Chapter 3

NO wonder he was received with such acclamations of joy by the celestial powers, when there was

But one, Yes, of so many myriads fall'n, but one Return'd not lost.

IBID.

AND afterwards, in a close contest with the arch fiend,

A noble stroke he lifted high On the proud crest of Satan.

IBID.

WHAT was the effect of this courage of the vigilant and active seraph?

Amazement seiz'd The rebel throne, but greater rage to see Thus foil'd their mightiest.

ABDIEL had the superiority of Belial as much in the warlike combat, as in the peaceful counsels.

Nor was it ought but just, That he who in debate of truth had won, Shou'd win in arms, in both disputes alike Victor.

BUT notwithstanding I have spoken with some asperity against sentiment as opposed to principle, yet I am convinced, that true genuine sentiment, (not the sort I have been describing) may be so connected with principle, as to bestow on it its brightest lustre, and its most captivating graces. And enthusiasm is so far from being disagreeable, that a portion of it is perhaps indispensably necessary in an engaging woman. But it must be the enthusiasm of the heart, not of the senses. It must be the enthusiasm which grows up with a feeling mind, and is cherished by a virtuous education; not that which is compounded of irregular passions, and artificially refined by books of unnatural fiction and improbable adventure. I will even go so far as to assert, that a young woman cannot have any real greatness of soul, or true elevation of principle, if she has not a tincture of what the vulgar would call Romance, but which persons of a certain way of thinking will discern to proceed from those fine feelings, and that charming sensibility, without which, though a woman may be worthy, yet she can never be amiable.

BUT this dangerous merit cannot be too rigidly watched, as it is very apt to lead those who possess it into inconveniencies from which less interesting characters are happily exempt. Young women of strong sensibility may be carried by the very amiableness of this temper into the most alarming extremes. Their tastes are passions. They love and hate with all their hearts, and scarcely suffer themselves to feel a reasonable preference before it strengthens into a violent attachment.

WHEN an innocent girl of this open, trusting, tender heart, happens to meet with one of her own sex and age, whose address and manners are engaging, she is instantly seized with an ardent desire to commence a friendship with her. She feels the most lively impatience at the restraints of company, and the decorums of ceremony. She longs to be alone with her, longs to assure her of the warmth of her tenderness, and generously ascribes to the fair stranger all the good qualities she feels in her own heart, or rather all those which she has met with in her reading, dispersed in a variety of heroines. She is persuaded, that her new friend unites them all in herself, because she carries in her prepossessing countenance the promise of them all. How cruel and how censorious would this inexperienced girl think her mother was, who should venture to hint, that the agreeable unknown had defects in her temper, or exceptions in her character. She would mistake these hints of discretion for the insinuations of an uncharitable disposition. At first she would perhaps listen to them with a generous impatience, and afterwards with a cold and silent disdain. She would despise them as the effect of prejudice, misrepresentation, or ignorance. The more aggravated the censure, the more vehemently would she protest in secret, that her friendship for this dear injured creature (who is raised much higher in her esteem by such injurious suspicions) shall know no bounds, as she is assured it can know no end.

YET this trusting confidence, this honest indiscretion, is, at this early period of life as amiable as it is natural; and will, if wisely cultivated, produce, at its proper season, fruits infinitely more valuable than all the guarded circumspection of premature, and therefore artificial, prudence. Men, I believe, are seldom struck with these sudden prepossessions in favour of each other. They are not so unsuspecting, nor so easily led away by the predominance of fancy. They engage more warily, and pass through the several stages of acquaintance, intimacy, and confidence, by slower gradations; but women, if they are sometimes deceived in the choice of a friend, enjoy even then an higher degree of satisfaction than if they never trusted. For to be always clad in the burthensome armour of suspicion is more painful and inconvenient, than to run the hazard of suffering now and then a transient injury.

BUT the above observations only extend to the young and the inexperienced; for I am very certain, that women are capable of as faithful and as durable friendship as any of the other sex. They can enter not only into all the enthusiastic tenderness, but into all the solid fidelity of attachment. And if we cannot oppose instances of equal weight with those of Nysus and Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, Pylades and Orestes, let it be remembered, that it is because the recorders of those characters were men, and that the very existence of them is merely poetical.

[6] See Voltaire's Prophecy concerning Rousseau.

ON TRUE AND FALSE MEEKNESS.

A LOW voice and soft address are the common indications of a well-bred woman, and should seem to be the natural effects of a meek and quiet spirit; but they are only the outward and visible signs of it: for they are no more meekness itself, than a red coat is courage, or a black one devotion.

YET nothing is more common than to mistake the sign for the thing itself; nor is any practice more frequent than that of endeavouring to acquire the exterior mark, without once thinking to labour after the interior grace. Surely this is beginning at the wrong end, like attacking the symptom and neglecting the disease. To regulate the features, while the soul is in tumults, or to command the voice while the passions are without restraint, is as idle as throwing odours into a stream when the source is polluted.

THE _sapient king_, who knew better than any man the nature and the power of beauty, has assured us, that the temper of the mind has a strong influence upon the features: "Wisdom maketh the face to shine," says that exquisite judge; and surely no part of wisdom is more likely to produce this amiable effect, than a placid serenity of soul.

IT will not be difficult to distinguish the true from the artificial meekness. The former is universal and habitual, the latter, local and temporary. Every young female may keep this rule by her, to enable her to form a just judgment of her own temper: if she is not as gentle to her chambermaid as she is to her visitor, she may rest satisfied that the spirit of gentleness is not in her.

WHO would not be shocked and disappointed to behold a well-bred young lady, soft and engaging as the doves of Venus, displaying a thousand graces and attractions to win the hearts of a large company, and the instant they are gone, to see her look mad as the Pythian maid, and all the frightened graces driven from her furious countenance, only because her gown was brought home a quarter of an hour later than she expected, or her ribbon sent half a shade lighter or darker than she ordered?

ALL men's characters are said to proceed from their servants; and this is more particularly true of ladies: for as their situations are more domestic, they lie more open to the inspection of their families, to whom their real characters are easily and perfectly known; for they seldom think it worth while to practise any disguise before those, whose good opinion they do not value, and who are obliged to submit to their most insupportable humours, because they are paid for it.

AMONGST women of breeding, the exterior of gentleness is so uniformly assumed, and the whole manner is so perfectly level and _uni_, that it is next to impossible for a stranger to know any thing of their true dispositions by conversing with them, and even the very features are so exactly regulated, that physiognomy, which may sometimes be trusted among the vulgar, is, with the polite, a most lying science.

A VERY termagant woman, if she happens also to be a very artful one, will be conscious she has so much to conceal, that the dread of betraying her real temper will make her put on an over-acted softness, which, from its very excess, may be distinguished from the natural, by a penetrating eye. That gentleness is ever liable to be suspected for the counterfeited, which is so excessive as to deprive people of the proper use of speech and motion, or which, as Hamlet says, makes them lisp and amble, and nick-name God's creatures.

THE countenance and manners of some very fashionable persons may be compared to the inscriptions on their monuments, which speak nothing but good of what is within; but he who knows any thing of the world, or of the human heart, will no more trust to the courtesy, than he will depend on the epitaph.

AMONG the various artifices of factitious meekness, one of the most frequent and most plausible, is that of affecting to be always equally delighted with all persons and all characters. The society of these languid beings is without confidence, their friendship without attachment, and their love without affection, or even preference. This insipid mode of conduct may be safe, but I cannot think it has either taste, sense, or principle in it.

THESE uniformly smiling and approving ladies, who have neither the noble courage to reprehend vice, nor the generous warmth to bear their honest testimony in the cause of virtue, conclude every one to be ill-natured who has any penetration, and look upon a distinguishing judgment as want of tenderness. But they should learn, that this discernment does not always proceed from an uncharitable temper, but from that long experience and thorough knowledge of the world, which lead those who have it to scrutinize into the conduct and disposition of men, before they trust entirely to those fair appearances, which sometimes veil the most insidious purposes.

