the mien and air of Mrs. Biddy. Come never so many pretenders, they are not suspected to have the least thought of Mrs. Betty, the middle daughter. Betty, therefore, is mortified into a woman of a great deal of merit, and knows she must depend on that for her advancement. The middlemost is thus the favourite of all her acquaintance, as well as mine; while the other two carry a certain insolence about them in all conversations, and expect the partiality which they meet with at home to attend them wherever they appear. So little do parents 10 understand that they are, of all people, the least judges of their children's merit, that what they reckon such is seldom any thing else but a repetition of their own faults and infirmities.

There is, methinks, some excuse for being particular, when one of the offspring has any defect in nature. In this case, the child, if we may so speak, is so much longer the child of its parents, and calls for the continuance of their care and indulgence from the slowness of its capacity, or the weakness of its body. But there is no enduring to see men enamoured only at the sight of their own impertinencies repeated, and to observe, 20 as we may sometimes, that they have a secret dislike of their children for a degeneracy from their very crimes. Commend me to Lady Goodly; she is equal to all her own children, but prefers them to those of all the world beside. My lady is a perfect hen in the care of her brood; she fights and squabbles with all that appear where they come, but is wholly unbiassed in dispensing her favours among them. It is no small pains she is at to defame all the young women in her neighbourhood, by visits, whispers, intimations, and hearsays; all which she ends with thanking heaven, 'that no one living is so blessed 30 with such obedient and well-inclined children as herself. Perhaps,' she says, 'Betty cannot dance like Mrs. Frontinet, and it is no great matter whether she does or not; but she comes into a room with a good grace; though she says it that should not, she looks like a gentlewoman. Then, if Mrs. Rebecca is not so talkative as the mighty wit Mrs. Clapper, yet she is discreet, she knows better what she says when she does speak. If her wit be slow, her tongue never runs before it.' This kind parent lifts up her eyes and hands in congratulation of her own good fortune, and is maliciously thankful that none 40 of her girls are like any of her neighbours; but this preference

of her own to all others is grounded upon an impulse of nature; while those, who like one before another of their own are so unpardonably unjust, that it could hardly be equalled in the children, though they preferred all the rest of the world to such parents. It is no unpleasant entertainment to see a ball at a dancing-school, and observe the joy of relations when the young ones, for whom they are concerned, are in motion. You need not be told whom the dancers belong to. At their first appearance, the passions of their parents are in their faces, and there is always a nod of approbation stolen at a good step or a graceful turn.

n

I remember, among all my acquaintance, but one man' whom I have thought to live with his children with equanimity and a good grace. He had three sons and one daughter, whom he bred with all the care imaginable in a liberal and ingenuous way. I have often heard him say, 'he had the weakness to love one much better than the other, but that he took as much pains to correct that as any other criminal passion that could arise in his mind.' His method was, to make it the only pretension in his children to his favour, to be kind to each other; and he would tell them, 'that he who was the best brother, hẹ would reckon the best son.' This turned their thoughts into an emulation for the superiority in kind and tender affection towards each other. The boys behaved themselves very early with a manly friendship; and their sister, instead of the gross familiarities, and impertinent freedoms in behaviour usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as much complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It was an unspeakable pleasure to visit, or sit at a meal, in that family. I have often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy, upon occasions which would appear indifferent to such as were strangers to the turn of his mind; but a very slight accident, wherein he saw his children's good-will to one another, created in him the god-like pleasure of loving them because they loved each other. This great command of himself, in hiding his first impulse to partiality, at last improved to a steady justice towards them; and that, which at first was but an expedient to correct his weakness, was afterwards the measure of his virtue.

The truth of it is, those parents who are interested in the

care of one child more than that of another, no longer deserve the name of parents, but are, in effect, as childish as their children, in having such unreasonable and ungoverned inclinations. A father of this sort has degraded himself into one of his own offspring; for none but a child would take part in the passions of children.

Tatler, No. 235.]

[October 10, 1710.

No. 50. On the Relations of Parents and Children; Letter from a Mother to her Son.

Gratulor quod eum quem necesse erat diligere, qualiscunque esset, talem habemus ut libenter quoque diligamus.-TREBONIUS apud TULL.

