though you vindicate general knowledge, you profess not to wish for general learning in the sex."

"Far from it," replied Mr. Stanley. "I am a gardener, you know, and accustomed to study the genius of the soil before I plant. Most of my daughters, like the daughters of other men, have some one talent, or at least propensity; for parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius. This propensity I endeavour to find out, and to cultivate. But, if I find the natural bias very strong, and not very safe, I then labour to counteract, instead of encouraging the tendency, and try to give it a fresh direction: Lucilla having a

strong bent to what relates to intellectual taste, I have read over with her the most unexceptionable parts of a few of the best Roman classics. She began at nine years old, for I have remarked, that it is not learning much, but learning late, which makes pedants.

"Phoebe, who has a superabundance of vivacity, I have in some measure tamed,

by

by making her not only a complete mistress of arithmetic, but by giving her a tincture of mathematics. Nothing puts such a bridle on the fancy as demonstration. A habit of computing steadies the mind, and subdues the soaring of imagination. It sobers the vagaries of trope and figure, substitutes truth for metaphor, and exactness for amplification. This girl, who,if she had been fed on poetry and works of imagination, might have become a Miss Sparkes, now rather gives herself the airs of a calculator and of a grave computist. Though, as in the case of the cat in the fable, who was metamorphosed into a lady, nature will break out as soon as the scratching of a mouse is heard; and all Phoebe's philosophy can scarcely keep her in order, if any work of fancy comes in her way.

"To soften the horrors of her fate, however, I allowed her to read a few of the best things in her favourite class. When I read to her the more delicate parts of Gulliver's Travels, with which she was enchant

ed,

ed, she affected to be angry at the voyage to Laputa, because it ridicules philosophical science. And in Brobdignag, she said,

the proportions were not correct. I must however explain to you, that the use which I made of these dry studies with Phoebe, was precisely the same which the ingenious Mr. Cheshire makes of his steel machines for defective shapes, to straiten a crooked tendency, or strengthen a weak one. Having employed these means to set her mind upright, and to cure a wrong bias; as that skilful gentleman discards his apparatus as soon as the patient becomes strait, so have I discontinued these pursuits, for I never meant to make a mathematical lady. Jane has a fine ear and a pretty voice, and will sing and play well enough for any girl who is not to make music her profession. One or two of the others sing agreeably.

"The little one who brought the last nosegay has a strong turn for natural history, and we all of us generally botanize a little of an evening, which gives a fresh in

terest

terest to our walks. She will soon draw plants and flowers pretty accurately.Louisa has some taste in designing, and takes tolerable sketches from nature. These we encourage, because they are solitary pleasures, and want no witnesses. They all are too eager to impart somewhat of what they know to your little favourite Celia, who is in danger of picking up a little of every thing, the sure way to excel in nothing.

"Thus each girl is furnished with some one source of independent amusement. But what would become of them, or rather what become of their mother and me, if every one of them was a scholar, a mathematician, a singer, a performer, a botanist, a painter? Did we attempt to force all these acquirements and a dozen more on every girl, all her time would be occupied about things which will be of no value to her in eternity. I need not tell you that we are carefully communicating to every one of them

VOL. II,

M

that

that general knowledge which should be common to all gentlewomen.

"In unrolling the vast volume of ancient and modern history, I ground on it some of my most useful instructions, and point out how the truth of Scripture is illustrated by the crimes and corruptions which history records, and how the same pride, covetousness, ambition, turbulence, and deceit, which bring misery on empires, destroy the peace of families. To history, geography and chronology are such indispensable appendages, that it would be superfluous to insist on their usefulness. As to astronomy, while "the heavens declare the glory of God," it seems a kind of impiety not to give young people some insight into it."

"I hope," said Sir John, "that you do notexclude the modern languages fromyour plan." "As to the French," replied Mr. Stanley, "with that thorough inconsistency which is common to man, the demand for it seems to have risen in exact proportion

as