WE are perpetually mistaking the qualities and dispositions of our own hearts. We elevate our failings into virtues, and qualify our vices into weaknesses: and hence arise so many false judgments respecting meekness. Self-ignorance is at the root of all this mischief. Many ladies complain that, for their part, their spirit is so meek they can bear nothing; whereas, if they spoke truth, they would say, their spirit is so high and unbroken that they can bear nothing. Strange! to plead their meekness as a reason why they cannot endure to be crossed, and to produce their impatience of contradiction as a proof of their gentleness!

MEEKNESS, like most other virtues, has certain limits, which it no sooner exceeds than it becomes criminal. Servility of spirit is not gentleness but weakness, and if allowed, under the specious appearances it sometimes puts on, will lead to the most dangerous compliances. She who hears innocence maligned without vindicating it, falsehood asserted without contradicting it, or religion prophaned without resenting it, is not gentle but wicked.

TO give up the cause of an innocent, injured friend, if the popular cry happens to be against him, is the most disgraceful weakness. This was the case of Madame de Maintenon. She loved the character and admired the talents of Racine; she caressed him while he had no enemies, but wanted the greatness of mind, or rather the common justice, to protect him against their resentment when he had; and her favourite was abandoned to the suspicious jealousy of the king, when a prudent remonstrance might have preserved him.--But her tameness, if not absolute connivance in the great massacre of the protestants, in whose church she had been bred, is a far more guilty instance of her weakness; an instance which, in spite of all her devotional zeal and incomparable prudence, will disqualify her from shining in the annals of good women, however she may be entitled to figure among the great and the fortunate. Compare her conduct with that of her undaunted and pious countryman and contemporary, Bougi, who, when Louis would have prevailed on him to renounce his religion for a commission or a government, nobly replied, "If I could be persuaded to betray my God for a marshal's staff, I might betray my king for a bribe of much less consequence."

MEEKNESS is imperfect, if it be not both active and passive; if it will not enable us to subdue our own passions and resentments, as well as qualify us to bear patiently the passions and resentments of others.

BEFORE we give way to any violent emotion of anger, it would perhaps be worth while to consider the value of the object which excites it, and to reflect for a moment, whether the thing we so ardently desire, or so vehemently resent, be really of as much importance to us, as that delightful tranquillity of soul, which we renounce in pursuit of it. If, on a fair calculation, we find we are not likely to get as much as we are sure to lose, then, putting all religious considerations out of the question, common sense and human policy will tell us, we have made a foolish and unprofitable exchange. Inward quiet is a part of one's self; the object of our resentment may be only a matter of opinion; and, certainly, what makes a portion of our actual happiness ought to be too dear to us, to be sacrificed for a trifling, foreign, perhaps imaginary good.

THE most pointed satire I remember to have read, on a mind enslaved by anger, is an observation of Seneca's. "Alexander (said he) had two friends, Clitus and Lysimachus; the one he exposed to a lion, the other to himself: he who was turned loose to the beast escaped, but Clitus was murdered, for he was turned loose to an angry man."

A PASSIONATE woman's happiness is never in her own keeping: it is the sport of accident, and the slave of events. It is in the power of her acquaintance, her servants, but chiefly of her enemies, and all her comforts lie at the mercy of others. So far from being willing to learn of him who was meek and lowly, she considers meekness as the want of a becoming spirit, and lowliness as a despicable and vulgar meanness. And an imperious woman will so little covet the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, that it is almost the only ornament she will not be solicitous to wear. But resentment is a very expensive vice. How dearly has it cost its votaries, even from the sin of Cain, the first offender in this kind! "It is cheaper (says a pious writer) to forgive, and save the charges."

IF it were only for mere human reasons, it would turn to a better account to be patient; nothing defeats the malice of an enemy like a spirit of forbearance; the return of rage for rage cannot be so effectually provoking. True gentleness, like an impenetrable armour, repels the most pointed shafts of malice: they cannot pierce through this invulnerable shield, but either fall hurtless to the ground, or return to wound the hand that shot them.

A MEEK spirit will not look out of itself for happiness, because it finds a constant banquet at home; yet, by a sort of divine alchymy, it will convert all external events to its own profit, and be able to deduce some good, even from the most unpromising: it will extract comfort and satisfaction from the most barren circumstances: "It will suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock."

BUT the supreme excellence of this complacent quality is, that it naturally disposes the mind where it resides, to the practice of every other that is amiable. Meekness may be called the pioneer of all the other virtues, which levels every obstruction, and smooths every difficulty that might impede their entrance, or retard their progress.

THE peculiar importance and value of this amiable virtue may be farther seen in its permanency. Honours and dignities are transient, beauty and riches frail and fugacious, to a proverb. Would not the truly wise, therefore, wish to have some one possession, which they might call their own in the severest exigencies? But this wish can only be accomplished by acquiring and maintaining that calm and absolute self-possession, which, as the world had no hand in giving, so it cannot, by the most malicious exertion of its power, take away.

THOUGHTS ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE HEART AND TEMPER IN THE EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS.

I HAVE not the foolish presumption to imagine, that I can offer any thing new on a subject, which has been so successfully treated by many learned and able writers. I would only, with all possible deference, beg leave to hazard a few short remarks on that part of the subject of education, which I would call the _education of the heart_. I am well aware, that this part also has not been less skilfully and forcibly discussed than the rest, though I cannot, at the same time, help remarking, that it does not appear to have been so much adopted into common practice.

IT appears then, that notwithstanding the great and real improvements, which have been made in the affair of female education, and notwithstanding the more enlarged and generous views of it, which prevail in the present day, that there is still a very material defect, which it is not, in general, enough the object of attention to remove. This defect seems to consist in this, that too little regard is paid to the dispositions of the _mind_, that the indications of the _temper_ are not properly cherished, nor the affections of the _heart_ sufficiently regulated.

IN the first education of girls, as far as the customs which fashion establishes are right, they should undoubtedly be followed. Let the exterior be made a considerable object of attention, but let it not be the principal, let it not be the only one.--Let the graces be industriously cultivated, but let them not be cultivated at the expence of the virtues.--Let the arms, the head, the whole person be carefully polished, but let not the heart be the only portion of the human anatomy, which shall be totally overlooked.

THE neglect of this cultivation seems to proceed as much from a bad taste, as from a false principle. The generality of people form their judgment of education by slight and sudden appearances, which is certainly a wrong way of determining. Music, dancing, and languages, gratify those who teach them, by perceptible and almost immediate effects; and when there happens to be no imbecillity in the pupil, nor deficiency in the matter, every superficial observer can, in some measure, judge of the progress.--The effects of most of these accomplishments address themselves to the senses; and there are more who can see and hear, than there are who can judge and reflect.

PERSONAL perfection is not only more obvious, it is also more rapid; and even in very accomplished characters, elegance usually precedes principle.

BUT the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees. It must be admonished by reproof, and allured by kindness. Its liveliest advances are frequently impeded by the obstinacy of prejudice, and its brightest promises often obscured by the tempests of passion. It is slow in its acquisition of virtue, and reluctant in its approaches to piety.

THERE is another reason, which proves this mental cultivation to be more important, as well as more difficult, than any other part of education. In the usual fashionable accomplishments, the business of acquiring them is almost always getting forwards, and one difficulty is conquered before another is suffered to shew itself; for a prudent teacher will level the road his pupil is to pass, and smooth the inequalities which might retard her progress.

BUT in morals, (which should be the great object constantly kept in view) the talk is far more difficult. The unruly and turbulent desires of the heart are not so obedient; one passion will start up before another is suppressed. The subduing Hercules cannot cut off the heads so often as the prolific Hydra can produce them, nor fell the stubborn Antæus so fast as he can recruit his strength, and rise in vigorous and repeated opposition.

IF all the accomplishments could be bought at the price of a single virtue, the purchase would be infinitely dear! And, however startling it may sound, I think it is, notwithstanding, true, that the labours of a good and wise mother, who is anxious for her daughter's most important interests, will _seem_ to be at variance with those of her instructors. She will doubtless rejoice at her progress in any polite art, but she will rejoice with trembling:--humility and piety form the solid and durable basis, on which she wishes to raise the superstructure of the accomplishments, while the accomplishments themselves are frequently of that unsteady nature, that if the foundation is not secured, in proportion as the building is enlarged, it will be overloaded and destroyed by those very ornaments, which were intended to embellish, what they have contributed to ruin.

