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subject, once asked me if I went so far as to think it necessary to try the merit of a song or a play by the Ten Commandments? To this may we not venture to answer that neither a song nor a play should at least contain anything hostile to the Ten Commandments?that, if harmless merriment be not expected to advance religion, we must take care that it do not oppose it?-that, if we concede that our amusements are not expected to make us better than we are, ought we not to condition that they do not make us worse than they find us?

We cannot be too often reminded that we are, to an inconceivable degree, the creatures of habit. Our tempers are not principally governed, nor our characters formed, by single marked actions; nor is the color of our lives often determined by prominent detached circumstances; but the character is gradually moulded by a series of seemingly insignificant, but constantly recurring practices, which, incorporated into our habits, become part of ourselves.

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But it will be said, perhaps, all this rigor may be very suitable to enthusiasts and fanatics, to the vulgar, the retired, and the obscure; but would you exclude the more liberal and polished part of society from the delight and instruction which may be derived from the great masters of the human heart, from Shakspeare particularly?

On this subject I think myself called upon to offer my opinion, such as it is, as unreservedly as I have taken the liberty of doing on the points considered in the former part of this preface. I think, then, that there is a substantial difference between seeing and reading a dramatic composition; and that the objections which lie so strongly against the one are not, at least in the same degree, applicable to the other. Or rather, while there is an essential and inseparable danger attendant on dramatic exhibitions, let the matter of the drama be ever so innocent, the danger in reading a play arises solely from the improper sentiments contained in it.

I trust I have sufficiently guarded against the charge of incon sistency, even though I venture to hazard an opinion that, in company with a judicious friend or parent, many scenes of Shakspeare may be read not only without danger, but with improvement. Far be it from me to wish to abridge the innocent delights of life where they may be enjoyed with benefit to the understanding, and without injury to the principles. Women especially, whose walk in life is so circumscribed, and whose avenues of information are so few, may, I conceive, learn to know the world with less danger, and to study human nature with more advantage, from the perusal of selected parts of this incomparable

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genius, than from most other attainable sources. I would in this view consider Shakspeare as a philosopher as well as poet, and I have been surprised to hear many pious people universally confound and reprobate this poet with the common herd of dramatists and novelists. To his acute and sagacious mind every varied position of the human heart, every shade of discrimination in the human character, all the minuter delicacies, all the exquisite touches, all the distinct affections, all the contending interests, all the complicated passions of the heart of man seem, as far as is allowed to human inspection to discern them, to be laid open. Though destitute himself of the aids of literature and of the polish of society, he seems to have possessed by intuition all the advantages that various learning and elegant society can bestow; and to have combined the warmest energies of passion and the boldest strokes of imagination with the justest proprieties of reasoning and the exactest niceties of conduct. He makes every description a picture, and every sentiment an axiom. He seems to have known how every being which did exist would speak and act under every supposed circumstance and every possible situation; and how every being which did not exist must speak and act if ever he were to be called into actual existence.

It is not because I consider Shakspeare as a correct moralist and an unerring guide, that I suggest the advantage of having the youthful curiosity allayed by a partial perusal, and under prudent inspection; but it is for this very different reason, lest, by having that curiosity stimulated by the incessant commendation of this author, with which both books and conversation abound, young persons should be excited to devour in secret an author who, if devoured in the gross, will not fail, by many detached passages, to put a delicate reader in the situation of his own ancient Pistol when eating the leek; that is, to swallow and execrate at the same time.

Neither, as has been observed, is it to the present purpose to insist that theatrical amusements are the most rational; for the question we have undertaken to agitate is, whether they are blameless? In this view the circumstance of going but seldom cannot satisfy a conscientious mind; for, if the amusement be right, we may partake of it with moderation, as of other lawful pleasures; if wrong, we should never partake of it.

Some individuals may urge that the amusements of the theatre never had the bad effects on their minds which they are said to have on the minds of others; but, supposing this to be really the

"Bowdler's Family Shakspeare" should be in every household library.

case, which, however, may admit of doubt, ought not such persons to reflect that by their presence they sanction that which is obviously hurtful to others, and which must, if so, be displeasing to God?

The Stage is, by universal concurrence, allowed to be no indif ferent thing. The impressions it makes on the mind are deep and strong; deeper and stronger, perhaps, than are made by any other amusement. If, then, such impressions be in the general hostile to Christianity, the whole resolves itself into this short questionShould a Christian frequent it?

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THE PROPER EDUCATION FOR FEMALES.

Since, then, there is a season when the youthful must cease to young, and the beautiful to excite admiration; to learn how to grow old gracefully is, perhaps, one of the rarest and most valuable arts which can be taught to woman. And it must be confessed it is a most severe trial for those women to be called to lay down beauty, who have nothing else to take up. It is for this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich resources. However disregarded they may hitherto have been, they will be wanted now. When admirers fall away, and flatterers become mute, the mind will be compelled to retire into itself; and if it find no entertainment at home, it will be driven back again upon the world with increased force. Yet, forgetting this, do we not seem to educate our daughters exclusively for the transient period of youth, when it is to maturer life we ought to advert? Do we not educate them for a crowd, forgetting that they are to live at home? for the world, and not for themselves? for show, and not for use? for time, and not for eternity?

