if God spare us to one another: and then it will, moreover, be still worthier, than it can otherwise be, of the perusal of the most honoured and best beloved of all my correspondents, much honoured and beloved as they all are.

I must needs say, my dear Mr. B-, that this is a subject to which I was always particularly attentive; and among the charities your bountiful heart permits me to dispense to the poor and indigent, I have had always a watchful eye upon the children of such, and endeavoured, by questions put to them, as well as to their parents, to inform myself of their little ways and tempers, and how nature delights to work in different minds, and how it might be pointed to their good, according to their respective capacities; and I have for this purpose erected, with your approbation, a little school of seven or eight children, among which are four in the earliest stages, when they can but just speak, and call for what they want, or love. And I am not a little pleased to observe, when I visit them in their school-time, that principles of goodness and virtue may be instilled into their little hearts much earlier than is usually imagined. And why should it not be so? For may not the child, that can tell its wants and make known its inclination, be easily made sensible of yours, and what you expect from it, provided you take a proper method? For, sometimes, signs and tokens (and even looks), uniformly practised, will do as well as words; as we see in such of the young of the brute creation as we are disposed to domesticate, and to teach to practise those little tricks, of which the aptness or docility of their nature makes them capable.

But yet, dearest sir, I know not enough of the next stage, the maturer part of life, to touch upon that, as I wished to do; and yet there is a natural connection and progression from the one to the other: and I would not be thought a vain creature, who believes herself equal to every subject because she is indulged with the good opinion of her friends, in a few which are supposed to be within her own capacity.

For I humbly conceive that it is no small point of wisdom to know, and not to mistake one's own talents; and for this reason, permit me, dear sir, to suspend, till I am better qualified for it, even my own proposal of beginning my little book; and in the meantime to touch upon a few places of the admirable author you have put into my hand, that seem to me to warrant another way of thinking, than that which he prescribes.

But, dear sir, let me premise that all that your dear babies can demand of my attention for some time to come, is their health; and it has pleased God to bless them with such sound limbs, and, to all appearance, good constitutions, that I have very little to do, but to pray for them every time I pray for their dear papa; and that is hourly; and yet not so often as you confer upon me benefits and favours, and new obligations, even to the prevention of all my wishes, were I to sit down to study for what must be the next.

As to this point of health, Mr. Locke gives these plain and easy to be observed rules.

He prescribes, first, Plenty of open air. That this is right, the infant will inform one, who, though it cannot speak, will make signs to be carried abroad, and is never so well pleased as when it is enjoying the open and free air; for which reason I conclude that this is one of those natural pointings, as one may call them, that are implanted in every creature, teaching it to choose its good, and to avoid

its evil.

be

Sleep is the next, which he enjoins to be indulged to its utmost extent: an admirable rule, as I humbly conceive; since sound sleep is one of the greatest nourishers of nature, both to the once young and to the twice young, if I may allowed the phrase. And I the rather approve of this rule, because it keeps the nurse unemployed, who otherwise perhaps would be doing it the greatest mischief, by cramming and stuffing its little bowels till they were ready to burst. And if I am right, what an inconsiderate and foolish, as well as pernicious practice is it, for a nurse to waken the

child from its nourishing sleep, for fear it should suffer by hunger, and instantly pop the breast into its pretty mouth, or provoke it to feed, when it has no inclination to either: and for want of digestion, must have its nutriment turn to repletion and bad humours!

Excuse me, dear sir, these lesser particulars. Mr. Locke begins with them; and surely they may be allowed in a young mamma, writing (however it be to a gentleman of genius and learning) to a papa, on a subject that, in its lowest beginnings, ought not to be unattended to by either. I will therefore pursue my excellent author without, further apology, since you have put his work into my hands.

The next thing then, which he prescribes, is plain diet. This speaks for itself; for the baby can have no corrupt taste to gratify: all is pure, as out of the hand of nature; and what is not plain and natural, must vitiate and offend.