THE more ostensible qualifications should be carefully regulated, or they will be in danger of putting to flight the modest train of retreating virtues, which cannot safely subsist before the bold eye of public observation, or bear the bolder tongue of impudent and audacious flattery. A tender mother cannot but feel an honest triumph, in contemplating those excellencies in her daughter which deserve applause, but she will also shudder at the vanity which that applause may excite, and at those hitherto unknown ideas which it may awaken.

THE master, it is his interest, and perhaps his duty, will naturally teach a girl to set her improvements in the most conspicuous point of light. SE FAIRE VALOIR is the great principle industriously inculcated into her young heart, and seems to be considered as a kind of fundamental maxim in education. It is however the certain and effectual seed, from which a thousand yet unborn vanities will spring. This dangerous doctrine (which yet is not without its uses) will be counteracted by the prudent mother, not in so many words, but by a watchful and scarcely perceptible dexterity. Such an one will be more careful to have the talents of her daughter _cultivated_ than _exhibited_.

ONE would be led to imagine, by the common mode of female education, that life consisted of one universal holiday, and that the only contest was, who should be best enabled to excel in the sports and games that were to be celebrated on it. Merely ornamental accomplishments will but indifferently qualify a woman to perform the _duties_ of life, though it is highly proper she should possess them, in order to furnish the _amusements_ of it. But is it right to spend so large a portion of life without some preparation for the business of living? A lady may speak a little French and Italian, repeat a few passages in a theatrical tone, play and sing, have her dressing-room hung with her own drawings, and her person covered with her own tambour work, and may, notwithstanding, have been very _badly educated_. Yet I am far from attempting to depreciate the value of these qualifications: they are most of them not only highly becoming, but often indispensably necessary, and a polite education cannot be perfected without them. But as the world seems to be very well apprised of their importance, there is the less occasion to insist on their utility. Yet, though well-bred young women should learn to dance, sing, recite and draw, the end of a good education is not that they may become dancers, singers, players or painters: its real object is to make them good daughters, good wives, good mistresses, good members of society, and good christians. The above qualifications therefore are intended to _adorn_ their _leisure_, not to _employ_ their _lives_; for an amiable and wise woman will always have something better to value herself on, than these advantages, which, however captivating, are still but subordinate parts of a truly excellent character.

BUT I am afraid parents themselves sometimes contribute to the error of which I am complaining. Do they not often set a higher value on those acquisitions which are calculated to attract observation, and catch the eye of the multitude, than on those which are valuable, permanent, and internal? Are they not sometimes more solicitous about the opinion of others, respecting their children, than about the real advantage and happiness of the children themselves? To an injudicious and superficial eye, the best educated girl may make the least brilliant figure, as she will probably have less flippancy in her manner, and less repartee in her expression; and her acquirements, to borrow bishop Sprat's idea, will be rather _enamelled than embossed_. But her merit will be known, and acknowledged by all who come near enough to discern, and have taste enough to distinguish. It will be understood and admired by the man, whose happiness she is one day to make, whose family she is to govern, and whose children she is to educate. He will not seek for her in the haunts of dissipation, for he knows he shall not find her there; but he will seek for her in the bosom of retirement, in the practice of every domestic virtue, in the exertion of every amiable accomplishment, exerted in the shade, to enliven retirement, to heighten the endearing pleasures of social intercourse, and to embellish the narrow but charming circle of family delights. To this amiable purpose, a truly good and well educated young lady will dedicate her more elegant accomplishments, instead of exhibiting them to attract admiration, or depress inferiority.

YOUNG girls, who have more vivacity than understanding, will often make a sprightly figure in conversation. But this agreeable talent for entertaining others, is frequently dangerous to themselves, nor is it by any means to be desired or encouraged very early in life. This immaturity of wit is helped on by frivolous reading, which will produce its effect in much less time than books of solid instruction; for the imagination is touched sooner than the understanding; and effects are more rapid as they are more pernicious. Conversation should be the _result_ of education, not the _precursor_ of it. It is a golden fruit, when suffered to grow gradually on the tree of knowledge; but if precipitated by forced and unnatural means, it will in the end become vapid, in proportion as it is artificial.

THE best effects of a careful and religious education are often very remote: they are to be discovered in future scenes, and exhibited in untried connexions. Every event of life will be putting the heart into fresh situations, and making demands on its prudence, its firmness, its integrity, or its piety. Those whose business it is to form it, can foresee none of these situations; yet, as far as human wisdom will allow, they must enable it to provide for them all, with an humble dependence on the divine assistance. A well-disciplined soldier must learn and practise all his evolutions, though he does not know on what service his leader may command him, by what foe he shall be attacked, nor what mode of combat the enemy may use.

ONE great art of education consists in not suffering the feelings to become too acute by unnecessary awakening, nor too obtuse by the want of exertion. The former renders them the source of calamity, and totally ruins the temper; while the latter blunts and debases them, and produces a dull, cold, and selfish spirit. For the mind is an instrument, which, if wound too high, will lose its sweetness, and if not enough strained, will abate of its vigour.

HOW cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenuous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit! These are of higher worth than all the documents of learning, of dearer price than all the advantages, which can be derived from the most refined and artificial mode of education.

BUT sensibility and delicacy, and an ingenuous temper, make no part of education, exclaims the pedagogue--they are reducible to no class--they come under no article of instruction--they belong neither to languages nor to music.--What an error! They _are_ a part of education, and of infinitely more value,

Than all their pedant discipline e'er knew.

It is true, they are ranged under no class, but they are superior to all; they are of more esteem than languages or music, for they are the language of the heart, and the music of the according passions. Yet this sensibility is, in many instances, so far from being cultivated, that it is not uncommon to see those who affect more than usual sagacity, cast a smile of supercilious pity, at any indication of a warm, generous, or enthusiastic temper in the lively and the young; as much as to say, "they will know better, and will have more discretion when they are older." But every appearance of amiable simplicity, or of honest shame, _Nature's hasty conscience_, will be dear to sensible hearts; they will carefully cherish every such indication in a young female; for they will perceive that it is this temper, wisely cultivated, which will one day make her enamoured of the loveliness of virtue, and the beauty of holiness: from which she will acquire a taste for the doctrines of religion, and a spirit to perform the duties of it. And those who wish to make her ashamed of this charming temper, and seek to dispossess her of it, will, it is to be feared, give her nothing better in exchange. But whoever reflects at all, will easily discern how carefully this enthusiasm is to be directed, and how judiciously its redundances are to be lopped away.

PRUDENCE is not natural to children; they can, however, substitute art in its stead. But is it not much better that a girl should discover the faults incident to her age, than conceal them under this dark and impenetrable veil? I could almost venture to assert, that there is something more becoming in the very errors of nature, where they are undisguised, than in the affectation of virtue itself, where the reality is wanting. And I am so far from being an admirer of prodigies, that I am extremely apt to suspect them; and am always infinitely better pleased with Nature in her more common modes of operation. The precise and premature wisdom, which some girls have cunning enough to assume, is of a more dangerous tendency than any of their natural failings can be, as it effectually covers those secret bad dispositions, which, if they displayed themselves, might be rectified. The hypocrisy of assuming virtues which are not inherent in the heart, prevents the growth and disclosure of those real ones, which it is the great end of education to cultivate.

BUT if the natural indications of the temper are to be suppressed and stifled, where are the diagnostics, by which the state of the mind is to be known? The wise Author of all things, who did nothing in vain, doubtless intended them as symptoms, by which to judge of the diseases of the heart; and it is impossible diseases should be cured before they are known. If the stream be so cut off as to prevent communication, or so choked up as to defeat discovery, how shall we ever reach the source, out of which are the issues of life?

