hand how the profane and the lewd would use all the arts of address, and how subtilly they would practise upon his good humour with powerful and tempting importunities. This set him ever upon his guard, and though he carried his sweetness of temper always about with him, yet he learned to conceal it wheresoever it was neither proper nor safe to appear. By a little converse in the world, he found that it was necessary to be positive, bold, and immoveable, in rejecting every proposal which might endanger his character or his morals; especially as he soon became sensible that a soft and cold denial gave courage to new attacks, and left him liable to be teazed with fresh solicitations. He laid down this, therefore, for a constant rule, that where his reason had determined any practice to be either plainly sinful, or utterly inexpedient, he would give so firm a denial, upon the principles of virtue and religion, as should for ever discourage any further solicitations. This gave him the character of a man of resolute virtue, even among the rakes of the time, nor was he ever esteemed the less on this account. At first indeed he thought it a happy victory which he had gotten over himself, when he could defy the shame of the world, and resolve to be a Christian in the face of vice and infidelity he found the shortest way to conquer this foolish shame, was to renounce it at once: then it was easy to practise singularity amidst a profane multitude. And when he began to get courage enough to profess resolute piety without a blush, in the midst of such company as this, Agathus and Eraste then permitted their son to travel abroad, and to see more of the world, under the protection of their daily prayers. His first tour was through the neighbouring counties of England; he afterward enlarged the circuit of his travels, till he had visited foreign nations, and learned the value of his own.

In short, the restraints of his younger years were tempered with so much liberty, and managed with such prudence and tenderness, and these bonds of discipline were so gradually loosened, as fast as he grew wise enough to go

vern himself, that Eugenio always carried about with him an inward conviction of the great love and wisdom of his parents and his tutor. The humours of the child now and then felt some reluctance against the pious discipline of his elders: but now he is arrived at manhood, there is nothing that he looks back upon with greater satisfaction than the steps of their conduct, and the instances of his own submission. He often recounts these things with pleasure, as some of the chief favours of Heaven, whereby he was guarded through all the dangers and follies of youth and childhood, and effectually kept, through divine grace operating by these happy means, from a thousand sorrows, and perhaps from everlasting ruin.

Though he has been released some years from the strictness of paternal government, yet he still makes his parents his chosen friends: and though they cease to practise authority upon him, and absolute command, yet he pays the utmost deference to their counsels, and to the first notice of their inclinations. You shall never find him resisting and debating against their desires and propensities in little common things of life, which are indifferent in themselves; he thinks it carries in it too much contempt of those whom God and nature requires him to honour. In those instançes of practice which they utterly forbid in their family, he bears so tender a regard to their peace, that he will scarcely ever allow himself in them, even when he cannot see sufficient reason to pronounce them unlawful. Nor does he pay this regard to his parents alone, but denies himself in some gratifications which he esteems innocent, out of regard to what he accounts the mistaken judgement of some pious persons with whom he converses and worships. They are weak, perhaps, in their austerities; but St Paul has taught him, that the strong ought to bear with the infirmities of the weak, and not to please themselves to the offence of the church of God. This he observed to be the constant practice of Agathus and Eraste, and he maintains a great regard to the examples of so much piety and goodness, even though

his reason does not lead him always to embrace their opinions. Whensoever he enters into an important action of life, he takes a filial pleasure to seek advice from his worthy parents, and it is uneasy to him to attempt any thing of moment without it. He does not indeed universally practise all their sentiments, but he gains their consent to follow his own reason and choice.

Some of the wild young gentlemen of the age may happen to laugh at him for being so much a boy still, and for shewing such subjection to the old folks (as they call them): with a scornful smile they bid him "Break off his leading-strings, and cast away his yokes of bondage." But for the most part he observes, that the same persons shake off all yokes at once, and at once break the bonds of nature, duty, and religion; they pay but little regard to their superior in heaven, any more than to those on earth, and have forgotten God and their parents together. "Nor will I ever be moved (says he) with the reproaches of those who make a jest of things sacred as well as civil, and treat their mother and their Maker with the same contempt,"

SECT. XI..

