and in due season that it can be brought to sustain and digest the stronger meats. A serious book should always be followed by something lively and pleasant, alternating poetry with prose. Virgil is not less eloquent than Cicero, and his descriptions, his images, his expressions are made to inspire them in others, where nature would otherwise be thought to have denied them. Poetry is the polish of language, and if not read while young, is hardly ever tasted as it ought. At a certain age all relish for poetry,. where none existed before, is impossible to be acquired; the heart must be intuitively gifted with it.

The study of the poets should on no account be general. Many of them are addicted to immoral licences; and it is for other reasons dangerous to be over fond of them. A young man who dreams and talks of nothing but poetry, is fulsome to society; no better than an ideot, and fit only to be classed among fools. Such as are born poets, indeed, and can think of nothing else, must be excepted; these may compensate, and be compensated themselves by effusions of genius, such as have raised Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Metastasio, Milton, Corneille, and Racine, to the applause and admiration of the world.

Let above all the history of life, of nations, of countries, be the chief and familiar studies of your children; not merely study, dry and inept in itself, but teeming with round and pertinent reflections, such as lead to a proper judgment of events; and especially to know that one great universal cause presideth over all; that men are the instruments of his will, and the revolutions which astonish us, no more than common events; common effects of common causes; necessary and subordinate in the eternal law of nature.

History, if no more were to be collected from it than facts and dates, would be a sorry tale; but full of life and animation, as we perceive therein the conflict of the passions, the springs of action,

the propensions of the heart; and above all, if it leads to that great end, the acknowledgment of an Almighty God, great supreme disposer of every event; who createth, directeth, and finally determineth as seemeth best to his divine will, and to the fulfilment of his wise designs.

The ways of the Creator are veiled from our carnal eye; but the eye of faith shall see that every thing hath a cause, and that that cause, is God.

Your sons should form their taste for true eloquence, less from precept than from rhetorical example. Give them to understand that what is truly fine, dependeth not on seasons or on fashions; and that if in different ages, different modes of saying things have prevailed, there hath never been but one way of conceiving them.

Discountenance every tendency you may perceive to that false and puerile sort of wit, which, turning upon the play of words, is so revolting to sober sense; and endeavour to persuade them, that nothing gigantic in idea or in words, can ever possibly combine with the elegant or sublime.

Although it may seem impossible for man to weary with true eloquence; yet so versatile is the human character as to offer sometimes instances of indifference, and in some people of disgust for it whence it ariseth, that in our days we see people better pleased with a singular and frivolous style of diction, than with the imposing language of the ancient orators.

There have been certain æras of time, and certain exemplary characters among men, which have fixed a criterion to every species of taste; and it is to these that our youth must look up as models for contemplation: not however, with slavish admiration, for that would be going beyond the point we propose; we would not have them to be servile in their respect for any man.

"Let the mind be original, and assert itself; he is a mere dri

C

"veller who dare not invent. We have only men of mean and "ordinary powers; whilst attainment of great commanding elo

quence is inviting to every man, would he quit the beaten "( tracts, would he venture to be himself."

I would say to my pupil, "Be thyself! Let thy thoughts be "thine own! There is open to every bold and adventurous spirit "an inexhaustible mine: let a man have courage to come forth: "it is a deplorable thing to be for ever muddling in shallows, "whilst the delight of the human heart is to explore; and that "the treasures of science lay all concealed in the profound."

When your sons have attained to maturer age, then will be time to talk to them in friendly strain, of the vain illusive pleasures whereon young men are commonly inclined to make their great account of happiness; of the misfortunes to which they lead; of the compunctions they necessarily give; of the mischiefs they are cause of to body and mind; and, finally, of the snares they every where conceal under soothing semblances of delight, put on expressly to beguile the sense, and corrupt the heart. These are the rocks and quick-sands of a voluptuous course of life, against which our young men should be particularly warned by striking examples and well-coloured descriptions, assuring them above all things, that idleness and immoderate indulgence are concomitant evils, productive of each other, and equally fatal in their effects. In the hours of soft and languid dalliance, our senses paint them to our fancy with irresistable charms, as in the visions of slumber we taste of all the bliss of heaven.

When a son is once convinced that the chidings of his father are impulsions of tender concern for his good, and not of mere impatience or ill humour towards him; he will hearken to them with cheerful submission, and good counsel will have its proper effect.

At length, this edifice being so far raised, we may proceed to the finishing hand; the choice, I mean, of an establishment or pursuit, than which nothing is more difficult to determine, or more important to their future felicity. Parents find this to be the great moment of trial, and is, in fair truth, the most critical point in the whole course of our plan and combination for their prosperity and welfare.

If you will be guided by me, give to them an whole year to reflect of themselves upon the pursuit they should be most dispo sed to prefer, without speaking to them of one profession rather than another. The good education they will have received, and the knowledge they by this time will have acquired, will lead them infallibly to a right determination. As it will be their own, one may assume that it will be most agreeable to their inclinations, and whatever it may turn out to be in its consequences, most reconcilable at least to the affections of their heart.

It will then behove you to talk to them of the advantages and inconveniences of every state; and to make them understand of how great importance it is to their credit in this life, as well as to their happiness in the next, to perform the duties of their station with fidelity and honour. The blessings of a monastic life, when really moved to it by a spirit of devotion, may be descanted upon with irresistable persuasion and truth; as may the calamitous effects which as surely await upon them who have the temerity to embark in it, with no more than worldly motives. The condition of an officer is too well known, as well as that of a magistrate, to require our animadversion.

After these precautions, therefore, and above all, after that most necessary precaution of imploring the blessing of heaven upon every endeavour, your sons will enter with a firm and solid step, upon the ground they will have chosen, and you will have the comfort of being able to declare to God and to the world,

that in what you have done for them, you have consulted nothing but their inclination, their advancement, and their happiness. On the other hand, nothing is so fatal as to oppose an obstinate rigour to the predilections of youth; it is the cause in them of eternal corrodings; and in parents, for that reason, of the most bitter reproaches.

Since you have the good fortune to be rich, and that Providence hath been pleased to place you in an exalted station in life; it would be proper to train your sons in a due regard to both: they should be taught, however, to bear denial, and be always kept within a bound of discretion, that they may learn to know that greatness is no title to arrogance in this world; and as nothing to the end proposed of all our cares; as nothing, I would say towards the attainment of eternal felicity.

Let them have money to succour occasionally the poor, and to prevent their falling into a penury of spirit, more pitiable than a state of poverty itself: have an eye also upon their expenditure, and if you find them inclining to prodigality, or to avarice, in either case diminish their allowance.

Finally, my dear and respectable friend, let your endeavour go more to form the heart than to refine the understanding for when the heart is good, all must go well.

Your behaviour towards them will be at all times influenced by their conduct; sometimes easy, sometimes austere, but always just and always polite. A spirit of equity, with calmness of temper, is the surest curb to unruly minds: they feel then that they have no reply; leave them in the enjoyment of a reasonable degree of liberty, that their paternal roof may not be to them a last resort they should find a pleasure in home, and more than elsewhere, those enjoyments for which it is natural to look from a father disposed by blood to be indulgent to his sons, and characteristically inclined to be good and compassionate towards all.