THIS cunning, which, of all the different dispositions girls discover, is most to be dreaded, is increased by nothing so much as by fear. If those about them express violent and unreasonable anger at every trivial offence, it will always promote this temper, and will very frequently create it, where there was a natural tendency to frankness. The indiscreet transports of rage, which many betray on every slight occasion, and the little distinction they make between venial errors and premeditated crimes, naturally dispose a child to conceal, what she does not however care to suppress. Anger in one will not remedy the faults of another; for how can an instrument of sin cure sin? If a girl is kept in a state of perpetual and slavish terror, she will perhaps have artifice enough to conceal those propensities which she knows are wrong, or those actions which she thinks are most obnoxious to punishment. But, nevertheless, she will not cease to indulge those propensities, and to commit those actions, when she can do it with impunity.

GOOD _dispositions_, of themselves, will go but a very little way, unless they are confirmed into good _principles_. And this cannot be effected but by a careful course of religious instruction, and a patient and laborious cultivation of the moral temper.

BUT, notwithstanding girls should not be treated with unkindness, nor the first openings of the passions blighted by cold severity; yet I am of opinion, that young females should be accustomed very early in life to a certain degree of restraint. The natural cast of character, and the moral distinctions between the sexes, should not be disregarded, even in childhood. That bold, independent, enterprising spirit, which is so much admired in boys, should not, when it happens to discover itself in the other sex, be encouraged, but suppressed. Girls should be taught to give up their opinions betimes, and not pertinaciously to carry on a dispute, even if they should know themselves to be in the right. I do not mean, that they should be robbed of the liberty of private judgment, but that they should by no means be encouraged to contract a contentious or contradictory turn. It is of the greatest importance to their future happiness, that they should acquire a submissive temper, and a forbearing spirit: for it is a lesson which the world will not fail to make them frequently practise, when they come abroad into it, and they will not practise it the worse for having learnt it the sooner. These early restraints, in the limitation here meant, are so far from being an effect of cruelty, that they are the most indubitable marks of affection, and are the more meritorious, as they are severe trials of tenderness. But all the beneficial effects, which a mother can expect from this watchfulness, will be entirely defeated, if it is practised occasionally, and not habitually, and if it ever appears to be used to gratify caprice, ill-humour, or resentment.

THOSE who have children to educate ought to be extremely patient: it is indeed a labour of love. They should reflect, that extraordinary talents are neither essential to the well-being of society, nor to the happiness of individuals. If that had been the case, the beneficent Father of the universe would not have made them so rare. For it is as easy for an Almighty Creator to produce a Newton, as an ordinary man; and he could have made those powers common which we now consider as wonderful, without any miraculous exertion of his omnipotence, if the existence of many Newtons had been necessary to the perfection of his wise and gracious plan.

SURELY, therefore, there is more piety, as well as more sense, in labouring to improve the talents which children actually have, than in lamenting that they do not possess supernatural endowments or angelic perfections. A passage of Lord Bacon's furnishes an admirable incitement for endeavouring to carry the amiable and christian grace of charity to its farthest extent, instead of indulging an over-anxious care for more brilliant but less important acquisitions. "The desire of power in excess (says he) caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can men nor angels come into danger by it."

A GIRL who has docility will seldom be found to want understanding enough for all the purposes of a social, a happy, and an useful life. And when we behold the tender hope of fond and anxious love, blasted by disappointment, the defect will as often be discovered to proceed from the neglect or the error of cultivation, as from the natural temper; and those who lament the evil, will sometimes be found to have occasioned it.

IT is as injudicious for parents to set out with too sanguine a dependence on the merit of their children, as it is for them to be discouraged at every repulse. When their wishes are defeated in this or that particular instance, where they had treasured up some darling expectation, this is so far from being a reason for relaxing their attention, that it ought to be an additional motive for redoubling it. Those who hope to do a great deal, must not expect to do every thing. If they know any thing of the malignity of sin, the blindness of prejudice, or the corruption of the human heart, they will also know, that that heart will always remain, after the very best possible education, full of infirmity and imperfection. Extraordinary allowances, therefore, must be made for the weakness of nature in this its weakest state. After much is done, much will remain to do, and much, very much, will still be left undone. For this regulation of the passions and affections cannot be the work of education alone, without the concurrence of divine grace operating on the heart. Why then should parents repine, if their efforts are not always crowned with immediate success? They should consider, that they are not educating cherubims and seraphims, but men and women; creatures, who at their best estate are altogether vanity: how little then can be expected from them in the weakness and imbecillity of infancy! I have dwelt on this part of the subject the longer, because I am certain that many, who have set out with a warm and active zeal, have cooled on the very first discouragement, and have afterwards almost totally remitted their vigilance, through a criminal kind of despair.

GREAT allowances must be made for a profusion of gaiety, loquacity, and even indiscretion in children, that there may be animation enough left to supply an active and useful character, when the first fermentation of the youthful passions is over, and the redundant spirits shall come to subside.

IF it be true, as a consummate judge of human nature has observed,

That not a vanity is given in vain,

it is also true, that there is scarcely a single passion, which may not be turned to some good account, if prudently rectified, and skilfully turned into the road of some neighbouring virtue. It cannot be violently bent, or unnaturally forced towards an object of a totally opposite nature, but may be gradually inclined towards a correspondent but superior affection. Anger, hatred, resentment, and ambition, the most restless and turbulent passions which shake and distract the human soul, may be led to become the most active opposers of sin, after having been its most successful instruments. Our anger, for instance, which can never be totally subdued, may be made to turn against ourselves, for our weak and imperfect obedience--our hatred, against every species of vice--our ambition, which will not be discarded, may be ennobled: it will not change its name, but its object: it will despise what it lately valued, nor be contented to grasp at less than immortality.

THUS the joys, fears, hopes, desires, all the passions and affections, which separate in various currents from the soul, will, if directed into their proper channels, after having fertilised wherever they have flowed, return again to swell and enrich the parent source.

THAT the very passions which appear the most uncontroulable and unpromising, may be intended, in the great scheme of Providence, to answer some important purpose, is remarkably evidenced in the character and history of Saint Paul. A remark on this subject by an ingenious old Spanish writer, which I will here take the liberty to translate, will better illustrate my meaning.

"TO convert the bitterest enemy into the most zealous advocate, is the work of God for the instruction of man. Plutarch has observed, that the medical science would be brought to the utmost perfection, when poison should be converted into physic. Thus, in the mortal disease of Judaism and idolatry, our blessed Lord converted the adder's venom of Saul the persecutor, into that cement which made Paul the chosen vessel. That manly activity, that restless ardor, that burning zeal for the law of his fathers, that ardent thirst for the blood of Christians, did the Son of God find necessary in the man who was one day to become the defender of his suffering people.[7]"

TO win the passions, therefore, over to the cause of virtue, answers a much nobler end than their extinction would possibly do, even if that could be effected. But it is their nature never to observe a neutrality; they are either rebels or auxiliaries, and an enemy subdued is an ally obtained. If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benighted mind in a state of cold and comfortless inanity.

BUT in speaking of the usefulness of the passions, as instruments of virtue, _envy_ and _lying_ must always be excepted: these, I am persuaded, must either go on in still progressive mischief, or else be radically cured, before any good can be expected from the heart which has been infected with them. For I never will believe that envy, though passed through all the moral strainers, can be refined into a virtuous emulation, or lying improved into an agreeable turn for innocent invention. Almost all the other passions may be made to take an amiable hue; but these two must either be totally extirpated, or be always contented to preserve their original deformity, and to wear their native black.

[7] Obras de Quevedo, vida de San Pablo Apostol.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO THE FEMALE CHARACTER.

VARIOUS are the reasons why the greater part of mankind cannot apply themselves to arts or letters. Particular studies are only suited to the capacities of particular persons. Some are incapable of applying to them from the delicacy of their sex, some from the unsteadiness of youth, and others from the imbecillity of age. Many are precluded by the narrowness of their education, and many by the straitness of their fortune. The wisdom of God is wonderfully manifested in this happy and well-ordered diversity, in the powers and properties of his creatures; since by thus admirably suiting the agent to the action, the whole scheme of human affairs is carried on with the most agreeing and consistent oeconomy, and no chasm is left for want of an object to fill it, exactly suited to its nature.

