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glad you have taken a fencing-master: that exercise will give you some manly, firm, and graceful attitudes: open your chest, place your head upright, and plant you well upon your legs. As to the use of the sword, it is well to know it: but remember, my dearest nephew, it is a science of defence, and that a sword can never be employed by the hand of a man of virtue, in any other cause. As to the carriage of your person, be particularly careful, as you are tall and thin, not to get a habit of stooping; nothing has so poor a look: above all things avoid contracting any peculiar gesticulations of the body, or movements of the muscles of the face. It is rare to see in any one a graceful laughter; it is generally better to smile than laugh out, especially to contract a habit of laughing at small, or no jokes. Sometimes it would be affectation, or worse, mere moroseness, not to laugh heartily, when the truly ridiculous circumstances of an incident, or the true pleasantry or wit of a thing, call for, and justify it; but the trick of laughing frivolously is by all means to be avoided: "Risu inepto, Res ineptior nalla est." Now as to POLITENESS; many have attempted definitions of it: I believe it is best to be known by description, definition not being able to comprise it. I would however venture to call it benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in little, daily, hourly, occurrences in the commerce of life. A better place, a more commodious seat, priority in being helped at table, &c. what is it but sacrificing ourselves in such trifles to the convenience and pleasure of others? And this constitutes true politeness. It is a perpetual attention, (by habit it grows easy and natural

to us), to the little wants of those we are with, by which we either prevent or remove them. Bowing, ceremonious formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness: that must be easy, natural, unstudied, manly, noble. And what will give this, but a mind benevolent, and perpetually attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles towards all you converse and live with? Benevolence in greater matters takes a higher name, and is the queen of virtues. Nothing is so incompatible with politeness as any trick of absence of mind. I would trouble you with a word or two more upon some branches of behaviour, which have a more serious moral obligation in them, than those of mere politeness! which are equally important in the eye of the world. I mean a proper behaviour, adapted to the respective relations we stand in, towards the different ranks of superiors, equals, and inferiors. Let your behaviour towards superiors, in dignity, age, learning, or any distinguished excellence, be full of respect, deference, and modesty. Towards equals, nothing becomes a man so well as well-bred ease, po lite freedom, generous frankness, manly spirit, always tempered with gentleness and sweetness of manner, noble sincerity, candour, and openness of heart, qualified and restrained within the bounds of discretion and prudence, and ever limited by a sacred regard to secrecy, in all things intrusted to it, and an inviolable attachment to your word. To inferiors, gentleness, condescension, and affability, is the only dignity. Towards servants, never accustom yourself to rough and passionate language. When they are good, we should consider them as humiles amici, as fellow Christians, t

conservi; and when they are bad, pity, admonish, and part with them if incorrigible. On all occasions beware, my dear child, of Anger, that dæmon, that de stroyer of our peace.

"Iva furor brevis est, animum rege qui nisi paret
Imperat, hunc frænis hunc tu compesce catenis."

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Ne'er pleased with ought above 'em, Prince or God."

DRYDEN.

In order to see, in the clearest light, the different effects of ignorance and of right education, on the lower classes of the people, we have only to recollect what passed during the late war in the two islands which constitute this united kingdom. In one of these, it is well known, that the ignorance and superstition of the peasants and the labourer are scarcely to be equalled in any other civilized country in Europe. It is a fact, ascertained by the most diligent and accurate enquiries, lately set on foot in that island, that even in the most enlightened part of it, not above one-third of the people receive any education at all; and throughout the rest of the island, not a twentieth part have even-learnt their alphabet. This is a degree of ignorance which carries back our thoughts to the ages of Gothic barbarism, and was scarcely to be expected in what we call these enlightened days. It is Egyptian darkness that may be felt. And what has been the consequence of

it? Such scenes of wanton cruelty and savage ferocity as exceed all power of description, and ought, indeed, rather to be buried in everlasting oblivion. I shall only, therefore, say, in the words of the prophet, that the common people of that island were "destroyed for lack of knowledge." Their understandings were darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that was in them. Let us now turn our eyes to our own island, and see what was the conduct of the common people of this country, at the same period of time, and under the same incitements to disaffection and infidelity. They were at first, indeed, staggered, and for a while imposed upon by those bold, licentious principles which the partizans of the French revolution propagated with so much industry through the kingdom. But they soon recovered from this de lirium; they saw through the wicked artifices of the abettors of anarchy and irreligion. They saw the frightful dangers that surrounded them: prepared to meet them with vigour, and actually repelled them with success. And what was the occasion of this happy change? It was, because the higher orders of the community could write, and the inferior orders could read. It was, because, for more than twenty years fore, upwards of 300,000 children of the poor had been religiously educated in the various charity schools and sunday schools of this kingdom.

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It has, I know, been sometimes asserted that ignorance is the mother of devotion. It is no such thing: it is the mother of superstition, of bigotry, of fanaticism, of disaffection, of cruelty, and of rebellion. These are its legitimate children. It has never yet produced

any other; and never will to the end of the world. And we may lay this down as an incontestible truth, that a well informed and intelligent people, more particularly a people well acquainted with the sacred writings, will always be more orderly, more decent, more humane, more virtuous, more religious, more obedient to their superiors than a people totally devoid of all instruction and all education.

BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF MARY QUEEN OF

SCOTS.

MARY STEWART, queen of Scots, born in the year 1542, daughter and heir of James V. king of Scotland, by Mary of Lorrain, his second queen, was scarce eight days old at his death, which was followed by great animosities among the nobility, who contested for the administration of public affairs, and the guardianship of the young queen was at last adjudged to the Earl of Arran, the next heir to the crown in legitimate descent, and the first peer of Scotland.

King Henry VIII. wished to obtain her for his son Edward, and at last it was agreed that she should be given in marriage to that prince; but he wished to have her educated in England, which the Scots would not comply with, which was the occasion of the famous battle of Musselburgh. Upon their defeat, she was conveyed by her mother into the isle of Inchemahom; where she first learned the rudiments of the Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian tongues: of all which she afterwards became a complete mistress.

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