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er a book. No, the advice to him is, observe what passes, and what good or hurt accompanies or follows it.

Remark what it is that pleases you only for a few moments, and then either brings immediate uneasiness, or lays a foundation for some future.

You find several things of service to you, observe which is of most, which has no sort of inconvenience attending it, or very little in comparison of its advantage; and, if there are none of them without some inconveniences, which has the fewest-which does you good in a higher degree, or for a longer term.

You are continually with those of the same nature with yourself; take notice what is serviceable or prejudicial to them; you may learn from their experience what your own teaches you not. Every day will furnish some or other occurrence that may be a profitable lesson to you, make it such; overlook nothing that affects your wellbeing; attend chiefly to what concerns it. Go over frequently in your thoughts the observations you have made on what will more or less benefit you; let them be so deeply imprinted upon your mind, make them so familiar to yourself, that the offer of a less good may never surprise and betray you into the neglect, and, by that means, the loss of a greater.

You are at all times at liberty to consider your own nature, be acquainted with it, see what you can do for yourself, what share of your happiness has no dependence on the things without you; what blessings may be secured to you by your own dispositions.

You necessarily shun evil; don't mistake it; be sure of what is so; be apprised of the degrees of it; be thoroughly instructed in these, that a desire to escape what you could easily bear, may never occasion you a distress which you would pronounce insupportable. Endeavour to inform yourself what evil you cannot too industriously avoid-what you should readily submit to-what you may change into good.

He, to whose situation terms like these would be unsuitable, must have reason to seek, as well as a livelihood. Our natural understanding fits all of us for a task like this; nor can it be inconsistent with any the hardest labour to which our support will oblige us.

The whole of this so severe a lesson is this brief one: Do your best for yourself; be as happy as the right use of the abilities God has given you can make you.

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And are any of us in our younger years better pleased than when we are suffered to sport away our time-to pass it without the least controul and instruction? But because we are thus pleased, are we rightly so? Could worse befal us, than to be permitted to continue thus agreeably unrestrained and uninstructed?

The man in a lethargy desires you would let him dose on: he apprehends no danger, when you see the greatest: you grieve and vex him, when you attempt to cure him.

Does any one who has more sense than the bulk of his fellow-creatures, wish for their dulness, that he might share their diversions-wish for their thoughtlessness, that he might join in their mirth?

Could the neglect of our rational faculties be accompanied, throughout our continuance in being, with the satisfaction at present expressed by so many under it, this indeed might be something in its favour; but this is by no means the case. He who gives us these faculties, and the ability to improve them, must intend that we should improve them: by frustrating his intentions we incur his displeasure; if we incur it, we may justly expect, sooner or later, to feel the effects thereof.

Nor is it to be thought that the neglect of our reason is, from the good we hereby forego, its own sufficient punishment, and therefore not likely to expose us to any other. We cannot rightly think thus, because of the extensive mischief occasioned by this neglect. It is very far from terminating in ourselves, from making us the only sufferers. Were it so confined, some pretence there might be for considering our mere crime as our ample punishment. But such it cannot appear, when it does infinite hurt to others to our neighbourhood-to our friends-to our family-to the whole community of which we are members.

What is enough for myself, what I can do without, should be the least of my concern. My duty is to reflect what I can do for others; how I may make myself of greatest use. We stand all largely indebted

to

to our fellow-creatures; and, owing them so much, if we neglect to qualify ourselves for serving them, we greatly injure them. But as this is not the place for pursuing these reflections, I will now only remark, of what deplorable consequence it is to our children (whose title to our endeavours for their benefit, all acknowledge) that the culture of our minds is so little our care that we slight the rational improvements, with a capacity for which our Creator has so graciously favoured us.

Unapprehensive of the mischief our off. spring must necessarily receive from our sloth, our intemperance, and other criminal gratifications, we impair their frame before it is yet completed; we entail on them misery, before we give them life.

Their reason seems to be watched in its appearance, only that it may be applied to for its speedier corruption. Every thing they are at first taught to value, is what they cannot enough despise; and all the pains that should be taken to keep their minds from vain fears, are employed to introduce them.

The chief of what our memory receives in our childhood, is what our maturer age most wishes to forget.

While we are ignorant how hurtful it is to be governed by our passions, our wise directors permit them to govern us, and thereby give them a strength which we afterwards fruitlessly lament and oppose. To save our tears, we are to have our will; and, for a few moments of present quiet, be condemned to years of distress. Imaginary evils we are bid to regard as the principal real ones; and what we should most avoid, we are, by examples of greatest weight with us, encouraged to practise.