BUT in the great and universal concern of religion, both sexes, and all ranks, are equally interested. The truly catholic spirit of christianity accommodates itself, with an astonishing condescension, to the circumstances of the whole human race. It rejects none on account of their pecuniary wants, their personal infirmities, or their intellectual deficiencies. No superiority of parts is the least recommendation, nor is any depression of fortune the smallest objection. None are too wise to be excused from performing the duties of religion, nor are any too poor to be excluded from the consolations of its promises.

IF we admire the wisdom of God, in having furnished different degrees of intelligence, so exactly adapted to their different destinations, and in having fitted every part of his stupendous work, not only to serve its own immediate purpose, but also to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the whole: how much more ought we to adore that goodness, which has perfected the divine plan, by appointing one wide, comprehensive, and universal means of salvation: a salvation, which all are invited to partake; by a means which all are capable of using; which nothing but voluntary blindness can prevent our comprehending, and nothing but wilful error can hinder us from embracing.

THE Muses are coy, and will only be wooed and won by some highly-favoured suitors. The Sciences are lofty, and will not stoop to the reach of ordinary capacities. But "Wisdom (by which the royal preacher means piety) is a loving spirit: she is easily seen of them that love her, and found of all such as seek her." Nay, she is so accessible and condescending, "that she preventeth them that desire her, making herself first known unto them."

WE are told by the same animated writer, "that Wisdom is the breath of the power of God." How infinitely superior, in grandeur and sublimity, is this description to the origin of the _wisdom_ of the heathens, as described by their poets and mythologists! In the exalted strains of the Hebrew poetry we read, that "Wisdom is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness."

THE philosophical author of _The Defence of Learning_ observes, that knowledge has something of venom and malignity in it, when taken without its proper corrective, and what that is, the inspired Saint Paul teaches us, by placing it as the immediate antidote: _Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth._ Perhaps, it is the vanity of human wisdom, unchastised by this correcting principle, which has made so many infidels. It may proceed from the arrogance of a self-sufficient pride, that some philosophers disdain to acknowledge their belief in a being, who has judged proper to conceal from them the infinite wisdom of his counsels; who, (to borrow the lofty language of the man of Uz) refused to consult them when he laid the foundations of the earth, when he shut up the sea with doors, and made the clouds the garment thereof.

A MAN must be an infidel either from pride, prejudice, or bad education: he cannot be one unawares or by surprise; for infidelity is not occasioned by sudden impulse or violent temptation. He may be hurried by some vehement desire into an immoral action, at which he will blush in his cooler moments, and which he will lament as the sad effect of a spirit unsubdued by religion; but infidelity is a calm, considerate act, which cannot plead the weakness of the heart, or the seduction of the senses. Even good men frequently fail in their duty through the infirmities of nature, and the allurements of the world; but the infidel errs on a plan, on a settled and deliberate principle.

BUT though the minds of men are sometimes fatally infected with this disease, either through unhappy prepossession, or some of the other causes above mentioned; yet I am unwilling to believe, that there is in nature so monstrously incongruous a being, as a _female infidel_. The least reflexion on the temper, the character, and the education of women, makes the mind revolt with horror from an idea so improbable, and so unnatural.

MAY I be allowed to observe, that, in general, the minds of girls seem more aptly prepared in their early youth for the reception of serious impressions than those of the other sex, and that their less exposed situations in more advanced life qualify them better for the preservation of them? The daughters (of good parents I mean) are often more carefully instructed in their religious duties, than the sons, and this from a variety of causes. They are not so soon sent from under the paternal eye into the bustle of the world, and so early exposed to the contagion of bad example: their hearts are naturally more flexible, soft, and liable to any kind of impression the forming hand may stamp on them; and, lastly, as they do not receive the same classical education with boys, their feeble minds are not obliged at once to receive and separate the precepts of christianity, and the documents of pagan philosophy. The necessity of doing this perhaps somewhat weakens the serious impressions of young men, at least till the understanding is formed, and confuses their ideas of piety, by mixing them with so much heterogeneous matter. They only casually read, or hear read, the scriptures of truth, while they are obliged to learn by heart, construe and repeat the poetical fables of the less than human gods of the ancients. And as the excellent author of _The Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion_ observes, "Nothing has so much contributed to corrupt the true spirit of the christian institution, as that partiality which we contract, in our earliest education, for the manners of pagan antiquity."

GIRLS, therefore, who do _not_ contract this early partiality, ought to have a clearer notion of their religious duties: they are not obliged, at an age when the judgment is so weak, to distinguish between the doctrines of Zeno, of Epicurus, and of Christ; and to embarrass their minds with the various morals which were taught in the _Porch_, in the _Academy_, and on the _Mount_.

IT is presumed, that these remarks cannot possibly be so misunderstood, as to be construed into the least disrespect to literature, or a want of the highest reverence for a learned education, the basis of all elegant knowledge: they are only intended, with all proper deference, to point out to young women, that however inferior their advantages of acquiring a knowledge of the belles-lettres are to those of the other sex; yet it depends on themselves not to be surpassed in this most important of all studies, for which their abilities are equal, and their opportunities, perhaps, greater.

BUT the mere exemption from infidelity is so small a part of the religious character, that I hope no one will attempt to claim any merit from this negative sort of goodness, or value herself merely for not being the very worst thing she possibly can be. Let no mistaken girl fancy she gives a proof of her wit by her want of piety, or that a contempt of things serious and sacred will exalt her understanding, or raise her character even in the opinion of the most avowed male infidels. For one may venture to affirm, that with all their profligate ideas, both of women and of religion, neither Bolingbroke, Wharton, Buckingham, nor even _Lord Chesterfield himself_, would have esteemed a woman the more for her being irreligious.

WITH whatever ridicule a polite freethinker may affect to treat religion himself, he will think it necessary his wife should entertain different notions of it. He may pretend to despise it as a matter of opinion, depending on creeds and systems; but, if he is a man of sense, he will know the value of it, as a governing principle, which is to influence her conduct and direct her actions. If he sees her unaffectedly sincere in the practice of her religious duties, it will be a secret pledge to him, that she will be equally exact in fulfilling the conjugal; for he can have no reasonable dependance on her attachment to _him_, if he has no opinion of her fidelity to GOD; for she who neglects first duties, gives but an indifferent proof of her disposition to fill up inferior ones; and how can a man of any understanding (whatever his own religious professions may be) trust that woman with the care of his family, and the education of his children, who wants herself the best incentive to a virtuous life, the belief that she is an accountable creature, and the reflection that she has an immortal soul?

CICERO spoke it as the highest commendation of Cato's character, that he embraced philosophy, not for the sake of _disputing_ like a philosopher, but of _living_ like one. The chief purpose of christian knowledge is to promote the great end of a christian life. Every rational woman should, no doubt, be able to give a reason of the hope that is in her; but this knowledge is best acquired, and the duties consequent on it best performed, by reading books of plain piety and practical devotion, and not by entering into the endless feuds, and engaging in the unprofitable contentions of partial controversialists. Nothing is more unamiable than the narrow spirit of party zeal, nor more disgusting than to hear a woman deal out judgments, and denounce vengeance against any one, who happens to differ from her in some opinion, perhaps of no real importance, and which, it is probable, she may be just as wrong in rejecting, as the object of her censure is in embracing. A furious and unmerciful female bigot wanders as far beyond the limits prescribed to her sex, as a Thalestris or a Joan d'Arc. Violent debate has made as few converts as the sword, and both these instruments are particularly unbecoming when wielded by a female hand.

BUT, though no one will be frightened out of their opinions, yet they may be persuaded out of them: they may be touched by the affecting earnestness of serious conversation, and allured by the attractive beauty of a consistently serious life. And while a young woman ought to dread the name of a wrangling polemic, it is her duty to aspire after the honourable character of a sincere Christian. But this dignified character she can by no means deserve, if she is ever afraid to avow her principles, or ashamed to defend them. A profligate, who makes it a point to ridicule every thing which comes under the appearance of formal instruction, will be disconcerted at the spirited yet modest rebuke of a pious young woman. But there is as much efficacy in the manner of reproving prophaneness, as in the words. If she corrects it with moroseness, she defeats the effect of her remedy, by her unskilful manner of administring it. If, on the other hand, she affects to defend the insulted cause of God, in a faint tone of voice, and studied ambiguity of phrase, or with an air of levity, and a certain expression of pleasure in her eyes, which proves she is secretly delighted with what she pretends to censure, she injures religion much more than he did who publickly prophaned it; for she plainly indicates, either that she does not believe, or respect what she professes. The other attacked it as an open foe; she betrays it as a false friend. No one pays any regard to the opinion of an avowed enemy; but the desertion or treachery of a professed friend, is dangerous indeed!

