able manners, will come in their time; if when they are removed out of their maids care, they are put into the hands of a well-bred man to be their

governor. Any careleffness is to be borne with in children, while they are very young, if it carries not with it the marks of pride or ill-nature; but thofe, whenever they appear in any action, are to be corrected immediately by the ways abovementioned. What I have faid concerning manners, I would not have so understood, as if I meant, that those who have the judgement to do it, fhould not gently fashion the motion and carriage of children, when they are very young. It would be of great advantage if they had people about them from their being frit able to go, that had the fkill, and would take the right way to do it: That which I complain of is, the wrong courfe which is ufually taken in this matter; children who were never taught any fuch thing as behaviour, are often, efpecially when firangers are prefent, chid for having fome way or other failed in good manners, and have on that fcore reproof and precepts heaped upon them, concerning putting off their hats, or making of legs, &c. Tho' in this thofe concerned pretend to correct the child, yet in truth for the most part it is but to cover their own shame, and they lay the blame on the poor little ones, fometimes paffionately enough, to divert it from themfelves for fear the by-ftanders should impute the child's ill behaviour to their want of care and kill.

The children themselves are never one jot bettered by fuch occafional lectures. They at other times fhould be fhewn what to do, and by reiterated actions be fashioned before hand into the practice of what is fit and becoming, and not told and taught to do upon the spot what they have never been accustomed to, nor know how to do as they should. To hare and rate them thus at every turn, is not to teach them, but to vex and torment them to no purpose: They fhould be let alone, rather than chid fora fault which is none of theirs, nor is in their power to

mend

mend for fpeaking to. It were much better their natural childish negligence, or plainnefs, fhould be left to the care of riper years, than that they fhould frequently have rebukes mif-placed upon them, which neither do nor can give them graceful motions. If their minds are well difpofed and principled with inward civility, a great part of the roughness, which flicks to the outfide for want of better teaching, time and obfervation will rub off as they grow up, if they are bred in good company; but if in ill, all the rules in the world, all the corrections imaginable, will not be able to polish them; for you must take this for a certain truth, that let them have what inftructions you will, and never fo learned lectures of breedingdaily inculcated upon them, that which will most influence their carriage, will be the company they converfe with, and the fashion of thofe about them. Children, nay and men too, do most by example; we are all a fort of Camelions, that ftill take a tincture from things near us; nor is it to be wondered at in children, who better understand what they fee, than what they hear.

Í mentioned above, one great mifchief that came by fervants to children, when by their flatteries they take off the edge and force of the parents rebuke, and fo lefen their authority. And here is another great inconvenience which children receive, from the ill examples which they meet with among the meaner fervants.

They are wholly, if poffible, to be kept from fuch converfation; for the contagion of thefe ill precedents, both in civility and virtue, horribly infects children, as often as they come within reach of it; they frequently learn from unbred or debauched fervants, fuch language, untowardly tricks and vices, as otherwife they would poffibly be ignorant of all their lives.

'Tis hard mat er wholly to prevent the mischief; you will have very good luck if you never have a clownifh or vicious fervant, and if from fuch your children never get any infection: but yet as much must be done

towards

towards it as can be, and the children kept as much as may be in the their parents, and thole to whofe care they are committed. To this purpofe, their being in their prefence fhould be made easy to them; they should be allowed the liberty and freedom suitable to their age, and not be held under unneceffary reftraints, when in their parents or governors fight. If it be a prifon to them, it is no wonder they fhould not like it: they must not be hindered from being children, or from playing or doing as children, but from doing ill; all other liberty is to be allowed them: next, to make them in love with the company of their parents, they should receive all good things there, and from their hands. The fervants fhould be hindered from making court to them, by giving them ftrong drink, wine, fruit, play-things, and other fuch matters which may make them in love with their company.

I fhall in the following pages treat of Widows, and therein touch a little again upon this duty of educating children, as it has refpect to those of them who are mothers.

The

The W I DO W.

T

HOUGH the fate of widowhood fuperfedes those duties which were terminated merely in the perfon of the husband, yet it endears those which may be paid to his afhes; love is ftrong as death, and therefore, when it is pure and genuine, cannot be extinguished by it, but burns like the funeral lamps of old, even in vaults and charnel-houses. The conjugal love, tranfplanted into the grave as into a finer mold, improves into piety, and lays a kind of facred obligation upon the widow, to perform all offices of respect and kindness, which his remains are capable

of.

Now thofe remains are of three forts, his bodv, his memory, his children. The moft proper expreffion of her love to the firft is in giving it an honourable interment. I mean not fuch as may vye with the Poland extravagance, of which 'tis obferved, that two or three near fucceeding funerals ruin the family, but prudently proportioned to his quality and fortune. Her zeal to his corpfe fhould not injure a nobler relick of him, his children; and this decency is a much better inftance of her kindness, than all thofe tragical paffions with which fome women feem tranfported towards their dead huf bands; thofe frantick embraces and careffes of a carcafe, betray a little too much the fenfuality of their love. And it is fomething obfervable, that thofe vehement paffions quickly exhauft themselves, and by a kind of fympathetick efficacy, as the body on which their affection was fixed moulders, fo does that alfo; nay it often VOL. II.

L

attends

attends not those leifurely degrees of diffolution, but by a more precipitate motion feems rather to vanish than confume.

The more valuable kindness therefore is that to his memory; let the Widow endeavour to embalm that, and keep it from perishing. By this innocent magick, as the Egyptians are faid to have done by a more guilty, the may converfe with the dead, represent him to her own thoughts, that this life may still be repeated to her. And as in a broken mirror, the refraction multiplies the images, fo by his diffolution every hour repre ents diftinct ideas of him, and she fees him the oftner for his being hid from her eyes. But as they use not to embalm without odours, fo fhe is not only to preserve, but to perfume his memory, render it as fragrant as the can, not only to hertelf but others, by reviving the remembrance of whatever was praife-worthy in him, vindicating him from all calumnies and falfe accufations, and ftifling or allaying even true ones, as much as the can. Indeed a Widow can no way better provide for her own honour, than by this tenderness of her husband's.

There is yet another expreffion of it, inferior to none of the former, and that is, te fetting fuch a value upon her relation to him, as to do nothing unworthy of i'. It was the dying charge of Auguftus to his wife Livia, ⚫ Behave thyfelf well, and remember our inarriage.' And fhe who has been wife to a perfon of honour, must so remember it, as not to do any thing below herself, or which he, could he have forefeen it, should justly have been afhamed of.

The last t.ibute fhe cau pay him, is in his children: thefe he leaves as his proxies, to receive the kindness of which himself is uncapable. The children of a widow may claim a double port on of the mother's love, one upon their native right as hers, the other as a requeft in right of their dead father; and indeed fince the is to fupply the place of both parents, it is but neceffary