that the mind of every new-born babe is equally pure. If there be those infantine seeds of the understanding and little embrios of intellect-they are easily turned into what channel the parent thinks proper-so that I cannot but think the father of a family one of the most awful charges upon earth.

It is admitted, that many children are unlike their parents both good and bad; yet you will observe, where the notions of parents and children are dissimilar, the dissimilitude arises rather from difference of ages, or improper culture, than any thing else; in general children are not liker in features than habits, and family-minds are as often transmitted as family-faces. There is a tractability in youth which receives, like snow, every impression-and it is almost as difficult to erase the impression of one as the other.-If a son be trained up early to decency of manners, and have the example of dignity living and moving before his eyes (unless his temper be particularly untoward) he will turn out an elegant character. If he be trained up in different principles, he will act accordingly. The hoyden and the prude, amongst the other sex, take not their tint and character one time in ten from nature, but from a neglect early to give them a proper idea of deportment. It may be opposed that very sedate women have romping, Junaway daughters, and very prudent fathers have very perverse sons.-I mean to say no more than this, that, generally men and women act and think as they are taught whilst they are only able to lisp out their meaning-that education will have some influence on the most abandoned; and that, on the whole, virtue and vice depend very essentially on our primary sentiments and examples; which, whether good or ill, will eternally attend us, in some measure, through all possible transi

tions, from the time we leave our cradles, to the time we shall be deposited in our coffins.

Habit operates with equal energy on man and beast. Evidences of the fact appear continually. Cast your eyes on that horse now engaged in dutiful drudgery, and on the herds and flocks which are grazing or sporting in the adjoining pasture: but we will confine ourselves to our own species, which are certainly the most interesting objects of speculation. I was about to observe, that custom has much to do with our characters. There are certain actions so naturally and palpably good or evil, that neither sophistry nor slander, nor address, can either injure, mend, or mar them. Tọ question the light at noon day, or the dark in the zenith of the night, would argue a malady beyond madness: so in like manner to dispute, whether downright wickedness be wickedness, and evident excellence be excellence, would be a lunacy in ethics, so absurd, that the poetical frenzy of poor Lee would be cool argument to it-on the other hand, if you live and mix long with mankind, you will find many of your fellow-creatures, pining away existence under the lashes, the bleeding lashes of reproach, merely because it is the custom to call one thing right and another wrong, without tracing either to the bottom. It is a maxim that the Vox Populi, is the Vox Dei-that "what every body says must be true." I know nothing so deserving of refutation as a collection of those old laws and proverbs, which, acquiring force from antiquity, and estimation from rust-for there are virtuosos in letters, as well as in coins-are at length considered as utterly incontestible. Now, certain I am, that on an examination into those very maxims we put so much credit in, some will turn out futile, some disputable, and many unfaithful. This is not a place for minute scrutinies,

it will be sufficient to look into that I have just mentioned, and there is none more implicitly believed. "What every body says must be true.". I have seen many instances to disprove this; I will recur to one only, which is uppermost in my memory. A young gentleman of my particular acquaintance, has for some time been deserted by his old companions, and branded as a man of unsteady principles, whose heart I know to abound with all those sensibilities which hurried him into the vortex of liberality, till he has become an object of liberality himself. He has those glowing feelings and sentiments which do at once honour and service to human nature: notwithstanding which, embarrassments have beset him, and the world sets him down as an undone man. The world gets hold of a prejudice, and then it is called Vox Dei. The Vox Populi, is given as the sentiment of every body, and thus many reputations are mistaken and misrepresented, which deserve a better fate. There are various persons likewise particularly reprobated for a few indelicate concessions to which necessity may, in violence of their better judgments, have constrained them to yield, who, had they possessed happier circumstances, would have made a much more respectable figure than those who now mark them with infamy.

There is one cruelty in the Vox Pupuli, which is certainly against every notion of the Vox Dei. 'Tis the custom to abandon the weakest part of our species to that ruin which the artifices of our sex have perpetrated; nor can any future repentance remove the sense of their error, or restore them to the bosoms of more fortunate women:

"They set like stars to rise no more."

I had a wife with whom I mourned many years. She died of a broken heart. We had an only child

taken from us-robbed of her by a man we held near our hearts. It was my incessant business for five years to recover our darling-but in vain. My wife fell into a deep and rapid consumption-she grew weaker every hour. We received, by a special messenger, a packet—from our beloved-misguided-repenting wanderer! She had thrown the pathetic parts of her story into poetry.* We received, at the same time, an attested account that our child was under the protection of that institution which offers an asylum to insulted penitence. My wife had only power to press the paper, trembling, to her bosom. She feebly lifted her eyes to heaven-and died!

"LIBERAL OPINIONS,"

MEMOIRS

OF

THE LATE MRS. ROBINSON,

IRCUMSTANCES that cast an accidental lustre over a life, are to be taken by the biographer rather as a fortunate assistance to his labour, than any part of the intrinsic merit of the subject of his work. The life of Mrs, Robinson, a sketch of which we now present to our readers, was not wanting in such circumstances; but there are only two which we shall select, and which may reasonably be allowed to be objects of our predilection. Mrs. Robinson was collaterally descended from the ornament of our country, Mr. John Locke; and she had the felicity to receive the earliest and therefore the most important part of her education, from the justly celebrated Hannah More.

The family of Mrs. Robinson was respectable on the side of each of her parents. On the mo

* See the Parnassian Garland in the present Number.

ther's side it was that she claimed relationship to Mr. Locke. Her father, Mr. Darby, who died in the naval service of Russia, in which he command. ed a ship of 74 guns, was descended from an ancient Irish family. Her brother is an eminent mer→ chant at Leghorn, in Italy. Mrs. Robinson was born in the College Green, Bristol. After receiv ing part of her education at Miss More's school, she was sent to a boarding-school near London. Her father lost a considerable fortune in some commercial speculation; and this probably occasioned her removal from his immediate care. Mr. Robinson, the younger brother of Commodore Robinson, late in the Right Hon. East India Company's service, who was serving his clerkship to an attorney in the metropolis, by some accident was introduced to Miss Darby; and, that he became violently enamoured of her, will not be surprising to those who have seen her even since calamity and disease had robbed her of part of her exquisite beauty. Miss Darby, with a loveliness of form and features that perhaps never was surpassed, possessed a lively humour and a sweetness of temper, that made her personal charms only a secondary object to sensibility.

When we consider the fine genius of Mrs. Robinson, and the literary excellence that she afterwards attained, under a thousand disadvantages, we may well pause at this eventful moment of her life; and may be allowed to lament her early, hasty, it may be called rash, marriage. She was only fifteen when she married Mr. Robinson. Very soon after, her husband, from some family disappointments, fell into a succession of embarrassments. Mr. Robinson's affairs having been partially propped by usurers, declined,, from the very weight of that circumstance, into a worse condition; and he was at length imprisoned by one of his