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sary, as all our grammars, being written by men whose early studies had given them a partiality for the learned languages, are formed more upon those than upon the real genius of our own tongue.

I was going now to mention French, but perceive I have written a letter long enough to frighten a young correspondent, and for the present I bid you adieu.

LETTER II.

French you are not only permitted to learn, but you are laid under the same necessity of acquiring it as your brother is of acquiring the Latin. Custom has made the one as much expected from an accomplished woman, as the other from a man who has had a liberal education.

If after you have learned French you should wish to add Italian, the acquisition will not be difficult. It is valuable on account of its poetry, in which it far excels the French,-and its music. The other modern languages you will hardly attempt, except led to them by some peculiar bent.

History affords a wide field of entertaining and useful reading. The chief thing to be attended to in studying it, is to gain a clear well arranged idea of facts in chronological order, and illustrated by a knowledge of the places where such facts happened. Never read without tables and maps: make abstracts of what you read. Before you embarrass yourself in the detail of this, endeavour to fix well in your mind the arrangement of some leading facts, which may serve as land-marks to which to refer the rest. Connect the history of dif ferent countries together. In the study of history the different genius of a woman, I imagine, will show itself. The detail of battles, the art of sieges,

will not interest her so much as manners and sentiments; this is the food she assimilates to herself.

The great laws of the universe, the nature and properties of those objects which surround us, it is unpardonable not to know: it is more unpardonable to know, and not to feel the mind struck with lively gratitude. Under this head are comprehended natural history, astronomy, botany, experimental philosophy, chemistry, physics. In these you will rather take what belongs to sentiment and to utility than abstract calculations or difficult problems. You must often be content to know a thing is so, without understanding the proof. It belongs to a Newton to prove his sublime problems, but we may be all made acquainted with the result. You cannot investigate; you may remember. This will teach you not to despise common things, will give you an interest in every thing you see. If you are feeding your poultry, or tending your bees, or extracting the juice of herbs, with an intelligent mind you are gaining real knowledge; it will open to you an inexhaustible fund of wonder and delight, and effectually prevent you from depending for your entertainment on the poor novelties of fashion and expense.

But of all reading, what most ought to engage your attention are works of sentiment and morals. Morals is that study in which alone both sexes have an equal interest; and in sentiment yours has even the advantage. The works of this kind often appear under the seducing form of novel and romance: here great care, and the advice of your older friends, is requisite in the selection. Whatever is true, however uncouth in the manner or dry in the subject, has a value from being true: but fiction, in order to recommend itself, must give us

la belle Nature. You will find fewer plays fit for your perusal than novels, and fewer comedies than tragedies.

What particular share any one of the studies I have mentioned may engage of your attention will be determined by your particular turn and bent of mind. But I shall conclude with observing, that a woman ought to have that general tincture of them all, which marks the cultivated mind. She ought to have enough of them to engage gracefully in general conversation. In no subject is she required to be deep,-of none ought she to be ignorant. If she knows not enough to speak well, she should know enough to keep her from speaking at all; enough to feel her ground and prevent her from exposing her ignorance; enough to hear with intelligence, to ask questions with propriety, and to receive information where she is not qualified to give it. A woman who to a cultivated mind joins that quickness of intelligence and delicacy of taste which such a woman often possesses in a superior degree, with that nice sense of propriety which results from the whole, will have a kind of tact by which she will be able on all occasions to discern between pretenders to science and men of real merit. On subjects upon which she cannot talk herself, she will know whether a man talks with knowledge of his subject. She will not judge of systems, but by their systems she will be able to judge of men. She will distinguish the modest, the dogmatical, the affected, the over-refined, and give her esteem and confidence accordingly. She will know with whom to confide the education of her children, and how to judge of their progress and the methods used to improve them. From books, from conversation, from learned instructors,

she will gather the flower of every science; and her mind, in assimilating everything to itself, will adorn it with new graces. She will give the tone to the conversation even when she chooses to bear but an inconsiderable part of it. The modesty which prevents her from an unnecessary display of what she knows, will cause it to be supposed that her knowledge is deeper than in reality it is:as when the landscape is seen through the veil of a mist, the bounds of the horizon are hid. As she will never obtrude her knowledge, none will ever be sensible of any deficiency in it, and her silence will seem to proceed from discretion rather than a want of information. She will seem to know everything by leading every one to speak of what he knows; and when she is with those to whom she can give no real information, she will yet delight them by the original turns of thought and sprightly elegance which will attend her manner of speaking on any subject. Such is the character to whom professed scholars will delight to give information, from whom others will equally delight to receive it-the character I wish you to become, and to form which your application must be directed. MRS. BARBAULD.

TRUE MAGICIANS.

MY DEAR SARAH,

TO MISS C.

I HAVE often reflected, since I left you, on the wonderful powers of magic exhibited by you and your sister. The dim obscurity of that grotto hollowed out by your hands under the laurel hedge,

where you used to mix the ingredients of your incantations, struck us with awe and terror; and the broom which you so often brandished in your hands made you look very like witches indeed. I must confess, however, that some doubts have now and then arisen in my mind, whether or no you were truly initiated in the secrets of your art; and these suspicions gathered strength after you had suffered us and yourself to be so drenched as we all were on that rainy Tuesday; which, to say the least, was a very odd circumstance, considering you had the command of the weather.-As I was pondering these matters alone in the chaise between Epsom and London, I fell asleep and had the following dream.

I thought I had been travelling through an unknown country, and came at last to a thick wood cut out into several groves and avenues, the gloom of which inspired thoughtfulness, and a certain mysterious dread of unknown powers came upon me. I entered however one of the avenues, and found it terminated in a magnificent portal, through which I could discern confusedly among thick foliage, cloistered arches, and Grecian porticoes, and people walking and conversing among the trees. Over the portal was the following inscription: "Here dwell the true magicians. Nature is our servant. Man is our pupil. We change, we conquer, we create."

As I was hesitating whether or no I should presume to enter, a pilgrim, who was sitting under the shade, offered to be my guide, assuring me that these magicians would do me no harm, and that so far from having any objection to be observed in their operations, they were pleased with any opportunity of exhibiting them to the curious. In

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