How much indeed both the bodies and minds of children suffer from the ill-informed understanding of their parents, is scarcely to be conceived-what advantages they lose by it--what misery they feel: and therefore, as they are the immediate objects of our care-as nature has made them such, and all the prejudice they receive from any failure of ours, from any neglect on our part in qualifying ourselves to assist them in the way we ought to do it, is really an injury done them by us; we cannot think, that if we won't endeavour to have just notions of things, we are sufficiently punished by being without themwe can, with no probability, suppose, that, if we are content to be losers ourselves, it will be satisfaction enough for

any distress that our carelessness or supineness brings on others, even on them whose welfare we ought most to consult.

Of what advantage it is to both sexes that the parent, under whose guidance they are in their tender years, should not have confined her thoughts to the recommen dations of apparel, furniture, equipage-to the amusements in fashion to the forms of good breeding to the low topics of female conversation; we have the most re. markable instances in the family of Emilia. She has for many years been the wife of one, whose rank is the least part of his merit: made by him the mother of a numerous offspring, and having from his important and uninterrupted avocations, their education left entirely to her, till they were qualified for a more extensive instruction; it was her study how she might be of the greatest use to them: they were ever under her eye: her attention to forming their manners could be diverted by none of the pleasures, by none of the engagements that claim so many of the hours of a woman of quality. She did not awe, but reason her children into their duty; they shewed themselves to practise it not from constraint, but conviction. When they were absent from her when they were in company, where they might have been as free as they pleased, I have, with astonishment, observed them as much influenced by what their wise mother had advised, as they could have been by any thing she would have said had she been then present. In her conversation with them she was perpetually inculcating useful truths; she talked them into more knowledge, by the time that they were six or seven years old, than is usually attained at, perhaps, twice that age.

Let me indulge my imagination, and, by its aid, give a sample of her instructions; first, to one of the females of her family, and then, to one of the males. Leonora, her eldest daughter, has, among her many accomplishments, great skill in painting. When her mother and she stood viewing the pictures, that crouded each side of the room in which they were, Emilia desired to hear what the pupil of so eminent a master had to observe on the works be fore them. Leonora began; praised the bold and animated manner in this piece, the softness and delicacy of that. Nothing could be more graceful than the attitude of this figure; the expression in that was so

happy.

happy, the colouring so beautiful, that one might truly say of it, to make it alive, speech alone is wanted; nor would you think even that wanting, were you to trust wholly to your eyes. Here she admired the skilful distribution of light and shade: there the perspective was so wonderfully exact, that in the great number of objects presented to the eye, it could fix on none but what had its proper place, and just dimensions. How free is that drapery! what a variety is there in it, yet how well adjusted is the whole to the several figures in the piece! Does not that group extremely please your ladyship? the disposition is quite fine, the association of the figures admirable; I know not which you could pitch upon to have absent or altered. Leonora pursuing this strain, Emilia interrupted her: Have we nothing, child, but exactness here? Is every thing before us quite finished and faultless? You will be pleased, Madam, to reflect on what you have so often inculcated, that one would always chuse to be sparing in censure, and liberal of praise: that commendation, freely bestowed on what deserves it, credits alike our temper and our understanding.

This I would have you never forget. But I'm here a learner; in that light you are now to consider me; and as your French master taught you pronunciation, not only by using a right, but by imitating your wrong one; making you by that means more sensible where the difference lay; so to qualify me for a judge in painting, it will not suffice to tell me where the artist has succeeded, if you observe not, likewise, where he has miscarried.

Leonora then proceeded to shew where the drawing was incorrect-the attitude ungraceful-the costume ill presumed-the ordonnance irregular-the contours harsh -the light too strong-the shade too deep; extending her remarks in this way to a great number of pieces in the collection. You have been thus far, interposed Emilia, my instructor, let me now be yours. Suppose your own portrait here. In the same manner that you would examine it, judge of the original. This you ought to do, since it will be done by others; and the more blemishes you discover, the fewer you will probably leave for them to reproach you with. The faults in the picture may be known to him who drew it, and yet be suffered to appear, from his inability to correct them; but when you discern what is faulty in yourself, if you cannot amend,

you can, often, conceal it. Here you have the advantage of the painter; in another respect he has it greatly of you. Not one in a thousand is a judge of the failures in his performance; and therefore even when many may be objected to him, he shall pass, in common esteem, for an excellent artist. But let the woman, unconscious of her imperfections, be at no pains to remedy or hide them, all who converse with her are judges of them; when she permits them to be seen, they are certain to be censured.