IT is a strange notion which prevails in the world, that religion only belongs to the old and the melancholy, and that it is not worth while to pay the least attention to it, while we are capable of attending to any thing else. They allow it to be proper enough for the clergy, whose business it is, and for the aged, who have not spirits for any business at all. But till they can prove, that none except the clergy and the aged _die_, it must be confessed, that this is most wretched reasoning.

GREAT injury is done to the interests of religion, by placing it in a gloomy and unamiable light. It is sometimes spoken of, as if it would actually make a handsome woman ugly, or a young one wrinkled. But can any thing be more absurd than to represent the beauty of holiness as the source of deformity?

THERE are few, perhaps, so entirely plunged in business, or absorbed in pleasure, as not to intend, at some future time, to set about a religious life in good earnest. But then they consider it as a kind of _dernier ressort_, and think it prudent to defer flying to this disagreeable refuge, till they have no relish left for any thing else. Do they forget, that to perform this great business well requires all the strength of their youth, and all the vigour of their unimpaired capacities? To confirm this assertion, they may observe how much the slightest indisposition, even in the most active season of life, disorders every faculty, and disqualifies them for attending to the most ordinary affairs: and then let them reflect how little able they will be to transact the most important of all business, in the moment of excruciating pain, or in the day of universal debility.

WHEN the senses are palled with excessive gratification; when the eye is tired with seeing, and the ear with hearing; when the spirits are so sunk, that the _grasshopper is become a burthen_, how shall the blunted apprehension be capable of understanding a new science, or the worn-out heart be able to relish a new pleasure?

TO put off religion till we have lost all taste for amusement; to refuse listening to the "voice of the charmer," till our enfeebled organs can no longer listen to the voice of "singing men and singing women," and not to devote our days to heaven till we have "no pleasure in them" ourselves, is but an ungracious offering. And it is a wretched sacrifice to the God of heaven, to present him with the remnants of decayed appetites, and the leavings of extinguished passions.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS ON GENIUS, TASTE, GOOD SENSE, &c.[8]

GOOD _sense_ is as different from _genius_ as perception is from invention; yet, though distinct qualities, they frequently subsist together. It is altogether opposite to _wit_, but by no means inconsistent with it. It is not science, for there is such a thing as unlettered good sense; yet, though it is neither wit, learning, nor genius, it is a substitute for each, where they do not exist, and the perfection of all where they do.

Good sense is so far from deserving the appellation of _common sense_, by which it is frequently called, that it is perhaps one of the rarest qualities of the human mind. If, indeed, this name is given it in respect to its peculiar suitableness to the purposes of common life, there is great propriety in it. Good sense appears to differ from taste in this, that taste is an instantaneous decision of the mind, a sudden relish of what is beautiful, or disgust at what is defective, in an object, without waiting for the slower confirmation of the judgment. Good sense is perhaps that confirmation, which establishes a suddenly conceived idea, or feeling, by the powers of comparing and reflecting. They differ also in this, that taste seems to have a more immediate reference to arts, to literature, and to almost every object of the senses; while good sense rises to moral excellence, and exerts its influence on life and manners. Taste is fitted to the perception and enjoyment of whatever is beautiful in art or nature: Good sense, to the improvement of the conduct, and the regulation of the heart.

YET the term good sense, is used indiscriminately to express either a finished taste for letters, or an invariable prudence in the affairs of life. It is sometimes applied to the most moderate abilities, in which case, the expression is certainly too strong; and at others to the most shining, when it is as much too weak and inadequate. A sensible man is the usual, but unappropriated phrase, for every degree in the scale of understanding, from the sober mortal, who obtains it by his decent demeanor and solid dullness, to him whose talents qualify him to rank with a Bacon, a Harris, or a Johnson.

GENIUS is the power of invention and imitation. It is an incommunicable faculty: no art or skill of the possessor can bestow the smallest portion of it on another: no pains or labour can reach the summit of perfection, where the seeds of it are wanting in the mind; yet it is capable of infinite improvement where it actually exists, and is attended with the highest capacity of communicating instruction, as well as delight to others.

IT is the peculiar property of genius to strike out great or beautiful things: it is the felicity of good sense not to do absurd ones. Genius breaks out in splendid sentiments and elevated ideas; good sense confines its more circumscribed, but perhaps more useful walk, within the limits of prudence and propriety.

The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.

THIS is perhaps the finest picture of human genius that ever was drawn by a human pencil. It presents a living image of a creative imagination, or a power of inventing things which have no actual existence.

WITH superficial judges, who, it must be confessed, make up the greater part of the mass of mankind, talents are only liked or understood to a certain degree. Lofty ideas are above the reach of ordinary apprehensions: the vulgar allow those who possess them to be in a somewhat higher state of mind than themselves; but of the vast gulf which separates them, they have not the least conception. They acknowledge a superiority, but of its extent they neither know the value, nor can conceive the reality. It is true, the mind, as well as the eye, can take in objects larger than itself; but this is only true of great minds: for a man of low capacity, who considers a consummate genius, resembles one, who seeing a column for the first time, and standing at too great a distance to take in the whole of it, concludes it to be flat. Or, like one unacquainted with the first principles of philosophy, who, finding the sensible horizon appear a plain surface, can form no idea of the spherical form of the whole, which he does not see, and laughs at the account of antipodes, which he cannot comprehend.

WHATEVER is excellent is also rare; what is useful is more common. How many thousands are born qualified for the coarse employments of life, for one who is capable of excelling in the fine arts! yet so it ought to be, because our natural wants are more numerous, and more importunate, than the intellectual.

WHENEVER it happens that a man of distinguished talents has been drawn by mistake, or precipitated by passion, into any dangerous indiscretion; it is common for those whose coldness of temper has supplied the place, and usurped the name of prudence, to boast of their own steadier virtue, and triumph in their own superior caution; only because they have never been assailed by a temptation strong enough to surprise them into error. And with what a visible appropriation of the character to themselves, do they constantly conclude, with a cordial compliment to _common sense_! They point out the beauty and usefulness of this quality so forcibly and explicitly, that you cannot possibly mistake whose picture they are drawing with so flattering a pencil. The unhappy man whose conduct has been so feelingly arraigned, perhaps acted from good, though mistaken motives; at least, from motives of which his censurer has not capacity to judge: but the event was unfavourable, nay the action might be really wrong, and the vulgar maliciously take the opportunity of this single indiscretion, to lift themselves nearer on a level with a character, which, except in this instance, has always thrown them at the most disgraceful and mortifying distance.

THE elegant Biographer of Collins, in his affecting apology for that unfortunate genius, remarks, "That the gifts of imagination bring the heaviest task on the vigilance of reason; and to bear those faculties with unerring rectitude, or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmness, and of cool attention, which does not always attend the higher gifts of the mind; yet difficult as Nature herself seems to have rendered the task of regularity to genius, it is the supreme consolation of dullness, and of folly to point with gothic triumph to those excesses which are the overflowing of faculties they never enjoyed."

WHAT the greater part of the world mean by common sense, will be generally found, on a closer enquiry, to be art, fraud, or selfishness! That sort of saving prudence which makes men extremely attentive to their own safety, or profit; diligent in the pursuit of their own pleasures or interests; and perfectly at their ease as to what becomes of the rest of mankind. Furies, where their own property is concerned, philosophers when nothing but the good of others is at stake, and perfectly resigned under all calamities but their own.

WHEN we see so many accomplished wits of the present age, as remarkable for the decorum of their lives, as for the brilliancy of their writings, we may believe, that, next to principle, it is owing to their _good sense_, which regulates and chastises their imaginations. The vast conceptions which enable a true genius to ascend the sublimest heights, may be so connected with the stronger passions, as to give it a natural tendency to fly off from the strait line of regularity; till good sense, acting on the fancy, makes it gravitate powerfully towards that virtue which is its proper centre.

