ing otherwise than in the indulgence of detraction, unless their thoughts be occupied by the card-table: that their tongues, unless charmed to filence by attention to the game, will be inceffantly exercifed by calumny and malice? She of whom this representation can with truth be given, has no time to throw away upon trifles. Objects of higher moment than vifits and amusements claim her undivided care; retirement, reflection, felf-knowledge, the acquifition of virtue, the purification of a corrupted heart.

If we fet afide meetings profeffedly or intentionally held for the purpose of gaming, the principal evil attending the use of cards may, perhaps, be fairly stated to confift not fo much in the reprehenfible paffions which they excite, as in the quantity of time which they confume. In many families, particularly in provincial towns, they regularly enter as the tea-table departs, and occupy feveral hours of the evening. In fome

houses,

houfes, where patience is weaker, they appear speedily after dinner. A confiderable portion of every day, Sundays excepted, an exception which in the country may yet be commonly made, is thus rendered a mere blank; it is cut, as it were, out of life, and configned, upon the most favourable fupposition, to vacuity and oblivion. What might have been the improvement made, the knowledge acquired, the rational pleafure enjoyed, had these hours been habitually allotted to inftructive conversation or interesting books? Had it been the custom of the family to allot them to fuch employments before a paffion for cards was become inveterate, habit would then have operated in fupport of a judicious and useful mode of paffing time as ftrongly as it now does in upholding a puerile and unprofitable occupation. And a propofal to exchange the usual delights of the afternoon and evening for a pool at quadrille, or a rubber at whift, would have been received with the difguft which would, at present, attach

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attach on the adventurous reformer, who fhould recommend, when the card-tables are now fet and the partners taking their places, to prefer liftening to the page of Robertson to practising the rules of Hoyle.

Man," it has been well obferved," is a "bundle of habits." Life is made up of principles and actions familiarised and confirmed by cuftom. The uncouth fashions in dress and personal demeanour, the senselefs decorations in building and in furniture, which have univerfally prevailed in different periods, and the most unnatural modes of ornamenting nature which have had polished nations for their admirers from the days of Pliny to thofe of George the fecond, fhew, with numberless other inftances which might be particularised, that there is nothing fo abfurd and extravagant which the eye cannot by ufe convert into a beauty, and the mind into a gratification. Nor is there any employment fo trifling, that it cannot be rendered, by uniform practice, necessary to comfort. Were a fa

mily to be long accustomed, with the fame regularity with which many dedicate a portion of the day to cards, to amuse themselves during fome hours of every evening in picking and meafuring ftraws from wheatfheaves, placed before each individual for that purpose; an interruption of the custom would be felt at firft as a lofs of one of the effential enjoyments of life, and would leave, for a time, a vacancy scarcely to be fupplied. Hence appears the importance of guarding in the outfet against contracting a habit fo encroaching. The firft links are imperceptible; but the chain, once formed, is fcarcely to be broken.

Though fome few individuals of the female fex may be observed to take their places among sportsmen in the field; the fashion, happily, is not fo prevalent as to entitle fox-hunting, and fimilar occupations, to rank among feminine amusements. It is not, perhaps, in common cafes felf-evident, that diverfions which consist in inflict

ing torture, and fhedding blood, are altogether adapted even to perfons of the other sex who lay claim to cultivated understandings. But, however that may be, the rude clamour, the boisterous exertions, and the cruel fpectacles of field-fports, are wholly difcordant, when contrafted with the delicacy, the refinement, and the fenfibility of

a woman.

The reflections, which have hitherto been offered on the subject of amufements, have left unnoticed a material circumftance operating more powerfully in the case of some amusements, than in that of others; yet, in a certain measure, common to all. The inquiry has, in each inftance, been almost exclusively directed to ascertain, whether the amusement fpecified was, in its nature and circumstances, innocent. But there is a danger which is attached even to innocent amusements; the danger of pursuing them to excess. A poffeffion which we have always in our hands, which every perfon

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