ftruction, and at the age of fifteen or fixteen could scarcely write her name legibly, or read a sentence without hesitation. Her perfonal charms were, however, powerful enough to captivate the heart of a thoughtless heir, very little older than herself. Her vanity, rather than her love, was gratified by the alliance; and when fhe found the affiduities of promifcuous fuitors at an end, the found herself gradually finking in the dead calm of infipidity. When love was no more, other pasfions fprung up with all the luxuriancy of rank weeds, in a foil where no falutary herb had been planted in the vernal season. Pride, that fruitful plant, which bears every kind of odious quality in abundance, took root in her heart, and flourished like the nettle or the hemlock on the banks of the ftagnant pool.

Her husband was the firft to feel its baneful effects. Though the match was greatly to her advantage, fhe perfuaded herself that the might have done better; and that her good fortune was by no means adequate to the prize which her beauty and merit might have justly claimed. With this conviction, and without any habits or abilities which might lead her to feek amusement in books, fhe found no diverfion fo congenial to her heart, as the tormenting a good-natured, young, and agreeable husband, who, by marrying, had excluded her from the probability of a title. As a small compenfation for the injury received, she affumed an abfolute dominion over him, his fortune, and his family. He durst not differ in opinion from her; for on the flighteft oppofition, her eyes dart fire, her cheeks glow with indignation, and her tongue utters every bitter word which rage and malice can dictate. The comfort of every meal is poifoned by a quarrel; and an angry vociferation is reechoed from the parlour to the kitchen, from the cellar to the garret, by night and by day, except in the awful and ominous pause of a fullen filence.

The poor husband, who, with every amiable difpofition, poffeffed also the virtue of patience, bore the evil as long as human nature could bear it; but as years advanced,

advanced, and her fury increased, he fought a refuge at the tavern, and in the compofing juice of the grape.Excess and vexation foon laid him in the only fecure afylum from the ftings and arrows of an outrageous temper, the filent tomb.

The children, after fuffering every fpecies of persecution which an angry though foolishly fond mother could inflict, no fooner arrived at maturity, than they began to look for happiness in an escape from home, where neither peace nor ease could find a place. The daughters married meanly, unworthily, and wretchedly, contented to take refuge from the rage of a furious mother in the arms of footmen and hair-dreffers; the fons ran away, and became vagrant and wretched debauchees ; till, in mere despair, one of them entered as a foldier in the Eaft-India fervice, and the other put an end to his own existence.

The mother, after shedding a few natural tears, and wiping them foon, began to feel her pride and paffion amply gratified in an absolute dominion over an estate, a manfion-house, and a tribe of fervants, whose dependent fituation made them bear her fury with little refiftance. But the enjoyed her reign but a fhort time, for as her mind was incapable of refting on itself for fupport, he fought relief from the bottle of cordial; and, heated one day with a large draught, and a violent paffion with one of the maids, the burft a blood-veffel, and expired in a fcolding fit, her tongue ftill quivering after her heart had ceafed its pulfation.

I believe the originals of fuch a picture as this are much lefs common in the prefent age than they were in the last century, Ladies were then fecluded from the world till marriage, and as they were very fuperficially educated in every thing but potting and preferving, it is no wonder if they became termagants, fhrews, or viragos. They had no right ideas of themselves or the world around them, and yielded, without oppofition, to thofe violent emotions, which arife perhaps in every mind when it is totally uncultivated.

Culture

Culture of the understanding is, indeed, one of the best methods of subduing the heart to softness, and redeeming it from that favage ftate in which it too often comes from the hands of nature. The more our reason is ftrengthened, the better fhe is enabled to keep her feat on the throne, and to govern those paffions which were appointed to be her fubjects; but which too often rebel, and fucceed in their unnatural révolt. But befides the effect of mental culture, in calling forth and increafing the powers of the reafoning faculty, it seems to poffefs an influence in humanizing the feelings, and meliorating the native difpofition. Mufic, painting, and poetry, teach the mind to felect the agreeable parts of those objects which furround us, and by habituating it to a pure and permanent delight, gradually fuperinduce an habitual good-humour. It is of infinite importance to happiness, that the mind should be accuftomed from infancy to turn from deformed and painful fcenes, and to contemplate whatever can be found of moral and natural beauty. The fpirits under this benign management, contract a milkinefs, and learn to flow all cheerily in their smooth and yielding channels; while, on the contrary, if the young mind is teafed, fretted, and neglected, the paffages of the fpirits become rugged, abrupt, exafperated, and the whole nervous fyftem seems to acquire an exceffive irritability. The ill treatment of children has not only made them wretched at the time, but wretched for life; tearing the fine contexture of their nerves, and roughening, by example, and by fome fecret and internal influence, the very conftitution of their tempers.

So much of the happiness of private life, and the virtues of mothers and daughters in particular, depend on the government of the temper, that the temper ought to be a principal object of regard in a well-conducted education. The fuffering of children to tyrannife, without controul, over fervants and inferiors, is, I am convinced, the ruin of many an amiable difpofition. The virtues of humanity, benevolence, humility, cannot

be

be too early enforced; at the fame time care fhould be taken that an infant of two or three years old should never be beaten or spoken to harshly for any offence which it can poffibly commit. In fhort, let every method be used which reafon, religion, prudence, and experience can fuggeft, to accomplish the purpose of fweetening the temper, and banishing the furies from fociety. May the endeavour be fuccefsful: and may we only read, that there have indeed been fuch animals as fhrews and viragos, but that the breed is extinct in England, like the breed of wolves!

The Impression of Truth on the Mind when suggested by striking Analogy.

WHEN Charles the 5th had refigned the fceptre

W of Spain and the imperial crown of Germany,

he retired to the monaftery of St Juftus, near the city of Placentia, in Eftremadura. It was feated in a vale of no great extent, watered by a fmall brook, and fur rounded by rifing grounds covered with lofty trees. From the nature of the foil, as well as the temperature of the climate, it was efteemed the moft healthful and delicious fituation in Spain. Here he cultivated, with his own hands, the plants in his garden; and sometimes he rode out to a neighbouring wood, on a little horse, attended only by a single fervant on foot. When his infirmities confined him to his apartment, and deprived him of these more active recreations, he either admitted a few gentlemen, who refided near the monaftery, to vifit him, and entertained them familiarly at his own table; or, he employed himself in studying mechanical principles, and in forming works of mechanifm, of which he had always been remarkably fond, and to which his genius was peculiarly turned. He was extremely curious with regard to the conftruction of clocks and watches; and having found, after repeated trials, that he could not bring any two of them to go exactly alike, he reflected, with a mixture of furprize as well as regret, on his own folly (as he might alfo on his cruelty and injuftice) in having exerted himfelf, with fo much zeal and perfeverance, in the more vain attempt of bringing mankind to an uniformity of fentiment concerning the doctrines of religion.* Happy would it have been for Europe if this juft and ftriking analogy had occurred to the monarch during the plenitude of his power! And happy might it now prove, if allowed to operate against the fpirit of bigotry and perfecution, which ftill actuates many individuals, and even large communities!

* See Robertson's History of Charles V.

The