ADD to this, when it is considered with what imperfection the Divine Wisdom has thought fit to stamp every thing human, it will be found, that excellence and infirmity are so inseparably wound up in each other, that a man derives the soreness of temper, and irritability of nerve, which make him uneasy to others, and unhappy in himself, from those exquisite feelings, and that elevated pitch of thought, by which, as the apostle expresses it on a more serious occasion, he is, as it were, out of the body.

It is not astonishing, therefore, when THE spirit is carried away by the magnificence of its own ideas,

Not touch'd but rapt, not waken'd but inspir'd,

that the frail body, which is the natural victim of pain, disease, and death, should not always be able to follow the mind in its aspiring flights, but should be as imperfect as if it belonged only to an ordinary soul.

BESIDES, might not Providence intend to humble human pride, by presenting to our eyes so mortifying a view of the weakness and infirmity of even his best work? Perhaps man, who is already but a little lower than the angels, might, like the revolted spirits, totally have shaken off obedience and submission to his Creator, had not God wisely tempered human excellence with a certain consciousness of its own imperfection. But though this inevitable alloy of weakness may frequently be found in the best characters, yet how can that be the source of triumph and exaltation to any, which, if properly weighed, must be the deepest motive of humiliation to all? A good-natured man will be so far from rejoicing, that he will be secretly troubled, whenever he reads that the greatest Roman moralist was tainted with avarice, and the greatest British philosopher with venality.

IT is remarked by Pope, in his Essay on Criticism, that,

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.

But I apprehend it does not therefore follow that to judge, is more difficult than to write. If this were the case, the critic would be superior to the poet, whereas it appears to be directly the contrary. "The critic, (says the great champion of Shakespeare,) but fashions the body of a work, the poet must add the soul, which gives force and direction to its actions and gestures." It should seem that the reason why so many more judge wrong, than write ill, is because the number of readers is beyond all proportion greater than the number of writers. Every man who reads, is in some measure a critic, and, with very common abilities, may point out real faults and material errors in a very well written book; but it by no means follows that he is able to write any thing comparable to the work which he is capable of censuring. And unless the numbers of those who write, and of those who judge, were more equal, the calculation seems not to be quite fair.

A CAPACITY for relishing works of genius is the indubitable sign of a good taste. But if a proper disposition and ability to enjoy the compositions of others, entitle a man to the claim of reputation, it is still a far inferior degree of merit to his who can invent and produce those compositions, the bare disquisition of which gives the critic no small share of fame.

THE president of the royal academy in his admirable _Discourse_ on _imitation_, has set the folly of depending on unassisted genius, in the clearest light; and has shewn the necessity of adding the knowledge of others, to our own native powers, in his usual striking and masterly manner. "The mind, says he, is a barren soil, is a soil soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized, and enriched with foreign matter."

YET it has been objected that study is a great enemy to originality; but even if this were true, it would perhaps be as well that an author should give us the ideas of still better writers, mixed and assimilated with the matter in his own mind, as those crude and undigested thoughts which he values under the notion that they are original. The sweetest honey neither tastes of the rose, the honeysuckle, nor the carnation, yet it is compounded of the very essence of them all.

IF in the other fine arts this accumulation of knowledge is necessary, it is indispensably so in poetry. It is a fatal rashness for any one to trust too much to their own stock of ideas. He must invigorate them by exercise, polish them by conversation, and increase them by every species of elegant and virtuous knowledge, and the mind will not fail to reproduce with interest those seeds, which are sown in it by study and observation. Above all, let every one guard against the dangerous opinion that he knows enough: an opinion that will weaken the energy and reduce the powers of the mind, which, though once perhaps vigorous and effectual, will be sunk to a state of literary imbecility, by cherishing vain and presumptuous ideas of its own independence.

FOR instance, it may not be necessary that a poet should be deeply skilled in the Linnæan system; but it must be allowed that a general acquaintance with plants and flowers will furnish him with a delightful and profitable species of instruction. He is not obliged to trace Nature in all her nice and varied operations, with the minute accuracy of a Boyle, or the laborious investigation of a Newton; but his _good sense_ will point out to him that no inconsiderable portion of philosophical knowledge is requisite to the completion of his literary character. The sciences are more independent, and require little or no assistance from the graces of poetry; but poetry, if she would charm and instruct, must not be so haughty; she must be contented to borrow of the sciences, many of her choicest allusions, and many of her most graceful embellishments; and does it not magnify the character of true poesy, that she includes within herself all the scattered graces of every separate art?

THE rules of the great masters in criticism may not be so necessary to the forming a good taste, as the examination of those original mines from whence they drew their treasures of knowledge.

THE three celebrated Essays on the Art of Poetry do not teach so much by their laws as by their examples; the dead letter of their rules is less instructive than the living spirit of their verse. Yet these rules are to a young poet, what the study of logarithms is to a young mathematician; they do not so much contribute to form his judgment, as afford him the satisfaction of convincing him that he is right. They do not preclude the difficulty of the operation; but at the conclusion of it, furnish him with a fuller demonstration that he has proceeded on proper principles. When he has well studied the masters in whose schools the first critics formed themselves, and fancies he has caught a spark of their divine Flame, it may be a good method to try his own compositions by the test of the critic rules, so far indeed as the mechanism of poetry goes. If the examination be fair and candid, this trial, like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, will detect every latent error, and bring to light every favourite failing.

GOOD taste always suits the measure of its admiration to the merit of the composition it examines. It accommodates its praises, or its censure, to the excellence of a work, and appropriates it to the nature of it. General applause, or indiscriminate abuse, is the sign of a vulgar understanding. There are certain blemishes which the judicious and good-natured reader will candidly overlook. But the false sublime, the tumour which is intended for greatness, the distorted figure, the puerile conceit, and the incongruous metaphor, these are defects for which scarcely any other kind of merit can atone. And yet there may be more hope of a writer (especially if he be a a young one), who is now and then guilty of some of these faults, than of one who avoids them all, not through judgment, but feebleness, and who, instead of deviating into error is continually falling short of excellence. The meer absence of error implies that moderate and inferior degree of merit with which a cold heart and a phlegmatic taste will be better satisfied than with the magnificent irregularities of exalted spirits. It stretches some minds to an uneasy extension to be obliged to attend to compositions superlatively excellent; and it contracts liberal souls to a painful narrowness to descend to books of inferior merit. A work of capital genius, to a man of an ordinary mind, is the bed of Procrustes to one of a short stature, the man is too little to fill up the space assigned him, and undergoes the torture in attempting it: and a moderate, or low production to a man of bright talents, is the punishment inflicted by Mezentius; the living spirit has too much animation to endure patiently to be in contact with a dead body.

TASTE sesms to be a sentiment of the soul which gives the bias to opinion, for we feel before we reflect. Without this sentiment, all knowledge, learning and opinion, would be cold, inert materials, whereas they become active principles when stirred, kindled, and inflamed by this animating quality.

THERE is another feeling which is called Enthusiasm. The enthusiasm of sensible hearts is so strong, that it not only yields to the impulse with which striking objects act on it, but such hearts help on the effect by their own sensibility. In a scene where Shakespeare and Garrick give perfection to each other, the feeling heart does not merely accede to the delirium they occasion: it does more, it is enamoured of it, it solicits the delusion, it sues to be deceived, and grudgingly cherishes the sacred treasure of its feelings. The poet and performer concur in carrying us

Beyond this visible diurnal sphere,

they bear us aloft in their airy course with unresisted rapidity, if they meet not with any obstruction from the coldness of our own feelings. Perhaps, only a few fine spirits can enter into the detail of their writing and acting; but the multitude do not enjoy less acutely, because they are not able philosophically to analyse the sources of their joy or sorrow. If the others have the advantage of judging, these have at least the privilege of feeling: and it is not from complaisance to a few leading judges, that they burst into peals of laughter, or melt into delightful agony; their hearts decide, and that is a decision from which there lies no appeal. It must however be confessed, that the nicer separations of character, and the lighter and almost imperceptible shades which sometimes distinguish them, will not be intimately relished, unless there be a consonancy of taste as well as feeling in the spectator; though where the passions are principally concerned, the profane vulgar come in for a larger portion of the universal delight, than critics and connoisseurs are willing to allow them.