You have sufficiently convinced me, to how many things the painter must attend

against what various mistakes he has to guard: each of your criticisms on him may be a lesson to yourself; every blemish or beauty in any part of his works has something correspondent to it in human life.

The design is faulty, not only when the end we propose to ourselves is confessedly criminal, but when it is low and mean; when, likewise, we let our time pass at random without any concern for what rea son and duty require, but as caprice, or humour, or passion suggests.

We offend against proportion, when we arrogate to ourselves the desert we want, or over-rate what may be allowed uswhen we hate not what is really evil; or when our affections are placed on what is not our proper good. You remember the dissection of a female heart in the Spectator; I refer you to it, that I may spare my own reflections, on what would furnish copious matter for no very pleasing ones.

Your ladyship will pardon me for interrupting you; but I can't help think ing, that the head and heart of a beau or country squire would furnish as much folly and corruption, as the head and heart of any woman in the kingdom.

We shall never, child, become better, by thinking who are worse than ourselves. If the charge upon us be just, we should consider how to get clear of it, and not who are liable to one equally reproachful, Were I to bid you wash your face, would you think yourself justified in not doing it, because you could shew me a woman of rank with a dirtier? But to the pur pose.

That expression, any failure in which you would, as a judge of painting, treat without mercy, is, in morals, violated by whatever is out of character. All inconsistency in practice-in profession and prac tice; every thing unbecoming your sex--

your

your education--your capacity-your station, deserves the same censure that the pencil meets with, when it errs in expression.

Skill in the distribution of light and shade, or the clair-obscure, as, I think, the term of art is, I should apprehend resembled by prudence; which teaches us to shew ourselves in the most advantageous point of view-brings forward and brightens our good qualities, but throws back and obscures our defects-suffers nothing to distinguish itself that will be to our disparagement, nor shades any thing that will credit us.

By ordonnance, is meant, I apprehend, the manner of placing the several objects in a piece, or the disposition of them with respect to the whole composure. And what can be fitter for us, than to consider where we are, and to appear accordingly? The civilities that are less decently shewn in the church, it would be a great indecorum to neglect in the drawing-room. The freedom that will gain you the hearts of your inferiors, shall, if used towards those of a higher rank, make you be thought the worst-bred woman in the world. Let the season for it be disregarded, your cheerfulness shall be offensive, your gravity seem ridiculous-your wit bring your sense into question, and your very friendliest interposition be thought not so much a proof of your affection as of your impertinence. Tis the right placing of things that shews our discretion-that keeps us clear of difficulties-that raises our credit-that principally contributes to give any of our designs success.

To beauty in colouring corresponds, perhaps, good-nature improved by good breeding. And certainly, as the canvass could furnish no design so well fancied, no draught so correct, but what would yet fail to please, and would even disgust you, were the colours of it ill-united-not sustained by each other-void of their due harmony; so both sense and virtue go but a little way in our recommendation, if they appear not to their proper advantage in an easiness of behaviour-in soft and gentle manners, and with all the graces of affability, courtesy, and complaisance. I see, by your smiling, you are satisfied you cannot be accused of being a bad colourist. Believe me, you have then gained a very material point; and the more concerns you have in the world, the more proofs you will find of its importance. I'll drop this subject when

I have said to you, That if to make a good picture is such a complicated task, requires so much attention, such extensive observation-if an error in any of the principal parts of painting so offends, takes off so greatly from the merit of the pieceif he, who is truly an artist, overlooks nothing that would be at all a blemish to his performance, and would call each trivial indecorum a fault, think, child, what care about the original ought to equal this for the portrait-of what infinitely greater con sequence it must be, to have every thing right within ourselves, than to give a just appearance to the things without us; and how much less pardonably any violation of decorum would be charged on your life, than on your pencil.

The most finished representation only pleases by its correspondence to what it represents, as nature well imitated; and if justness in mere representation and imitation can have the charms you find in it, you may easily conceive the still greater delight that must arise from beholding the beauties of nature itself; such, particularly, as the pencil cannot imitate-the beauties of rational nature, those which the posses sor gives herself-which are of ten thousand times the moment of any in her out. ward symmetry--which, how highly soever they may adorn her, profit her still more; and are not only to her own advantage, but to that of the age in which she lives, and possibly, of remotest generations.