Then, no wine, or strong drink. Equally just; and for the

same reasons.

Little or no physic. Undoubtedly right. For the use of physic, without necessity, or by way of precaution, as some call it, begets the necessity of physic; and the very word supposes distemper or disorder; and where there is none, would a parent beget one; or, by frequent use, render the salutary force of medicine ineffectual, when it was wanted?

Next, he forbids too warm and too strait clothing. Dear sir, this is just as I wish it. How has my heart ached, many and many a time, when I have seen poor babies rolled and swathed, ten or a dozen times round: then blanket upon blanket, mantle upon that; its little neck pinned down to one posture; its head, more than it frequently needs, triplecrowned, like a young pope, with covering upon covering; its legs and arms, as if to prevent that kindly stretching which we rather ought to promote, when it is in health, and which is only aiming at growth and enlargement, the former bundled up, the latter pinned down; and how the poor thing lies on the nurse's lap, a miserable little pinioned captive, goggling and staring with its eyes, the only organs it

has at liberty, as if it were supplicating for freedom to its fettered limbs! Nor has it any comfort at all, till, with a sigh or two, like a dying deer, it drops asleep; and happy then will it be, till the officious nurse's care shall awaken it for its undesired food, just as if the good woman was resolved to try its constitution, and were willing to see how many difficulties it could overcome.

Then this gentleman advises that the head and feet should be kept cold; and the latter often used to cold water, and exposed to wet, in order to lay the foundation, as he says, of a healthy and hardy constitution.

Now, sir, what a pleasure is it to your Pamela, that her notions, and her practice too, fall in so exactly with this learned gentleman's advice; that, excepting one article, which is, that your Billy has not yet been accustomed to be wet-shod, every other particular has been observed -And don't you see what a charming, charming baby he is?— Nay, and so is your little Davers, for his age-pretty soul !

Perhaps some, were they to see this, would not be so ready as I know you will be, to excuse me: and would be apt to say, What nursery impertinencies are those to trouble a man with!—But with all their wisdom they would be mistaken; for if a child has not good health (and are not these rules the moral foundation, as I may say, of that blessing?) its animal organs will play but poorly in a weak or crazy case. These, therefore, are necessary rules to be observed for the first two or three years; for then the little buds of their minds will begin to open, and their watchful mamma will be employed, like a skilful gardener, in assisting and encouraging the charming flower, through its several hopeful stages, to perfection, when it shall become one of the principal ornaments of that delicate garden, your honoured family. Pardon me, sir, if in the above paragraph I am too figurative. I begin to be afraid I am out of my sphere, writing to your dear self on these important subjects.

But be that as it may, I will here put an end to this my first letter (on the earliest part of my subject), rejoicing in

the opportunity you have given me of producing a fresh instance of that duty and affection, wherewith I am, and shall ever be, my dearest Mr. B——,

Your gratefully happy

P. B—.

I WILL now, my dearest, my best beloved correspondent of all, begin, since the tender age of my dear babies will not permit me to have an eye yet to their better part, to tell you what are the little matters to which I am not quite so well reconciled in Mr. Locke. And this I shall be better enabled to do by my observations upon the temper and natural bent of my dear Miss Goodwin, as well as by those which my visits to the bigger children of my little school, and those at the cottages adjacent, have enabled me to make for human nature, sir, you are not to be told, is human nature, whether in the high-born or in the low.

This excellent author, in the fifty-second section, having justly disallowed of slavish and corporal punishments in the education of those we would have to be wise, good, and ingenious men, adds:-'On the other side, to flatter chil'dren by rewards of things that are pleasant to them, is as carefully to be avoided. He that will give his son apples, or sugar-plums, or what else of this kind he is most delighted with, to make him learn his book, does 'but authorise his love of pleasure, and cockers up that 'dangerous propensity, which he ought by all means to 'subdue and stifle in him. You can never hope to teach him to master it, whilst you compound for the check you 'give his inclination in one place, by the satisfaction you propose to it in another. To make a good, a wise, and