1 Female delicacy in Italy is looked upon as a pure crystal which the faintest breath of the world may contaminate. It is a sweet, tender flower, equally dreading the scorching meridian ray and the blast of the northern gale. The Italians believe in a virginity of the soul, without which personal chastity has hardly any value in their eyes. To secure this moral innocence, and here perhaps is their main error, they know no better means than an almost entire abstraction from, and ignorance of, the world. The independance of the Yankee girl--we make use of that obnoxious denomination, not through disrespect for the smartest nation in creation, but better to designate the people of New England, that part of the United States where American manners are most characteristically developed, begins with the earliest stage of boarding-school life. Early in the morning she walks out alone sometimes for a distance of miles to her academy; who are her tutors and companions, what her studies, what books she reads, what friendships or habits she contracts, her parents scarcely ever care to enquire; or, if asked, scarcely ever does she condescend to reply. In proportion as she grows, more completely and absolutely does she acquire the mastery over her own actions. She chooses her dancing and music masters, her congregation, her minister. She subscribes to cotillion parties, shines off at a fancy fair or at a flower auction. She walks home late at night from a rout with her favorite partner, and takes a long tour by moonlight to enjoy the coolness and sentimentalism of the night air. She introduces her male friends to her mother, and sends out her invitations to tea without consulting the old lady; finally, she informs her parents that her lover has «popped the question, unless indeed she prefers the éclat and excitement of a runaway match. And yet this unbounded latitude is scarcely ever attended with mischievous results. Thanks perhaps to natural coldness of temperament, or to the early marriages which in those wide-spreading colonies are and will long continue to be the order of the day, the American young lady very early acquires the calculating habits of the country. She is her own duenna and chaperon. Her fancy and heart are always under the control of reason. She learns to value her admi- - has a rers according to their worth. or if you do, you may be sure that all worldly advantages have been duly weighed, and that even that apparent imprudence is the result of the most consummate policy. Before - God bless her! she leaves school, a Yankee girl thorough knowledge of the world. She is up to secure against all dangers of amorous seduction. were the good of the million of novels she reads? is proud and daring; her step firm and secure. as with the Spartan virgin, «E la vergogna inutile Dov'è la colpa ignota." every trick, Else, what Her look With her, Modesty she would look upon as a want of sincerity and frankness; delicacy as a lack of spirit and independence. With the exception of a few luckless words, which her nice notions of decency have proscribed from the English dictionary-for a list of them vide Sam Slick-there is scarcely a subject of conversation which she would dream of rebuking or discountenancing. Having still a queen at the head of our nation, as well as a national church and aristocracy, we cannot boast of going the whole length of American freedom. Our English girls are made sometimes to remember that they have a mother. If not absolutely under the sway, they are still at least under the guidance of their natural guardians. They have got eyes, and are permitted to make use of them; a taste, and they are free to exercise it; a heart, and we let them believe that it is theirs to bestow. Truly this liberty exists rather in words than facts. The tether is long and loose, but we never let it entirely slip from our hands; our daughters have the motion of their marriage bill, but we reserve the enactment for ourselves. We do not control their inclinations, but reason them out of them. We do not crush their feelings, but tamper with them. We do not thwart their love, but awaken their ambition. We do not present them the alternative between an old husband and a convent God forbid we only bid them choose between a young gallant and a coronet. They are not dragged like victims to the altar, oh no! they are driven to church in glittering carriages, decked out with jewels and garlanded with flowers. 1 An Italian mother-we speak of the ladies of the old school, since Countess Pepoli seems to entertain more liberal ideascan be contented with nothing short of making herself the jailor of her daughter. The poor girl must grow up in ber parent's bower like a sweet rose-bud hidden beneath a bush of thorns, like a gem buried in the depths of the ocean. She is never lost sight of for a moment; never opens a book, never converses with any living being without her guardian's knowledge and consent. Are visitors announced? she is bidden to withdraw. Is mamma going to the opera? she is ordered to bed. The slightest outburst of passion or enthusiasm is visited with a frown. Every thing is studied to guard her against sudden impressions. Her friends are in a constant dread of her southern susceptibility. Her heart is a little half-smothered volcano, which causes them endless anxiety. All her mother is able to teach, the girl must learn from her. If other instructors are required, females are preferred to