments in a partner for life. A woman of improved underftanding and real fenfe is more likely to fubmit to her condition, whatever it may be, than the uneducated or the half-learned; and fuch an one will always be willing to fuperintend œconomy, when it becomes her duty; and to take an active part in household management; when the happiness of him fe loves, and of herfelf, depends upon her perfonal interference. The education of children in the earlier periods, particularly of daughters, naturally belongs to the mother. Her inclination to improve them, feconded by her ability to take the proper methods, muft be attended with the most valuable effects. The world is acquainted with the happy confequences of a Cornelia's parental care. But it feems, probable, that little nourishment of mind can be imbibed from a mother, whofe ideas hardly ever wandered beyond the limits either of a kitchen or a dreffing-room. Neither is there fufficient reafon to conclude, that fhe whose intellectual acquifitions enable her to entertain her husband, and to form the minds of her children, must be incapable or unwilling to fuperintend the table, and give a perfonal attention to domestic œconomy. That learning belongs not to the female character, and that the female mind is not capable of a degree of improvement equal to that of the other fex, are narrow and unphilofophical prejudices. The present times exhibit moft honourable instances of female learning and genius. The fuperior advantages of boys education are, perhaps, the fole reafon of their fubfequent fuperiority. Learning is equally attainable, and, I think equally valuable, for the fatisfaction arifing from it, to a woman as a man. For my own part, I would not lofe the little I poffefs, to avoid all other difagreeable confequences of which I have just now complained. No. CXLIII. ON PARENTAL INDULGENCE TH HE love of progeny feems to operate as ftrongly in the brute creation as in the human fpecies. during the helpless age of immaturity. The guidance of inftinct, indeed, as it is more decifively determinate, feems to bring up an offspring with lefs deviation from the purposes of nature, than the fuperior faculty of reafon. The greater acuteness of reafon leads to hefitation, and involves in error, while it is diftracted by the variety of objects it affembles for its choice. The bird never injures its young by repletion. The young, indeed, of few animals, when left to the care of the parent, without the interference of man, is found to perifh. But it is well known how large a proportion of children die under the age of two years, in our metropolis. The caufe is in general the neglect of nature for the aids of art, proceeding from a degree of fondness which ftimulates the parent to take all the M 2 care care upon herself, and to leave little to the invifible procefs of natural energies. If the child survive by the vigour of its conftitution to a puerile age, even then the fondnefs of the parent, moft amiable in its origin, but most injurious to the object it most wishes to benefit, is found to deftroy the very purposes of living, by endeavouring to render life pleasurable to excefs and without viciffitude. If his abfence can be fo far borne as to permit him to enter at a school, an earneft defire is expreffed that he may be indulged in all thofe luxuries of the table which pollute the pure ftream of the infant blood, and, by overloading the organs of intellect, preclude the poffibility of folid improvement. He, whofe attention should be engroffed by his book, and who fhould learn to look on every pleafure of the fenfes as a fubordinate pleasure, is taught, by the overweening attachment of a parent, to have little other care than to pamper the groffeft among the animal appetites. Regularity of diet, and modeft decency in all the circumftances of fcholaftic life, are often reprefented as the refult of fparing economy; and the young pupil· no fooner returns, in the days of vacation, to his paternal roof, than he is crammed with delicacies, to compenfate the penance he has undergone at the place of his education. We can derive but little improvement from the teacher we contemn. Yet how can the boy avoid contempt for the mafter, whom he is taught to confider as totally regardless of any thing but his own fordid intereft, and capable of depriving the child committed to his care of his proper fuftenance? But they who are fenfible in other refpects, are rendered, by their fondnefs, weak enough to believe any calumny which a froward child utters for the fake of changing his place of education, or of remaining at home. The propenfity to indulgence is fo ftrong, that at the matureft age, and with the moft improved reafon, it is difficult to reftrain it within the limits of moderation. To encourage, inftead of checking this natural tendency, is, in effect, to nurfe thofe vices of the future youth, and to cause those exceffes of early manhood, 1 245 manhood, which in the end haften the grey hairs of the inconfiderate parent with forrow to the grave. Few would be profligate in the extreme, if they were not untaught all the virtue they learn under their tutors, by the example and inadvertence of their own family. When immorality is obliquely recommended by a father's practice, the infection is irresistible. A tutor's admonitions are foon fuppofed to proceed merely from official care, when they contradict the conduct of him whom a child naturally loves above all others. The general cuftom of allowing a confiderable weekly ftipend, and of giving pecuniary prefents to the fchoolboy, often fruftrates the intentions of education. It is not likely that he fhould give his thoughts to literary improvement, who is obliged to ftudy how he fhall fpend the bounty of his aunts and coufins; and whofe pocket always enables him to find recreation without feeking it in books. It would be happy if things could be fo contrived, that, for want of employment he fhould be driven to thofe volumes where employment of the fweeteft kind may be always found, attended with the most valuable advantages. A profufion of money at a childish age is not uncommonly the caufe of fubfequent extravagance, and tends to introduce one of the moft pernicious and leaft curable vices, a propenfity to gaming. But reafoning can avail little against the partiality of fome fond relation who cannot fuffer prefent pleasure to be neglected by her favourite for the fake of an advantage diftant and uncertain. Its It is ufually fuppofed that maternal affection is ftronger than paternal. There is no doubt but that it often interpofes in adjufting the plan of education. kind folicitude is too amiable to be cenfured with afperity. Yet we muft affert, that it is not poffible that a mother, though fenfible and accomplished, should be fo 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 fenate-house are appropriated to men. Men, from the facility with which they travel, and their fuperior hardiness, fee more more of the world than women, who, with the fame opportunities, might indeed make the fame obfervations; but who, in the prefent ftate of things, cannot judge of thofe qualifications, attainments, manners, and characters, which recommend to notice in all the profeffions of life, and tend to infure fuccefs. Hence it is that they are obferved to fet the highest value on ornamental accomplishments, of the grace of which their fine tafte is peculiarly fenfible; and to under-rate the more folid attainments, with the utility and beauty of which their fituation often keeps them unacquainted. Many a fond and fenfible mother has controverted the neceffity of learning Latin, as a dead language, in which there can be no ufe, while the living languages of France and Italy are more eafily attainable, and infinitely more fashionable. Such a judgment is not to be wondered at ; nor does it proceed from natural weaknefs, but from an unavoidable unacquaintance with the charms of the claffics, and the utility of Latin in the practice of every liberal art, in the converfation of the enlightened, and in the ftudy of the most admired modern books, which abound in Latin quotations, in allufions to the claffics, and in words which cannot be fully understood without understanding the language from which they are de rived. Add to this, that the extreme tenderness of maternal affection will not permit that ftrict difcipline to be exercifed on a beloved fon, which, though it has no thing in it of harfh feverity, refembles not the foft and indulgent treatment of the domeftic nursery. Scarcely any thing of value is brought to perfection without fome care analagous to this fcholaftic difcipline. The tree will not produce its fruits in fufficient abundance, or with a proper flavour, unlefs it is chaftifed in its luxuriances by the hand of art. It is requifite that the stubborn foil thould be broken by cultivation. The moft ferviceable animals are either ufelefs or hurtful, till reduced to obedience by coercion. Man, above all, poffeffed as he is of ftronger powers and accurate perceptions, of ill qualities no lefs than good, in a fupe rior degree, requires all the aids of art to correct his enormities, and teach him to act a rational and con fiftent |