It is an ill-judged thrift in some rich parents, to bring up their fons to mean employments, for the fake of faving the charge of a more expensive education for these fons, when they become masters of their liberty and fortune, will hardly continue in occupations, by which they think themselves degraded, and are seldom qualified for any thing better.

An attention, in the firft place, to the exigencies of the children's refpective conditions in the world; and a regard, in the second place, to their reafonable expectations, always poftponing the expectations to the exigencies when both cannot be fatisfied, ought to guide parents in the difpofal of their fortunes after their death. And these exigencies and expectations must be meafured by the ftandard which custom has eftablished; for there is a certain appearance, attendance, establishment, and mode of living, which cuftom has annexed to the feveral ranks and orders of civil life (and which compose what is called decency), together with a certain society, and particular pleasures belonging to each class: and a young perfon, who is withheld from fharing in thefe by want of fortune, can scarcely be faid to have a fair chance for happiness; the indignity and mortification of fuch a feclufion

being what few tempers can bear, or bear with contentment. And as to the fecond confideration, of what a child may reasonably expect from his parent, he will expect what he fees all or moft others in fimilar circumstances receive; and we can hardly call expectations unreasonable, which it is impoffible to suppress.

By virtue of this rule, a parent is justified in making a difference between his children, according as they stand in greater or less need of the affiftance of his fortune, in confequence of the difference of their age or fex, or of the fituations in which they are placed, or the various fuccefs which they have met with.

On account of the few lucrative employments which are left to the female fex, and by confequence the little opportunity they have of adding to their income, daughters ought to be the particular objects of a parent's care and forefight: and as an option of marriage, from which they can reasonably expect happiness, is not presented to every woman who deferves it, especially in times in which a licentious celibacy is in fashion with the men, a father fhould endeavour to enable his daughters to lead a single life with independency and decorum, even though he subtract more for that purpose from the portions

of his fons, than is agreeable to modern usage, or than they expect.

But when the exigencies of their several fituations are provided for, and not before, a parent ought to admit the second confideration, the fatisfaction of his children's expectations; and upon that principle to prefer the eldest fon to the rest, and fons to daughters: which conftitutes the right, and the whole right of primogeniture, as well as the only reason for the preference of one sex to the other. The preference, indeed, of the first born has one public good effect, that if the estate were divided equally amongst the fons, it would probably make them all idle; whereas, by the present rule of defcent, it makes only one fo; which is the lefs evil of the two. And it muft farther be obferved on the part of fons, that if the rest of the community make it a rule to prefer fons to daughters, an individual of that community ought to guide himself by the fame rule, upon principles of mere equality. For as the fon fuffers by the rule in the fortune he may expect in marriage, it is but reasonable that he fhould receive the advantage of it in his own inheritance, Indeed, whatever the rule be, as to the preference of one fex to the other, marriage reftores the equality. And as money is generally

nerally more convertible to profit, and more likely to promote industry, in the hands of men than, of women, the custom of this country may properly be complied with, when it does not interfere with the weightier reafon explained in the laft paragraph.

The point of the children's actual expectations, together with the expediency of fubjecting the illicit commerce of the fexes to every dif

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couragement which it can receive, makes the difference between the claims of legitimate children and of baftards. But neither reason will in any cafe juftify the leaving of baftards to the world, without provifion, education, or profeffion; or, what is more cruel, without the means of continuing in the fituation to which the parent has introduced them: which laft, is to leave them to inevitable misery.

After the firft requifite, namely, a provifion for the exigencies of his fituation, is satisfied, a parent may diminish a child's portion, in order to punish any flagrant crime, or to punish contumacy and want of filial duty in inftances not otherwife criminal: for a child who is conscious of bad behaviour, or of contempt of his parent's will and happiness, cannot reasonably expect the fame inftances of his munificence.

A child's vices may be of that fort, and his vicious habits fo incorrigible, as to afford much the fame reafon for believing that he will wafte or mifemploy the fortune put into his power, as if he were mad or idiotish, in which cafe a parent may treat him as a madman or an idiot; that is, may deem it fufficient to provide for his fupport, by an annuity equal to his wants and innocent enjoyments, and which he may be reftrained from alienating. This feems to be the only cafe, in which a difinherifon, nearly abfolute, is juftifiable.

Let not a father hope to excuse an inofficious difpofition of his fortune, by alleging, that 66 every man may do what he will with his own." All the truth which this expreffion contains, is, that his difcretion is under no control of law; and that his will, however capricious, will be valid. This by no means abfolves his confcience from the obligations of a parent, or imports that he may neglect, without injustice, the several wants and expectations of his family, in order to gratify a whim or a pique, or indulge a preference founded in no reasonable diftinction of merit or fituation. Although, in his intercourfe with his family, and in the leffer endearments of domestic life, a pa

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