Of the Proper Degrees of Liberty, and Restraint in the Education of Daughters, illustrated by Examples.

Ir is necessary that youth should be laid under some restraint. When our inclinations are violent, and our judgement weak, it was a wise provision of God our Creator, that we should be under the conduct of those who were born before us; and that we should be bound to obey them, who have an innate solicitude for our happiness, and are much fitter to judge for our advantage than we ourselves can be in that early part of life.

But it may be said, liberty is so glorious a blessing, that surely it ought not utterly to be taken away from the young, lest their spirits be cramped and enslaved, and the growth of their souls so stinted by a narrow and severe restraint,

that

that they act all their lives like children under age. Or sometimes a too rigid confinement will have the contrary effect, and make the impatience of youth break out beyond all bounds, as soon as ever they get the first relish of freedom.

But O how exceedingly difficult it is to hit the middle way! How hard for parents to manage their own authoity with so much gentleness, and to regulate the liberties of their children with so wise a discipline, as to fall into neither extreme, nor give unhappy occasion for censure! though I have spoken my opinion freely, that it is safer to err on the side of restraint, than of excessive indulgence.

Antigone had an excellent mother, but she died young: Antigone, with her eldest sister, from their very infancy, were placed under a grandmother's care. The good old gentlewoman trained them up precisely in the forms in which she herself was educated, when the modes of breeding had (it must be confessed) too much narrowness and austerity. She gave them all the good instructions she had received from her ancestors, and would scarcely ever suffer them to be out of her sight. She saw the eldest well married at five-and-twenty, and settled in a course of virtue and religion she found her zeal and pious care attended with success in several of her posterity, and she departed this life in peace.

But unhappy Antigone took a different turn: she was let loose into the world with all her possessions and powers in her own hand; and falling into vain company, she got such a taste of unbounded liberty and modish vices, that she could never reflect upon the method of her own education without angry remarks of ridicule.

When she came to have children of her own, she still retained the resentment which she had conceived at the conduct of her grandmother, and therefore she resolved that her daughters should be bred up in the other extreme.

"In my younger times (said she) we were kept hard to the labour of the needle, and spent six hours a-day at it, as though

though I were to get my bread by my fingers ends; but a little of that business shall serve these children, for their father has left them good fortunes of their own.

"We were not suffered to read any thing but the Bible and sermon-books; but I shall teach mine politer lessons out of plays and romances, that they may be acquainted with the world betimes.

"My eldest sister was scarcely ever allowed to speak in company till she was married, and it was a tiresome length of years before that day came. The old proverb ran thus, That a maiden must be seen, and not heard: but I hope my little daughters will not be dumb.

"We were always confined to dwell at home, unless some extraordinary occasion called us abroad, perhaps once in a month, or twice in a summer. We were taught to play the good housewife in the kitchen and the pastry, and were well instructed in the conduct of the broom and duster; but we knew nothing of the mode of the court, and the diversions of the town. I should be ashamed to see these young creatures, that are under my care, so awkward in company at fourteen, as I was at four-and-twenty."

And thus Antigone brought up her young family of daughters agreeable to her own loose notions; for she had formed her sentiments of education merely from the aversion she had conceived to the way of her elders, and chose the very reverse of their conduct for her rule, because their piety and wisdom had a little allay of rigour and stiffness attending it.

The young things, under their mother's eye, could manage the tea-table at ten years old, when they could hardly read a chapter in the New Testament. At fourteen they learned the airs of the world; they gad abroad at their pleasure, and will hardly suffer Antigone to direct them, or go with them they despise the old woman betimes, for they can visit without her attendance, and prattle abundantly without her prompting.

She led or sent them to the playhouse twice or thrice a

week,