Not a few of the evils of the present day arise from a new and perverted application of terms; among these, perhaps, there is not one more abused, misunderstood, or misapplied, than the term accomplishments. This word, in its original meaning, signifies completeness, perfection. But I may safely appeal to the observation of mankind, whether they do not meet with swarms of youthful females, issuing from our boarding-schools, as well as emerging from the more private scenes of domestic education, who are introduced into the world under the broad and universal title of accomplished young ladies, of all of whom it cannot very truly and correctly be pronounced, that they illustrate the definition. by a completeness which leaves nothing to be added, and a perfection which leaves nothing to be desired.

It would be well if we would reflect that we have to educate not only rational but accountable beings; and, remembering this, should we not be solicitous to let our daughters learn of the welltaught, and associate with the well-bred? In training them, should we not carefully cultivate intellect, implant religion, and cherish modesty? Then, whatever is engaging in manners would be the natural result of whatever is just in sentiment and correct in principle; softness would grow out of humility, and external delicacy would spring from purity of heart. Then the decorums, the proprieties, the elegancies, and even the graces, as far as they are simple, pure, and honest, would follow as an almost inevitable consequence; for to follow in the train of the Christian virtues, and not to take the lead of them, is the proper place which religion assigns to the graces.

Whether we have made the best use of the errors of our predecessors, and of our own numberless advantages, and whether the prevailing system be really consistent with sound policy, true taste, or Christian principle, it may be worth our while to inquire.

Would not a stranger be led to imagine, by a view of the reigning mode of female education, that human life consisted of one universal holiday, and that the grand contest between the several competitors was, who should be most eminently qualified to excel and carry off the prize, in the various shows and games which were intended to be exhibited in it? and to the exhibitors themselves, would he not be ready to apply Sir Francis Bacon's observation on the Olympian victors, that they were so excellent in these unnecessary things, that their perfection must needs have been acquired by the neglect of whatever was necessary?

It will be prudent to reflect that in all polished countries an entire devotedness to the fine arts has been one grand source of the corruption of the women; and so justly were these pernicious consequences appreciated by the Greeks, among whom these arts were carried to the highest possible perfection, that they seldom allowed them to be cultivated to a very exquisite degree by women of great purity of character. And while corruption, brought on by an excessive cultivation of the arts, has contributed its full share to the decline of states, it has always furnished an infallible symptom of their impending fall. The satires of the most penetrating and judicious of the Roman poets, corroborating the testimonies of the most accurate of their historians, abound with invectives against the general depravity of manners introduced by the corrupt habits of female education, so that the modesty of the Roman matron, and the chaste demeanor of her virgin daughters, which, amidst the stern virtues of the state, were as immaculate and pure as the

honor of the Roman citizen, fell a sacrifice to the luxurious dissipation brought in by their Asiatic conquest; after which the females were soon taught a complete change of character. They were instructed to accommodate their talents of pleasing to the more vitiated tastes of the other sex; and began to study every grace and every art which might captivate the exhausted hearts, and excite the wearied and capricious inclinations, of the men; till, by a rapid, and at length complete enervation, the Roman character lost its signature, and through a quick succession of slavery, effeminacy, and vice, sunk into that degeneracy of which some of the modern Italian states now serve to furnish a too just specimen.

THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.

An early and unremitting zeal in forming the mind to a habit of attention, not only produces the outward expression of good breeding, as one of its incidental advantages; but involves, or rather creates better qualities than itself; while vacancy and inattention not only produce vulgar manners, but are usually the indication, if not of an ordinary, yet of a neglected understanding. To the habitually inattentive, books offer little benefit; company affords little improvement; while a self-imposed attention sharpens observation, and creates a spirit of inspection and inquiry which often lifts a common understanding to a degree of eminence in knowledge, sagacity, and usefulness, which indolent or negligent genius does not always reach. A habit of attention exercises intellect, quickens discernment, multiplies ideas, enlarges the power of combining images and comparing characters, and gives a faculty of picking up improvement from circumstances the least promising; and of gaining instruction from those slight but frequently recurring occasions which the absent and the negligent turn to no account. Scarcely anything or person is so unproductive as not to yield some fruit to the attentive and sedulous collector of ideas. But this is far from being the highest praise of such a person; she who early imposes on herself a habit of strict attention to whatever she is engaged in, begins to wage early war with wandering thoughts, useless reveries, and that disqualifying train of busy, but unprofitable imaginations by which the idle are occupied, and the absent are absorbed. She who keeps her intellectual powers in action studies with advantage herself, her books, and the world. Whereas they, in whose undisciplined minds vagrant thoughts have been suffered to range without restriction on ordi

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