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AN EXAMPLE OF JUDICIOUS EDUCATION-
SAMUEL BICKERSTAFF AND HIS FAMILY.

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- CHARACTER OF

Et in juvencis, eft in equis patrum
Virtus; nec imbellem feroces
Progenerant aquila columbam.

HOR. 4 OD. iv. 30.

In eers laborious, and in generous feeds,
We trace their fires, nor can the bird of Jove
Intrepid, fierce, beget the unwarlike dove.

FRANCIS.

AVING lately turned my thoughts upon the confiderations of the behaviour of parents to children in the great affair of marriage, I took much delight in turning over a bundle of letters which a gentle man's steward in the country had fent me fome time ago. This parcel is a collection of letters written by the children of the family (to which he belongs) to their father, and contains all the little paffages of their lives, and the new ideas they received as their years advanced. There is in them an account of their diverfions as well as their exercises; and what I thought very remarkable is, that two fons of the family, who now make confiderable figures in the world, gave omens of that fort of character which they now bear, in the first rudi ments of thought which they fhew in their letters. Were one to point out a method of education, one could not, methinks, frame one more pleafing or improving than this, where the

children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and inclinations to their best friend with fo much freedom, that he can form schemes for their future life and conduct from an obfervation of their tempers, and by that means be early enough in choofing their way of life, to make them forward in fome art or science at an age when others have not determined what profeffion to follow. As to the perfons concerned in this packet I am speaking of, they have given great proofs of the force of this conduct of their father in the effect it has had upon their lives and manners. The elder, who is a scholar, fhewed from his infancy a propenfity to polite studies, and has made a fuitable progrefs in literature; but his learning is fo well woven into his mind, that from the impreffions of it, he seems rather to have contracted a habit of life, than manner of difcourfe. To his books he seems to owe a good economy in his affairs, and a complacency in his manners, though in others that way of education has commonly quite a different effect. The epiftles of the other fon are full of accounts of what he thought most remarkable in his reading. He fends his father, for news, the last noble story he had read. I obferve he is particularly touched with the conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had faid, if he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country. Many other incidents in his little letters give omens of a foul capable of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is, that this gentleman had, in the prefent war, the honour and happiness of doing an action for which only it was worth coming into the world. Their father is the most intimate friend they have, and they always confult him rather than any other when any error has happened in their conduct through youth and inadvertency. The behaviour of this gentleman to his fons, has made his life pass away with the pleafures of a fecond youth, for as the vexations which men receive from their children haften the approach of age, and double the force of years, fo the comforts which they reap from them, are balm to all other forrows, and disappoint the injuries of time. Parents of children repeat their lives in their offspring, and their concern for them is fo near, that they feel

all their fufferings and enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own proper perfons. But it is generally fo far otherwise, that the common race of fquires in this kingdom use their fons as perfons that are waiting only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and happiness, as indeed they are by their own making them fuch. In cafes where a man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it is commonly faid, "Let him look at home." I am forry to own it, but there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs, who have been as erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family whatfoever. The head of this branch is now in town, and has brought up with him his fon and daughter (who are all the children he has) in order to be put fome way into the world, and fee fashions. They are both very ill-bred cubs, and having lived together from their infancy without knowledge of the diftinctions and decencies that are proper to be paid to each other's fex, they squabble like two brothers. The father is one of those who knows no better, than that all pleasure is debauchery, and imagines when he fees a man become his estate, that he will certainly spend it. This branch are a people who never had among them one man eminent either for good or ill; however, have all along kept their heads just above water, not by a prudent and regular economy, but by expedients in the matches they have made into their house. When one of the family has, in the pursuit of foxes, and in the entertainment of clowns, run out the third part of the value of his eftate, fuch a spendthrift has dressed up his eldest fon and married what they call a good fortune, who has fupported the father as a tyrant over them, during his life, in the fame houfe or neighbourhood. The fon in fucceffion has just taken the fame method to keep up his dignity, till the mortgages he has eat and drank himself into, have reduced him to the neceffity of facrificing his fon alfo, in imitation of his progenitor. This had been for many generations the whole that had happened in the family of Sam. Bickerstaff till the time of my present coufin Samuel, the father of the young people we have just now spoken of.

Samuel Bickerstaff, Efq., is so happy as that by feveral legacies from diftant relations, deaths of maiden sisters, and

other instances of good fortune, he has, besides his real estate, a great fum of ready money. His fon at the fame time knows he has a good fortune which the father cannot alienate, though he strives to make him believe he depends wholly on his will for maintenance. Tom is now in his nineteenth year, Mrs. Mary in her fifteenth. Coufin Samuel, who understands no one point of good behaviour as it regards all the rest of the world, is an exact critic in the dress, the motion, the looks, and gestures of his children. What adds to their misery is, that he is exceffively fond of them, and the greatest part of their time is spent in the presence of this nice obferver. Their life is one continued constraint. The girl never turns her head but she is warned not to follow the proud minxes of the town. The boy is not to turn fop or be quarrelfome, at the same time not to take an affront. I had the good fortune to dine with him to-day, and heard his fatherly table-talk as we fat at dinner, which, if my memory does not fail me, for the benefit of the world, I fhall fet down as he spoke it, which was much as follows, and may be of great use to those parents who seem to make it a rule that their children's turn to enjoy the world is not to commence till they themselves have left it.

"Now, Tom, I have bought you chambers in the inns of court. I allow you to take a walk once or twice a-day round the garden. If you mind your bufinefs, you need not study to be as great a lawyer as Coke upon Littleton. I have that that will keep you; but be fure you keep an exact account of your linen. Write down what you give out to your laundrefs, and what she brings home again. Go as little as poffible to t'other end of the town; but if you do, come home early. I believe I was as fharp as you for your years, and I had my hat fnatched off my head coming home late at a stop by St. Clement's church, and I don't know from that day to this who took it. I do not care if you learn to fence little, for I would not have you be made a fool of. Let me have an account of everything every post; I am willing to be at that charge, and I think you need not fpare your pains. As for you, daughter Molly, don't mind one word that is faid to you in London, for it is only for your money."

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EFFECTS OF A PASSION

FOR GAY AND SHOWY DRESS

METHOD TAKEN WITH MARGERY BICKERSTAFF TO KEEP HER FROM MARRYING.

-Ni vis boni

In ipfa ineffet forma, hac formam extinguerent.

TER.

Were there not fome force and value in beauty, thefe things would be enough to extinguish it.

HEN artifts would expofe their diamonds to an advantage, they ufually fet

them to show in

little cafes of black velvet. By this means the jewels appear in their true

and genuine luftre, I while there is no colour that can infect their When I was at

brightness, or give a falfe caft to the water.

the opera the other night, the affembly of ladies in mourning made me confider them in the fame kind of view. A drefs wherein there is fo little variety, fhews the face in all its natural charms, and makes one differ from another only as it is more or lefs beautiful. Painters are ever careful of offending against a rule which is fo effential in all juft reprefentations. The chief figure must have the strongest point of light, and not be injured by any gay colourings that may draw away the attention to any lefs confiderable part of the picture. The prefent fashion obliges everybody to be dreffed with propriety,

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