always consonant to reason, and were never accompanied by it; that is, when he told her to do or not to do a thing, he never gave her a reason why she should perform or abstain from that deed. Which is very absurd, because it considers a human being as a mere machine, that is to be moved by wires, without any volition of it's own.

But a child very soon perceives the cruelty and injustice of not being treated as a rational animal, and, in consequence, becomes corrupted in it's heart, and depraved in it's disposition; for nothing so much destroys the incitement to virtue as the sense of suffering unjustly from those, who ought to take all possible pains in improving and amending us.

And yet almost every parent makes no scruple of punishing a child if it asks why such or such an injunction or prohibition, is laid upon it; but such conduct implies both cruelty and ignorance, the most deplorable, even, the not knowing, that by thus repressing the first dawnings of intellect in his offspring he does all in his power towards sinking it's mental faculties - into

helpless ideocy, and doting decrepitude; cruelty because it requires the unqualified submission of a slave to senseless tyranny; not the cheerful compliance of affection with the precepts of reason and of truth.

Benevolus mixes, very injudiciously, the most doting indulgence with vexatious restraints in petty and unimportant circumstances. The consequence of which is, that the girl's temper is spoiled by alternations of boundless indulgence and needless severity. She is suffered to treat her mother rudely and cruelly with impunity, but she is teazed with remonstrances and persecuted with reproofs, if she pokes her head, or laughs too much. All this, however, is trifling compared with one mode of conduct, which was soon obliged to be dropped, for even Benevolus perceived the pernicious effects of it's adoption. A booby of a clergyman on the church of England establishment, one day, quoted to Benevolus that barbarous and brutal saying of Solomon, "that he who spareth the rod hateth his child," and declared, that it was to be taken in it's literal sense. It was enough for

Benevolus, that this horrid maxim was to be found in the Scriptures, and he, forthwith, carried it into execution upon his daughter; who, in consequence, was nearly driven to desperation; and Benevolus seeing, that such coarse and vile treatment would soon annihilate all his child's virtue, desisted before he had quite alienated every particle of affection from her heart.

Whether Solomon meant that this filthy saying should be understood literally, or not, I do not know, neither do I care; but of this I am well assured, that it has been produc tive of incalculable evil; for numberless wellinclined but foolish people, who find it much easier to quote Solomon, than to reason and think, have in consequence of this especial precept, lashed away all the sensibility and virtue of their children.

That virtue, which cannot be taught by kindness, will never be enforced by blows; for blows, only, rouze a powerful mind into resentment and indignation, and awe weak and timid understandings into abject cowardice and slavery; both which states preclude the possibility of possessing virtue.

No child, I believe, ever existed, which could not be taught to become good, and to perform it's duty, by being treated kindly and gently; indeed, the withdrawing one smile of accustomed affection, or the withholding one caress, one kiss, will be ten thousand times a greater punishment to a child of sensibility and delicacy, than all the brutality of bodily torture; which may, and does, always, induce anger, hatred, fear, desire of revenge, deceit, cunning, cruelty, and every wicked and malignant passion, that serves to transform the human animal into a wild beast, that preys upon the vitals of his fellow.

creatures.

ESSAY CXXXVI,

ON DELICACY,

But this is not all; Benevolus is continu ally talking to his daughter about her marriage, and the girl is not yet fifteen. Surely, this is indelicate; what notions can a child of fourteen entertain about the married state? concerning which, however, she talks as familiarly as if she had been tong initiated into that most sacred and responsible of all conditions. Benevolus tells her, that he does not wish her to marry before she is one-andtwenty; at any rate, not 'till she is eighteen.

The girl hearing this delectable discourse incessantly bruited into her ears, of course, wishes very much to know in what particular the married women differ from spinsters; and while her thoughts are taken up on this subject, she has neither leisure nor inclination to suffer her heart to be really and truly attached in affection to any one human being.