'MR. SPECTATOR,

'I am the happy father of a very towardly son, in whom I do not only see my life, but also my manner of life, renewed. Io It would be extremely beneficial to society, if you would frequently resume subjects which serve to bind these sort of relations faster, and endear the ties of blood with those of good-will, protection, observance, indulgence, and veneration. I would, methinks, have this done after an uncommon method, and do not think any one, who is not capable of writing a good play, fit to undertake a work wherein there will necessarily occur so many secret instincts, and biasses of human nature which would pass unobserved by common eyes. I thank Heaven I have no outrageous offence against my own excel20 lent parents to answer for; but when I am now and then alone, and look back upon my past life, from my earliest infancy to this time, there are many faults which I committed that did not appear to me, even until I myself became a father. I had not until then a notion of the yearnings of heart, which a man has when he sees his child do a laudable thing, or the sudden damp which seizes him when he fears he will act something unworthy. It is not to be imagined what a remorse touched me for a long train of childish negligences of my mother, when I saw my wife the other day look out of the 30 window, and turn as pale as ashes upon seeing my younger

boy sliding upon the ice. These slight intimations will give

you to understand, that there are numberless little crimes which children take no notice of while they are doing, which, upon reflection, when they shall themselves become fathers, they will look upon with the utmost sorrow and contrition, that they did not regard before those whom they offended were to be no more seen. How many thousand things do I remember which would have highly pleased my father, and I omitted for no other reason, but that I thought what he proposed the effect of humour and old age, which I am now o convinced had reason, and good sense in it. I cannot now go into the parlour to him, and make his heart glad with an account of a matter which was of no consequence, but that I told it, and acted in it. The good man and woman are long since in their graves, who used to sit and plot the welfare of us their children, while, perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at the old folks, at another end of the house. The truth of it is, were we merely to follow nature in these great duties of life, though we have a strong instinct towards the performing of them, we should be on both sides very deficient. Age is so o unwelcome to the generality of mankind, and growth towards manhood so desirable to all, that resignation to decay is too difficult a task in the father; and deference, amidst the impulse of gay desires, appears unreasonable to the son. There are so

few who can grow old with a good grace, and yet fewer who can come slow enough into the world, that a father, were he to be actuated by his desires, and a son, were he to consult himself only, could neither of them behave himself as he ought to the other. But when reason interposes against instinct, where it would carry either out of the interests of the other, there arises o that happiest intercourse of good offices between those dearest relations of human life. The father, according to the opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down blessings on the son, and the son endeavouring to appear the worthy offspring of such a father. It is after this manner that Camillus and his first-born dwell together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing and indolent old age, in which passion is subdued, and reason exalted. He waits the day of his dissolution with a resignation mixed with delight; and the son fears the accession of his father's fortune with diffidence, lest he should not enjoy or o become it as well as his predecessor. Add to this, that the

father knows he leaves a friend to the children of his friends, an easy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable companion to his acquaintance. He believes his son's behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This commerce is so well cemented, that without the pomp of saying, "Son, be a friend to such-a-one when I am gone," Camillus knows being in his favour is direction enough to the grateful youth who is to succeed him, without the admonition of his mentioning it. These gentlemen are honoured in all their 10 neighbourhood, and the same effect which the court has on the manners of a kingdom, their characters have on all who live within the influence of them.

'My son and I are not of fortune to communicate our good actions or intentions to so many as these gentlemen do; but I will be bold to say, my son has, by the applause and approbation which his behaviour towards me has gained him, occasioned that many an old man besides myself has rejoiced. Other men's children follow the example of mine, and I have the inexpressible happiness of overhearing our neighbours, as we 20 ride by, point to their children, and say, with a voice of joy, "There they go."

'You cannot, Mr. Spectator, pass your time better than in insinuating the delights which those relations, well regarded, bestow upon each other. Ordinary passages are no longer such, but mutual love gives an importance to the most indifferent things, and a merit to actions the most insignificant. When we look round the world, and observe the many misunderstandings which are created by the malice and insinuation of the meanest servants between people thus related, how 30 necessary will it appear that it were inculcated, that men would be upon their guard to support a constancy of affection, and that grounded upon the principles of reason, not the impulses of instinct.

'It is from the common prejudices which men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, hatred will descend when good offices are forgotten. For the degeneracy of human life is such, that our anger is more easily transferred to our children, than our love. Love always gives something to the 40 object it delights in, and anger spoils the person against whom