My concern to see you this fair unblemished original makes me strangely unmindful on what topic I am got. There, surely, can be no proof wanting, how much a wise and good woman excels any portrait or any woman, who has but the merit of a portrait, a fine appearance.

In this way Emilia takes each opportunity to form the manners of her daughter -to give her throughout just and reasonable sentiments, and dispose her to the exact discharge of her duty in every relation.

Leonora, thus educated, has the fools and the follies of the age in their due contempt-judges wisely-acts prudentlyis ever usefully or innocently employedcan pass her evenings very cheerfully without a card in her hand-can be perfectly in humour when she is at home, and all her acquaintance at the assembly; and seems likely to borrow no credit from her family, which she will not fully repay.

We will dismiss the daughter, and represent Emilia parting with her son in

terms

terms like these. I am now to take my leave of you, for one campaign at least. It is the first you ever served; let me advise, and do you act, as if it would be your last: the dangers, to which you will be exposed, give both of us reason to fear it: if it please God that it should be so, may you not be found unprepared, nor I unresigned! This I am the less likely to be, when you have had my best counsel, and I your promise to upon it. He bowing, and assuring her, that whatever she should be pleased to say to him, it would be carefully remembered; she proceeded, I could never conceive, what induced the soldier to think that he might take greater liberties than the rest of mankind. He is, 'tis true, occasionally subjected to greater hardships, and he runs greater hazards; but by a lewd and vicious life, he makes these hardships abundantly more grievous than they otherwise would be- he disqualifies himself to bear them. What would you think of his wits, who, because he is to be much in the cold, sits, as often as he can, close to the fire? An habitual sobriety and regularity of manners is, certainly, the best preservative of that vigorous constitution, which makes it least uneasy to endure fatigue and cold, hunger and thirst.

The dangers to which the soldier is exposed, are so far from excusing his licentiousness, when he has no enemy near him, that they ought to be considered as the strongest motive to conform himself, at all times, to the rules of reason and religion. A practice agreeable to them is the best support of his spirits, and the surest provision for his safety-it will effectually remove his fears, and can alone encourage his hop s: nothing but it can give him any comfortable expectation, if what threatens him should befal him. He who is so much in danger, ought to be properly armed against it, and this he can never be by reflecting on the woman he has corrupted -on his hours of intemperance, or on any other of his extravagances. You won't, perhaps, allow that he wants the armour I would provide him, because he never kaws the apprehensions that require it. But I am considering what his apprehensions ought to be, not what they are. The nature of things will not be altered by our opinion about them.

It is granted, that a soldier's life is, frequently, in the utmost hazard; and the question is not, how a thoughtless, stupid, absurd creature should behave in such a

situation; but, what should be done in it by a man of prudence and sense? I say, he will attend to the value of what he hazards

to the consequence of its loss; and, if found of very great, he will so act, that the loss thereof may be, if possible, some or other way made up to him, or accompa nied with the fewest inconveniences. Insensibility of danger is the merit of a bulldog. True courage sees danger, but despises it only from rational motivesfrom the considerations of duty. There canbe no virtue in exposing life, where there is no notion of its value; you are a brave. man, when you fully understand its worth, and yet in a good cause disregard death.

If, thus to be ready to die is commendable, wholly from the cause that makes us so, which is, unquestionably, the case; I don't see how such an indifference to life, when honour calls you to risk it, can consist with passing it, at any season, immorally and dissolutely.

Here is a gallant officer who will rather be killed than quit his post-than be wanting in the defence of his country! Is not this a fine resolution in one who, by his excesses, makes himself every day less able to serve his country; or who sets an example, which, if followed, would do his country as much mischief as it could have to fear from its most determined enemy?

The inconsiderate and thoughtless may laugh at vice-may give soft terms to very bad actions, or speak of them as if they were rather matter of jest than abhorrence: but whoever will reflect whence all the misery of mankind arises-what the source is of all the evils we lament; he cannot but own, that if any thing ought to make us serious-if we ought to detest any thing, it should be that, from which such terrible effects are derived.

For the very same reason that we prefer health to sickness, ease to pain, we must prefer virtue to vice. Moral evil seems to me to have a necessary connection with natural. According to my notion of things, there is no crime but what creates pain, or has a tendency to create it to others or ourselves: every criminal is such, by doing something that is directly, or in its consequences, hurtful to himself, or to a fellow-creature.

Is not here a foundation of religion that no objections can affect? Deprive us of it, you deprive us of the only effectual restraint from those practices, which are most detrimental to the world-you deprive us

of

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