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gers and difficulties which attend our progress tirough life.

Nor can our education be called completely elegant, in so polished an age as this, without something of poetry. I would not be understood to recommend verse-making to every young gentleman and lady; but reading it in the best authors, to learn to know, and taste, and feel, a fine stanza, as well as hear it. Nor is this a mere amusement, or useless embroidery of the soul; it brightens and animates the fancy with a thousand beautiful images; it enriches the sonl with sublime sentiments and refined ideas; it fills the memory with a noble variety of language, and furnishes the tongue with speech and expression suited to every subject. It assists us in speech and writing, and adds life and beauty to conversation.

Drawing and painting are ingenious and graceful acquirements. Well-educated youth should have at least some taste of these arts, some capacity of being pleased with a curious draught, a noble painting, a beautiful statue, and other fine resemblances of nature.

Fencing and riding are accomplishments for gentlemen : they are exercises of a healthy kind, and may be useful in life.

Dancing is a fashionable accomplishment of both sexes, and contributes to form the body to graceful motions; but where it is much indulged it has sensible dangers, by leading youth too often and too early into company.

But of all the accomplishments of youth there is none preferable to decent behaviour, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant address, a graceful deportment, a hatred of calumny and slander, a readiness to do good, compassion to the unfortunate, with an air and countenance expressive of all these excellent qualifications.



DELIGHTFUL, In fair weather, when my heart is cheered, and I feel that exaltation of spirits which results from light and warmth, joined with a beautiful prospect of nature, I regard myself as one placed by the hand of God in the midst of an ample theatre, in which the Sun, Moon, and stars, the fruits also and vegetables of the Earth, perpetually changing their positions or their aspects, exhibit an elegant entertainment to the understanding as well as to

the eye.

Thunder and lightning, rain and hail, the painted bow and the glaring comet, are decorations of this mighty theatre; and the sable hemisphere studded with spangles, the blue vault at noon, the glorious gildings and the rich colours in the horizon, I look on as so many successive scenes.

When I consider things in this light, methinks it is a sort of impiety to have no attention to the course of nature, and the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. To be regardless of those phænomena that are placed within our view, on purpose to entertain our faculties, and display the wisdom and power of our Creator, is an affront to Providence, of the same kind, (I hope it is not impious to make such a simile) as it would be to a good poet to sit out his play without minding the plot or beauties of it. And yet how few are there who attend to the drama of nature, its artificial structure, and those admirable scenes whereby the passions of a philosopher are gratefully agitated, and his soul affected with the sweet emotions of joy and surprise.

How many fox-hunters and rural squires are to be found all over Great Britain, who are ignorant that they have lived all this time in a planet; that the Sun is several thousand times bigger than the Earth ; and that there are several other worlds within our view, greater and more glorious than our own! Ay, but,' says some illiterate fellow, 'I enjoy the world, and leave it to others to contemplate it.” Yes, you eat, and drink, and run about upon it; that is, you enjoy as a brute; but to enjoy as a rational being is to know it, to be sensible of its greatness and beauty, to be delighted with its harmony, and, by these reflections, to obtain just sentiments of the almighty mind that framed it.

The man who, unembarrassed with vulgar cares, leisurely attends to the flux of things in Heaven and things on Earth, and observes the laws by which they are governed, hath secured to himself an easy and convenient seat, where he beholds with pleasure all that passes on the stage of nature, while those about him are, some fast asleep, and others struggling for the highest places, or turning their eyes from the entertainment prepared by Providence, to play at push-pin with one another.

Within this ample cireumference of the world, the glorious lights that are hung on high, the meteors in the middle region, the various livery of the Earth, and the profusion of good things that distinguish the seasons, yield a prospect which annibilates all human grandeur.



Your very bad enunciation, my son, gives me real concern; and I congratulate both you and myself, that I was informed of it, as I hope, in time, to prevent it; and shall ever think myself, as hereafter you will, I am sure, think yourself, infinitely obliged to your friend for informing me of it.

If this ungraceful and disagreeable manner of speaking had, either by your negligence or mine, become habitual to you, as in a couple of years more it would have been, what a figure would you have made in company or in a public assembly! Who would liave liked you in the one, or attended to you in the other? Read what Cicero and Quintilian say of enunciation, and observe what a stress they lay upon the gracefulness of it: nay, Cicero goes further, and even maintains that a good figure is necessary for an orator; and particularly that he must not be vastus, that is, overgrown and clumsy. He shows by it, that he knew mankind well, and knew the powers of an agreeable figure and a graceful manner.

Men are oftener led by their ears than by their understandings. The way to the heart is through the senses; please their eyes and their ears, and the work is half done. I have frequently known a man's fortune decided for ever by his first address. If it be pleasing, people are hurried involuntarily into a persuasion that he has merit, which possibly he has not; as, on the other hand, if it be ungraceful, they are immediately prejudiced against him, and unwilling to allow him the merit which it may be he has.

Nor is this sentiment so unjust and unreasonable as at first it may seem; for, if a man have parts, he must know of how much consequence it is to him, to have a graceful manner of' speaking and a genteel and pleasing address, and he will cultivate and improve them to the utmost. What is the constant and just observation, as to all actors upon the stage? Is it not, that those who have the best sense always speak the best, though they may happen not to have the best voices? They will speak plainly, distinctly, and with a proper emphasis, be their voices ever so bad. Had Roscius spoken quick, thick, and ungracefully, I will answer for it, that Cicero would not have thought him worth the oration which he made in his favour. Words were given us to communicate our ideas by; and there must be something inconceivably absurd, in uttering them in such a manner, as that people either cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them.

I tell you truly and sincerely, that I shall judge of your parts' by your speaking gracefully or ungracefully. If you have parts, you will never be at rest till you have brought yourself to a habit of speaking most gracefully; for I aver that it is in yonr power. You will desire your tutor, that yon

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