proved fobriety and difcretion. Let not the young woman be configned to fome fashionable inftructress, who, profeffing at once to add the last polish to education, and to introduce the pupil into the best company, will probably dismiss her thirsting for admiration; inflamed with ambition; devoted to drefs and amusements; initiated in the science and the habit of gaming; and prepared to deem every thing right and indif penfable, which is or fhall be recommended by modish example. Let her not be abandoned in her outset in life to the giddiness and mistaken kindness of fashionable acquaintance in the metropolis; nor forwarded under their convoy to public places, there to be whirled, far from maternal care and admonition, in the circle of levity and folly. Let parental vigilance and love gently point out to the daughter, on every convenient occafion, what is proper or improper in the conduct of the persons of her own age, with whom she is in any degree conversant, and alfo the grounds of the approbation or difapprobation H approbation expressed. Let parental counfel and authority be prudently exercised in regulating the choice of her affociates. And at the fame time that he is habituated to regard distinctions of wealth and rank, as circumftances wholly unconnected with personal worth; let her companions be in general neither much above her own level, nor much below it: left fhe fhould be led to ape the opinions, the follies, and the expensiveness of perfons in a station higher than her own; or, in her intercourse with those of humbler condition, to affume airs of contemptuous and domineering fuperiority, Solicitude on the part of parents, to confult the welfare of their child in these points, will probably be attended with a further confequence of no fmall benefit to themfelves; when it perfuades them to an encreafed degree of circumfpection as to the vifitors whom they encourage at home, and the fociety which they frequent abroad. CHAP. VI. ON FEMALE CONVERSATION AND EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE. CONVERSATION is an index to the mind. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth fpeaketh (a)" The obfervation is true, not only when referring to those who use the language of openness and fincerity, but also when applied to the reserved man and the diffembler. Clofeness indicates diftrust; and often, by sharpening curiosity, causes the discovery of what is meant to be concealed. Art fooner or later drops the mask, or gives ample proof that she wears one. If it be admitted, conformably to general opinion, that female fluency in difcourse is greater and more perfevering than that of the other fex ; it behoves women the ; (a) Matt. c. xii. v. 34. H 2 more more steadily to remember, that the fountain will be eftimated according to the ftream. If the rill runs babbling along, fhallow and frothy, the fource will be deemed incapable of fupplying an ampler current. If the former is muddy, bitter, and corrofive, its offenfiveness will be afcribed to the inherent qualities of the latter. Among the faults which it is usual to hear laid to the charge of young women, when female difcourfe is canvaffed, vanity, affectation, and frivoloufnefs, feem to furnish the most prevailing theme of cenfure. That in a great number of inftances the cenfure is warranted, cannot be denied. And every young woman ought to beware, left there fhould be ground for applying it, with juftice, to herfelf. For, if it should be with justice applied to her, let her be affured, that whatever may be the circumstances of palliation by which a part of the blame may be transferred elsewhere, there will yet be, in the most favourable case, a large refiduum, duum, for which the ought to be, and must be perfonally responsible. But it is no more than common candour to avow, that in addition to those defects which frequently fubfift in the plan of female education, there is another cause to which a portion of this vanity, and of its concomitant habits and errors, must be ascribed; namely, the injudicious and reprehenfible behaviour of the other fex. The ftyle and kind of conversation in which men very generally indulge themfelves towards unmarried women, not unfrequently towards married women, and towards no women fo much as towards those who have been recently introduced into public, are fuch as would lead an indifferent auditor to conclude, either that their own intellectual powers were very flender; or, that they regarded the perfons, to whom they were directing their difcourfe, as nearly devoid of understanding. For, antecedently to experience, could it appear probable that |