personal credit; and I considered her as devoid of proper ambition, and of due respect for me, who did not put forth her powers to do honour to my establishment in the presence of my assembled friends and neighbours.

This result, however, I considered not as the business of the last month or week, but as the duty of the year; and therefore I expected from week to week the same ambition to arrive at excellence, as though the public ball had been to be given in the current month.

Having always considered dancing to be as conducive to health as to grace of person and ease of manners, I have encouraged winter evening sociable dances, and am persuaded that nothing has tended more to render my pupils happy. Besides, it prepares them for the annual public ball, and tends to remove that mauvaise honte, which creates embarrassment, and deprives many a finished dancer of her power of display when in the presence of strangers.

DRAWING, after dancing, I have generally observed to be popular among young ladies, and it ought to be so. It is an elegant art, and intellectually useful, for it obliges the mind to acquire accurate ideas of forms, and differences of forms, which could not otherwise be noticed. I confess I have generally over-ruled the master, whose case led him to give prints and drawings for patterns, by insisting that those who had practised for two quarters on prints should then copy nature. Our premises, as seen from different positions in the shrubbery, of course became the usual object in these exercises; and in consequence no building has been oftener pourtrayed, or ornaments more domestic parlours.

The only apparatus is a stick five feet long, with a hole through it at the top; it is fixed in the ground to give the eye a determinate position; and in the first essays, a pane of glass, squared on the surface, is placed at a few feet distance, to afford the per

spective points. In three months the pane of glass is dispensed with, and in twelve months the fixed sighthole is found to be no longer necessary. The uses of drawing are prodigiously increased by the copying of nature, and it is impossible to describe the gratification which it affords both to the pupil and her judicious parents.

LETTER XLII.

Manners and Behaviour.

MY ESTEEMED Children,

Whenever we think of music, dancing, and drawing, we associate with them ideas of politeness, good breeding, and elegant manners. These I cannot write about with effect, for they are imitative arts, and are to be caught by example, not acquired by dry precepts.

"Manners maketh man," is the maxim painted in large characters in the famous school of William of Wykham, at Winchester; but, my dear children, if manners make the man, how much more so do they make the woman!

The retiring grace, the gentle force, the winning modesty, are the qualities, the true characteristics of our sex. Our strength consists in our weakness. Our power of conquering lies in at least appearing to be conquered. Our strength of argument lies in our habitual deference, and our very anger is to be displayed, not by railing, but by our dignified reserve, and merely by an abatement of our usual amenity.

We lose every thing if we assume a boisterous manner, talk loud, laugh with the head divided into two ugly parts, and ape the coarsest of the other sex, or the vulgarest of our own. No rank or birth, H

or fortune, can atone for forwardness of manners and address in a woman; and if these qualities should ever distinguish some twenty low-minded women of fashion, these ought to be considered as beacons and warnings, and never as objects either of imitation or admiration.

Grossnesses of all kinds ought also to be avoided. A well-bred lady will never eat till she can eat no longer. She will not drink wine at every invitation till her face becomes of a scarlet hue. Nor will she engross the conversation of any company, whatever be her wit, talents, or information. She will, above all things, keep her temper, indulge no antipathies, and never make ill-natured remarks calculated publicly to wound the feelings of any person present.

In mixing with society forbearance and deference are indispensable; and if you are disposed to laugh at oddities, or censure absurdities, reserve your satire or your criticism till you have retired. Those who are truly disagreeable, and mark, I say truly, and not according to your whim, you may easily avoid meeting a second time.

In regard to conversation, reserved good sense is better than too much display; for all like better to hear themselves than others, and admiration will, in general, be extorted more by deference to the vanity of others, than by lessening their own good opinion of themselves.

In your dress be clean, neat, and moderately fashionable. Avoid tawdry colours, and beware of being conspicuous. Nothing so inevitably inspires ridicule, not envy, as ill-timed displays of shewy clothing. Something between the well-dressed quaker and a theatrical fine lady is the golden mean which you should constantly attempt. To follow every fashion is the sure way to become an object of ridicule, independently of the useless waste of money; and to attempt to lead the fashion

requires an union of rank, fortune, and person, which falls to the lot of only a few of the vainest of

our sex.

If you have merit, never be afraid that it will not be discovered; and do not be over solicitous to display it, as thereby you lose half its value. The countenance, the eye, the manners, the dress, the general style, the tout ensemble, are the sure advertisements of merit, without your becoming your own herald; and weak and absurd as the world is, there is yet good sense enough to distinguish between a real diamond and French paste.

After all, however, example effects more than precepts, and you will imperceptibly catch the manners of your mamma, your aunt, your elder sisters, your intimate friends, or your favourite companions. It is highly important, therefore, that the former should set you a good example, and that you should make a most careful choice of the latter.

*****

LETTER XLIII.

Treatment of Servants and Dependents.

MY ESTEEMED Children,

Next to behaviour among equals, that to superiors and inferiors is of great moment to your comfort and character. Familiarity with superiors will never be endured, and if you would be respected by them, you must allow the advances to be made by them, and if not made you must be content to live without them. The world is happily wide enough for the proud and the lowly.

But your real character will be more accurately determined by your own conduct to inferiors, the dependents in your family, or the servants with whom you have any contact. Familiarity, gossip

ing, and confidential intercourse with them, is highly dangerous in every sense; while a haughty carriage, and an assumption that you are of a different species, because your father has great wealth, or a lucrative trade, are to the last degree contemptible. You ought to endeavour to make servants happy, not to remind them of their dependence by insolent observations, and not to render them the slaves of your capricious humours. Obliging language and a courteous method of asking for any service are the sure ways of getting it well and usefully performed.

Remember always that servants are acquainted with other servants, and that they always describe to each other the characters of the members of their families, while these convey them to their respective homes, tattle about them, and thus your domestic ill humour becomes a subject of animadversion in quarters where you may wish better impressions to exist. Servants too remove from family to family, and the qualities and habits of one family are thus made known in others, and an ill-humoured and troublesome young lady is sure to come in for her share of criticism.

Nor ought you merely from selfish motives to be on your guard in your behaviour to servants, for you should remember that rudeness and sharp language used to dependents are extremely ungenerous and unchristianlike. You cannot do without servants, perhaps, so well as they can do without you; and you are therefore bound to behave civilly, liberally, and courteously to them. In truth, your conduct to them will be the test of your real disposition, and if you tyrannize over them, it is quite certain you would tyrannize over every body, if you had the power.

In like manner you should bestow a thought, and even solemn sympathy on all dependents on your convenience and pleasure. You should make as many happy as you can, and none miserable. You