male teachers, old to young. In all cases the mother is in constant attendance. All this not only lest the silly inexperienced young creature should set off one fair morning with her dancing-master, bound upon what is called in this country « a walk to Kensington Gardens; but in order to prevent even the possibility of ever conceiving a passing desire of so doing. The greatest pride of a matron's heart consists in offering her daughter to her chosen lord as perfectly new to all tender sensations as the babe unborn. By such a cautious and watchul system of domestic policy the mother flatters herself to fhave provided for her daughter's felicity. The intended busǝband is almost the first man with whom she is brought into lose intimacy. Her little heart is a blank, upon which every image can be with equal facility engraved. She has no dangerous comparison before her eyes. Her affections, her ideas, her very curiosity, have been hitherto concentrated upon the very few persons constituting her domestic circle. Her feelings have gained in intensity what they they have lost in extent and variety. Her husband is almost naturally sure to obtain her first love, and it entirely depends upon his own conduct to secure her last. We would not confidently bring forward this as the most perfect system of feminine education; its faults and imperfections are obvious enough, nor indeed do we believe that it is always followed to the letter even in Italy. Still the lead ing idea of every instructress in that country seems to consist in guarding a youthful mind from pollution, by removing it as far as practicable from the tainted atmosphere of society. It is not difficult to perceive that such is the main object even of Countess Pepoli's directions to her Educatrice. That part of her work which relates to educational purposes seems to us by far the most interesting and commendable. We have seen nowhere a, more perfect exhibition of the beau-ideal of a mother instructress. Never was a theory of sound and practical moral education more discerningly and satisfactorily traced out. True to the national feeling, she does indeed recommend a constant solicitous vigilance of the mother over every step, every thought of her child. She evinces the same anxious apprehensions of the natural combustibility of Italian young blood, and is equally liberal of her warnings against the chances of its sudden ignition: but her guardianship is one purely of confidence and love. The mother's security is to be grounded entirely on an unceasing interchange of social sympathy. She is to leave nothing unattempted to win her daughter's friendship and devotion. Mother and child must be necessary to each other, indivisible in their graver, as well as in their lighter pursuits. The girl must feel that she is never left to herself, not because she is by any means mistrusted, but only because her mother loves her too well to be able to spare her company. She is not bidden to stifle every sentiment in her heart, but she is taught to let her mother into its inmost core. She is not rigidly kept aloof from society --though too great a familiarity with the world is considered as equally baneful to the purity of her mind and injurious to the spotlessness of her character, but she is to feel the propriety, the reasonableness, the blessing of never appearing in public without her tutelar angel. She is in fact to be a prisoner, but utterly unconscious of confinement, unable to look beyond the golden bars of her dungeon without an indefinable awe and misgiving, and incapable of dreaming of her emancipation consistently with her security and happiness. In the like manner we have seen well-trained canary-birds stopping on the unclosed door of their cage, as if afraid of the dreariness of the open air, and loth to quit the comforts of their love-nurtured captivity. Thus we think it would prove rather amusing to British readers, to see with what warmth and earnestness our fair authoress admonishes every loving mother to keep a sharp look out and trust no persone sia oculata e diffidi di tutti; di tutti »—adding, however, that she must so contrive that her mistrust and suspicion be never perceived; with what rigidity she proscribes novels and all other writings calculated to pervert a young mind by amorous extravagances non concedere alla figliuola la lettura d' ogni romanza o d' altri libri che pervertono l'imaginazione con amorosi vaneggiamenti " -alluding especially to those pestiferous works of fiction, which late in the eighteenth and during the present century are sent by hundreds from 'oltremonti ed oltremare' to pervert Italian manners, already so deplorably corrupted; » exception being made only in favour of those stupendous creations of Walter Scott and a few others in that style, which the countess expressly and strenuously advocates. These cares and solicitudes redouble when the girl has reached that age in which duty and expediency equally demand that she should be produced into society. Then, indeed, must the mother beware of every living being, not excepting even her best friends, especially female friends; she must, we are taught, keep close to her daughter," and at every rout or ball be sure that her eye constantly watches all her movements, nothing being more shocking than to see a girl dancing or waltzing in one room, whilst the mother sits down at her rubber in another." 津 Such are the ideas of a lady who, on every other subject, |