that neglect of dress and of accurate cleanliness, which, he said, had sometimes involved literary ladies in deserved disgrace. He likewise inculcated the necessity of avoiding a pedantic manner of conversation, and strictly charged me never to be overbearing, or to shew in the company of others the least appearance of conscious superiority. I believe I may venture to say, that I complied with his directions, and that I talked with perfect ease among the superficial, and neither expressed nor felt contempt, except where vanity and affectation were -combined with ignorance.

Yet, notwithstanding my improvements, and my earnest endeavours to prevent them from becoming invidious, I find myself received in the world with less cordiality than I had reason to expect. My own sex stand too much in awe of me to bear me any affection. When I come into their company, an universal silence would prevail, if it were not interrupted by myself. Though I cannot say that I am treated rudely, yet I can easily perceive that the civilities I receive are constrained; and I have every reason to believe, that no small pains are taken to traduce my character, and to ridicule my taste in dress, and all the circumstances of external behaviour. It is kindly hinted, that a little awkwardness and impropriety may be excused in a learned lady, and that dress and decorum are beneath the notice of a poetess.

I have no reason to think that my person is parti cularly disagreeable; 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 some 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 praise; but they must own, that I am not the woman after their hearts. They entertain a notion, that a lady of improved understanding will not submit to the less dignified cares of managing a household. She knows how to make verses, says some witty beau, but give me the woman who can make a pudding.

I must confess, I ever thought it the most valuable recommendation of a wife to be capable of becoming a conversable companion to her husband; nor did I ever conceive that the qualifications of a cook-maid, a laundress, or a house-keeper, were the most desirable accomplishments in a partner for life. A woman of improved understanding and real sense is more likely to submit to her condition, whatever it may be, than the uneducated or the half-learned; and such an one will always be willing to superintend economy when it becomes her duty; and to take an active part in household management, when the happiness of him she loves, and of herself, depends upon her personal interference.

The education of children in the earlier periods, particularly of daughters, naturally belongs to the mother. Her inclination to improve them, seconded by her ability to take the proper methods, must be attended with the most valuable effects. The world is acquainted with the happy consequences of a Cornelia's parental care. But it seems probable, that little nourishment of mind can be imbibed from

a mother, whose ideas hardly ever wandered beyond the limits either of a kitchen or a dressing-room. Neither is there sufficient reason to conclude, that she whose intellectual acquisitions enable her to entertain her husband, and to form the minds of her children, must be incapable or unwilling to superintend the table, and give a personal attention to domestic economy.

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 sex, are narrow and unphilosophical prejudices. The present times exhibit most honourable instances of female learning and genius. The superior advantages of boys' education are, perhaps, the sole reason of their subsequent superiority. Learning is equally attainable, and, I think, equally valuable, for the satisfaction arising from it, to a woman as a For my own part, I would not lose the little I possess, to avoid all those disagreeable consequences of which I have just now complained.

man.

NO. CXLIII. ON PARENTAL INDULGENCE.

THE love of progeny seems to operate as strongly in the brute creation as in the human species, during the helpless age of immaturity. The guidance of instinct, indeed, as it is more decisively determinate, seems to bring up an offspring with less deviation from the purposes of nature than the superior faculty of reason. The greater acuteness of reason leads to hesitation, and involves in error, while it is distracted by the variety of objects it

assembles 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 perish. But it is well known how large a proportion of children die in the metropolis under the age of two years. The cause is in general the neglect of nature for the aids of art, proceeding from a degree of fondness which stimulates the parent to take all the care upon herself, and to leave little to the invisible process natural energies.

of

If the child survive by the vigour of its constitution to a puerile age, even then the fondness of the parent, amiable in its origin, but injurious to the object it most wishes to benefit, is found to destroy the very purposes of living, by endeavouring to render life pleasurable to excess, and without vicissitude. If his absence can be so far born as to permit him to enter at a school, an earnest desire is expressed that he may be indulged in all those luxuries of the table which pollute the pure stream of the infant blood, and by overloading the organs of intellect, preclude the possibility of solid improvement. He, whose attention should be engrossed by his book, and who should learn to look on every pleasure of the senses as a subordinate pleasure, is taught, by the overweening attachment of a parent, to have little other care than to pamper the grossest among the animal appetites.

Regularity of diet, and modest decency in all the circumstances of scholastic life, are often represented as the result of a too penurious economy; and the young pupil no sooner returns, in the days of vaca

tion, to his paternal roof, than he is crammed with delicacies, to compensate 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 master, whom he is taught to consider as totally regardless of any thing but his own sordid interest, and capable of depriving the child committed to his care of his proper sustenance? But they who are sensible in other respects, are rendered, by their fondness, weak enough to believe any calumny which a froward child utters for the sake of changing his place of education, or of remaining at home.

The propensity to indulgence is so strong, that at the maturest age, and with the most improved reason, it is difficult to restrain it within the limits of moderation. To encourage, instead of checking, this natural tendency, is, in effect, to nurse those vices of the future youth, and to cause those excesses of early manhood, which, in the end, hasten the grey hairs of the inconsiderate parent with sorrow 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 soon supposed to proceed merely from official care, when they contradict the conduct of him whom a child naturally loves above all others.

A

The general custom of allowing a very large weekly stipend, and of giving pecuniary presents to