would freely allow you to laugh at, though not in their presence. Extravagant vanity, and affectation, are the natural subjects of ridicule, which is their proper punishment. When you see old people, instead of maintaining the dignity of their years,. struggling against nature to conceal them, affecting the graces, and imitating the follies of youth,or a young person assuming the importance and sos lemnity of old age, -I do not wish you to be insen sible to the ridicule of such absurd deviations from truth and nature. You are welcome to laugh, when you leave the company, provided you lay up a lesson for yourself at the same time, and remember, that unless you improve your mind whilst you are young, you also will be an insignificant fool in old age; and that, if you are presuming and arrogant in youth, you are as ridiculous as an old woman with a head dress of flowers.

In a young lady's behaviour towards gentlemen, great delicacy is certainly required: yet, I believe women oftener err from too great a consciousness of the supposed views of men, than from inattention to those views, or want of caution against them. You are at present rather too young to want rules on this subject, but I could wish that you should behave almost in the same manner three years hence as now; and retain the simplicity and innocence of childhood, with the sense and dignity of riper years. Men of loose morals or impertinent behaviour must always be avoided: or, if at any time you are obliged to be in their company, you must keep them at a distance by cold civility. But, with regard to those gentlemen whom your parents think it proper for you to converse with, and who give no offence by their own manners, to them I wish you to behave with the same frankness and simplicity as if they were of your own sex. If you have natural modesty, you will never transgress its bounds, whilst you converse with a man, as one rational creature with another, without any view to the possibility of a lover or admirer, where nothing of that kind is professed; where it is, I hope you

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will ever be equally a stranger to coquetry and prudery; and that you will be able to distinguish the effects of real esteem and love from idle gallantry and unmeaning fine speeches: the slighter notice you take of these last, the better, and that, rather with good-humoured contempt than with affected gravity: but, the first must be treated with seriousness and well-bred sincerity; not giving the least encouragement, which you do not mean, nor assuming airs of contempt where it is not deserved. But this belongs to a subject, which I have touched upon in a former letter. I have already told you that you will be unsafe in every step which leads to a serious attachment, unless you consult your pa. rents, from the first moment you apprehend any thing of that sort to be intended: let them be your first confidants, and let every part of your conduct, in such a case, be particularly directed by them.

With regard to accomplishments, the chief of these is a competent share of reading, well chosen and properly regulated: and of this I shall speak more largely hereafter. Dancing, and the knowledge of the French tongue, are now so universal, that they cannot be dispensed with in the education of a gentlewoman; and indeed they both are useful, as well as ornamental: the first, by forming and strengthening the body, and improving the carriage; the second, by opening a large field of entertainment and improvement for the mind. I believe there are more agreeable books of female literature in French than in any other language; and, as they are not less commonly talked of than English books, you must often feel mortified in company, if you are too ignorant to read them. Italian would be easily learnt after French, and, if you have leisure and opportunity, may be worth your gaining, though in your station of life it is by no means necessary.

To write a free and legible hand, and to understand common arithmetic, are indispensable requisites.

As to music and drawing, I would only wish you to follow as genius leads: you have some turn for the first, and I should be sorry to see you ne glect a talent, which will at least afford you an in. nocent amusement, though it should not enable you to give much pleasure to your friends: I think the use of both these arts is more for yourself than for others; it is but seldom that a private person has leisure or application enough to gain any high degree of excellence in them; and your own partial family are perhaps the only persons who would not much rather be entertained by the performance of a professor than by yours: but, with regard to yourself, it is of great consequence to have the power of filling up agreeably those intervals of time which too often hang heavily on the hands of a woman, if her lot be cast in a retired situation. Besides this, it is certain that even a small share of knowledge in these arts will heighten your pleasure in the performances of others: the taste must be improved, before it can be susceptible of an exquisite relish for any of the imitative arts: an unskilful ear is seldom capable of comprehending Harmony, or of distinguishing the most delicate charms of Melody. The pleasure of seeing fine paintings, or even of contemplating the beauties of Nature, must be greatly heightened by our being conversant with the rules of drawing, and by the habit of considering the most picturesque objects. As I look upon taste to be an inestimable fund of innocent delight, I wish you to lose no opportunity of improving it, and of cultivating in yourself the relish of such pleasures as will not interfere with a rational scheme of life, nor lead you into dissipation, with all its attendant evils of vanity and luxury.

As to the learned languages, though I respect the abilities and application of those ladies who have attained them, and who make a modest and proper use of them, yet I would by no means advise you, or any other woman who is not strongly impelled by a particular genius, to engage in such studies. The labour and time which they require, are ge merally incompatible with our natures and proper

employments: the real knowledge which they sup. ply, is not essential, since the English, French, or Italian tongues afford tolerable translations of all the most valuable productions of antiquity, besides the multitude of original authors which they furnish: and these are much more than sufficient to store your mind with as many ideas as you will know how to manage. The danger of pedautry and pre sumption in a woman, of her exciting envy in one sex and jealousy in the other, of her exchanging the graces of imagination for the severity and preciseness of a scholar, would be, I own, sufficient to frighten me from the ambition of seeing my girl remarkable for learning. Such objections are, per hap3, still stronger with regard to the abstruse sci

ences.

Whatever tends to embellish your fancy, to enlighten your understanding, and furnish you with ideas to reflect upon when alone, or to converse upon in company, is certainly well worth your acquisition. The wretched expedient to which ignorance so often drives our sex, of calling in slander to enliven the tedious insipidity of conversation, would alone be a strong reason for enriching your mind with innocent subjects of entertainment, which may render you a fit companion for persons of sense and knowledge, from whom you may reap the most desirable improvements: for, though I think reading indispensably necessary to the due cultivation of your mind, I prefer the conversation of such persens to every other method of instruction: but this you cannot hope to enjoy, unless you qualify yourself to bear a part in such society, by, at least, a moderate share of reading.

Though Religion is the most important of all your pursuits, there are not many books on that subject which I should recommend to you at present. Controversy is wholly improper at your age, and it is also too soon for you to enquire into the evidence of the truth of Revelation, or to study the difficult parts of Scripture: when these shall come before you, there are many excellent books, from which you may receive great assistance. At present, practical divinity, clear of superstition and enthusiasm, but addressed to the heart, and written with a warmth and spirit capable of ex. citing in it pure and rational piety, is what I wish you to meet with.

The principal study I would recommend, is his tory. I know of nothing equally proper to entertain and improve at the same time, or that is so likely to form and strengthen your judgment, and, by giving you a liberal and comprehensive view of human nature, in some measure to supply the defect of that experience, which is usually attained too late to be of much service to us. Let me add, that more materials for conversation are supplied by this kind of knowledge, than by almost any other: but I have more to say to you on this subject in a future letter.

The faculty in which women usually most excel, is that of imagination; and, when properly cultivated, it becomes the source of all that is most charming in society. Nothing you can read, will so much contribute to the improvement of this faculty, as poetry; which, if applied to its true ends, adds a thousand charms to those sentiments of religion, virtue, generosity, and delicate tenderness, by which the human soul is exalted and refined. I hope you are not deficient in natural taste for this enchanting art, but that you will find it one of your greatest pleasures to be conversant with the best poets, whom our language can bring you acquainted with, particularly those immortal ornanients of our nation, Shakspeare and Milton. The first is not only incomparably the noblest genius in dramatic poetry, but the greatest master of nature, and the most perfect characterizer of men and manners: in this last point of view, I think him inestimable; and I am persuaded that, in the course of your life, you will seldom find occasion to correct those observations on human nature, and those principles of morality, which you may ex tract from his capital pieces. You will at först