in my mouth. I declare solemnly, sir, that I have heard nothing from all the fine gentlemen who visit us, more remarkable, for half a year, than that one young lord was seven times drunk at Genoa, and another had an affair with a famous courtesan at Venice. I have lately taken the liberty to stay three or four rounds beyond the church, to see what topics of discourse they went upon, but, to my great surprise, have hardly heard a word all the time besides the toasts. Then they all stare full in my face, and shew all the actions of uneasiness till I am gone. Immediately upon my departure, to use the words in an old comedy, 'I find, by the noise they make, that they had a mind to be private.' I am at a loss to imagine what conversation they have among one another, which I may not be present at, since I love innocent mirth as much as any of them, and am shocked with no freedoms whatsoever, which are consistent with Christianity. I have, with much ado, maintained my post hitherto at the dessert, and every day eat tart in the face of my patron, but how long I shall be invested with this privilege I do not know. For the servants, who do not see me supported as I was in my old lord's time, begin to brush very familiarly by me, and thrust aside my chair, when they set the sweetmeats on the table. I have been born and educated a gentleman, and desire you will make the public sensible, that the Christian priesthood was never thought, in any age or country, to debase the man who is a member of it. Among the great services which your useful papers daily do to religion, this, perhaps, will not be the least, and will lay a very great obli gation on your unknown servant, "G. W." "VENERABLE NESTOR, "I was very much pleased with your paper of the 7th in stant, in which you recommend the study of useful knowledge to women of quality or fortune. I have since that, met with a very elegant poem, written by the famous Sir Thomas More; it is inscribed to a friend of his, who was then seeking out a wife: he advises him, on that occasion, to overlook wealth and beauty, and, if he desires a happy life, to join himself with a woman of virtue and knowledge. His words on this last head are as follow: Proculque stulta sit Jucunda sic erit Semper, nec unquam erit Vitæ comes tuæ, Manuque mobili Si quando deprimat Jam cum omnium gravi Rerum scientia. Talem olim ego putem Referre rusticam. Talemque credimus Quæ vel patrem queat Unquam fuit patri Quo nemo doctior) The sense of this elegant description is as follows. "May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent nor always prattling nonsense! May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so! A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best authors of antiquity. She will be herself in all changes of fortune, neither blown up in prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an even, cheerful, goodhumoured friend, and an agreeable companion for life. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and from their infancy train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you are engaged in, you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men, into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own compositions, her voice will soothe you in your solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale. You will waste with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful. "Such was, doubtless, the wife of Orpheus; for who would have undergone what he did to have recovered a foolish bride? Such was the daughter of Ovid, who was his rival in poetry. Such was Tullia, as she is celebrated by the most learned and VOL. IV.-22 the most fond of fathers. And such was the mother of the two Gracchi, who is no less famous for having been their instructor than their parent." No. 165. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. Decipit exemplar, vitiis imitabile.-HOR. Ir is a melancholy thing to see a coxcomb at the head of a family. He scatters infection through the whole house. His wife and children have always their eyes upon him: if they have more sense than himself, they are out of countenance for him; if less, they submit their understandings to him, and make daily improvements in folly and impertinence. I have been very often secretly concerned, when I have seen a circle of pretty children cramped in their natural parts, and prattling even below themselves, while they are talking after a couple of silly parents. The dulness of a father often extinguishes a genius in the son, or gives such a wrong cast to his mind, as it is hard for him ever to wear off. In short, where the head of a family is weak, you hear the repetitions of his insipid pleasantries, shallow conceits, and topical points of mirth, in every member of it. His table, his fire-side, his parties of diversion, are all of them so many standing scenes of folly. This is one reason why I would the more recommend the improvements of the mind to my female readers, that a family may have a double chance for it, and if it meets with weakness in one of the heads, may have it made up in the other. It is indeed an unhappy circumstance in a family, where the wife has more knowledge than the husband; but it is better it should be so, than that there should be no knowledge in the whole house. It is highly expedient that at least one of the persons, who sits* at the helm of affairs, should give an example of good sense to those who are under them in these little domestic governments. If folly is of ill consequence in the head of a family, vice is much more so, as it is of a more pernicious and of a more contagious nature. When the master is a profligate, the rake runs through the house. You hear the sons talking loosely and swearing after their father, and see the daughters either familiarized to his discourse, or every moment blushing for him. The very footman will be a fine gentleman in his master's way. He improves by his table-talk, and repeats in the kitchen what he learns in the parlour. Invest him with the same title and ornaments, and you would scarce know him from his lord. He practises the same oaths, the same ribaldry, the same way of joking. It is therefore of very great concern to a family, that the ruler of it should be wise and virtuous. The first of these qualifications does not, indeed, lie, within his power; but though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious. It is in his power to give a good example of modesty, of temperance, of frugality, of religion, and of all other virtues, which, though the greatest ornaments of human nature, may be put in practice by men of the most ordinary capacities. As wisdom and virtue are the proper qualifications in the master of a house, if he is not accomplished in both of them, it is much better that he should be deficient in the former than in the latter, since the consequences of vice are of an infinitely more dangerous nature than those of folly. When I read the histories that are left us of Pythagoras, I cannot but take notice of the extraordinary influence which that a Who sits-better who sit. |