YET enthusiasm, though the natural concomitant of genius, is no more genius itself, than drunkenness is cheerfulness; and that enthusiasm which discovers itself on occasions not worthy to excite it, is the mark of a wretched judgment and a false taste.

NATURE produces innumerable objects: to imitate them, is the province of Genius; to direct those imitations, is the property of Judgment; to decide on their effects, is the business of Taste. For Taste, who sits as supreme judge on the productions of Genius, is not satisfied when she merely imitates Nature: she must also, says an ingenious French writer, imitate _beautiful_ Nature. It requires no less judgment to reject than to choose, and Genius might imitate what is vulgar, under pretence that it was natural, if Taste did not carefully point out those objects which are most proper for imitation. It also requires a very nice discernment to distinguish verisimilitude from truth; for there is a truth in Taste nearly as conclusive as demonstration in mathematics.

GENIUS, when in the full impetuosity of its career, often touches on the very brink of error; and is, perhaps, never so near the verge of the precipice, as when indulging its sublimest flights. It is in those great, but dangerous moments, that the curb of vigilant judgment is most wanting: while safe and sober Dulness observes one tedious and insipid round of tiresome uniformity, and steers equally clear of eccentricity and of beauty. Dulness has few redundancies to retrench, few luxuriancies to prune, and few irregularities to smooth. These, though errors, are the errors of Genius, for there is rarely redundancy without plenitude, or irregularity without greatness. The excesses of Genius may easily be retrenched, but the deficiencies of Dulness can never be supplied.

THOSE who copy from others will doubtless be less excellent than those who copy from Nature. To imitate imitators, is the way to depart too far from the great original herself. The latter copies of an engraving retain fainter and fainter traces of the subject, to which the earlier impressions bore so strong a resemblance.

IT seems very extraordinary, that it should be the most difficult thing in the world to be natural, and that it should be harder to hit off the manners of real life, and to delineate such characters as we converse with every day, than to imagine such as do not exist. But caricature is much easier than an exact outline, and the colouring of fancy less difficult than that of truth.

PEOPLE do not always know what taste they have, till it is awakened by some corresponding object; nay, genius itself is a fire, which in many minds would never blaze, if not kindled by some external cause.

NATURE, that munificent mother, when she bestows the power of judging, accompanies it with the capacity of enjoying. The judgment, which is clear sighted, points out such objects as are calculated to inspire love, and the heart instantaneously attaches itself to whatever is lovely.

IN regard to literary reputation, a great deal depends on the state of learning in the particular age or nation, in which an author lives. In a dark and ignorant period, moderate knowledge will entitle its possessor to a considerable share of fame; whereas, to be distinguished in a polite and lettered age, requires striking parts and deep erudition.

WHEN a nation begins to emerge from a state of mental darkness, and to strike out the first rudiments of improvement, it chalks out a few strong but incorrect sketches, gives the rude out-lines of general art, and leaves the filling up to the leisure of happier days, and the refinement of more enlightened times. Their drawing is a rude _Sbozzo_, and their poetry wild minstrelsy.

PERFECTION of taste is a point which a nation no sooner reaches, than it overshoots; and it is more difficult to return to it, after having passed it, than it was to attain when they fell short of it. Where the arts begin to languish after having flourished, they seldom indeed fall back to their original barbarism, but a certain feebleness of exertion takes place, and it is more difficult to recover them from this dying languor to their proper strength, than it was to polish them from their former rudeness; for it is a less formidable undertaking to refine barbarity, than to stop decay: the first may be laboured into elegance, but the latter will rarely be strengthened into vigour.

TASTE exerts itself at first but feebly and imperfectly: it is repressed and kept back by a crowd of the most discouraging prejudices: like an infant prince, who, though born to reign, yet holds an idle sceptre, which he has not power to use, but is obliged to see with the eyes, and hear through the ears of other men.

A WRITER of correct taste will hardly ever go out of his way, even in search of embellishment: he will study to attain the best end by the most natural means; for he knows that what is not natural cannot be beautiful, and that nothing can be beautiful out of its own place; for an improper situation will convert the most striking beauty into a glaring defect. When by a well-connected chain of ideas, or a judicious succession of events, the reader is snatched to "Thebes or Athens," what can be more impertinent than for the poet to obstruct the operation of the passion he has just been kindling, by introducing a conceit which contradicts his purpose, and interrupts his business? Indeed, we cannot be transported, even in idea, to those places, if the poet does not manage so adroitly as not to make us sensible of the journey: the instant we feel we are travelling, the writer's art fails, and the delirium is at an end.

PROSERPINE, says Ovid, would have been restored to her mother Ceres, had not Ascalaphus seen her stop to gather a golden apple, when the terms of her restoration were, that she should taste nothing. A story pregnant with instruction for lively writers, who by neglecting the main business, and going out of the way for false gratifications, lose sight of the end they should principally keep in view. It was this false taste that introduced the numberless _concetti_, which disgrace the brightest of the Italian poets; and this is the reason, why the reader only feels short and interrupted snatches of delight in perusing the brilliant but unequal compositions of Ariosto, instead of that unbroken and undiminished pleasure, which he constantly receives from Virgil, from Milton, and generally from Tasso. The first-mentioned Italian is the Atalanta, who will interrupt the most eager career, to pick up the glittering mischief, while the Mantuan and the British bards, like Hippomenes, press on warm in the pursuit, and unseduced by temptation.

A WRITER of real taste will take great pains in the perfection of his style, to make the reader believe that he took none at all. The writing which appears to be most easy, will be generally found to be least imitable. The most elegant verses are the most easily retained, they fasten themselves on the memory, without its making any effort to preserve them, and we are apt to imagine, that what is remembered with ease, was written without difficulty.

To conclude; Genius is a rare and precious gem, of which few know the worth; it is fitter for the cabinet of the connoisseur, than for the commerce of mankind. Good sense is a bank-bill, convenient for change, negotiable at all times, and current in all places. It knows the value of small things, and considers that an aggregate of them makes up the sum of human affairs. It elevates common concerns into matters of importance, by performing them in the best manner, and at the most suitable season. Good sense carries with it the idea of equality, while Genius is always suspected of a design to impose the burden of superiority; and respect is paid to it with that reluctance which always attends other imposts, the lower orders of mankind generally repining most at demands, by which they are least liable to be affected.

AS it is the character of Genius to penetrate with a lynx's beam into unfathomable abysses and uncreated worlds, and to see what is _not_, so it is the property of good sense to distinguish perfectly, and judge accurately what really _is_. Good sense has not so piercing an eye, but it has as clear a sight: it does not penetrate so deeply, but as far as it _does_ see, it discerns distinctly. Good sense is a judicious mechanic, who can produce beauty and convenience out of suitable means; but Genius (I speak with reverence of the immeasurable distance) bears some remote resemblance to the divine architect, who produced perfection of beauty without any visible materials, _who spake, and it was created_; who said, _Let it be, and it was_.

[8] THE Author begs leave to offer an apology for introducing this Essay, which, she fears, may be thought foreign to her purpose. But she hopes that her earnest desire of exciting a taste for literature in young ladies, (which encouraged her to hazard the following remarks) will not OBSTRUCT her general design, even if it does not actually PROMOTE it.

THE END.

Transcriber's Note: Two small typos have been corrected.

_Lately published by the same Author_,

ODE TO DRAGON, Mr. GARRICK'S House-Dog at Hampton. Price 6d.

SIR ELDRED OF THE BOWER, and the BLEEDING ROCK. Legendary Tales. Price 2s. 6d. Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand.

The Sixth Edition of The SEARCH after HAPPINESS. A Pastoral Drama. Price 1s. 6d.

The Third Edition of The INFLEXIBLE CAPTIVE. A Tragedy. Price 1s. 6d. Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand; and J. Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church-Yard.

End of Project Gutenberg's Essays on Various Subjects, by Hannah More