Ane and enlarge the sources of our own enjoyment, and purify, raise and ennoble our own characters beyond the power of human calculation? As the companion of a man of sense and virtue, as an instrument and partner of his earthly happiness, what is the most beautiful woman in the world, without a mind; without a cultivated mind, capable of an animated correspondence with his own, and of reciprocating all his thoughts and feelings? Is not our conduct on this head ungenerous and ignoble to the other sex? Do we not deprive them of the brightest and most angelic portion of their character; degrade them from the rank of intelligence which they are formed to hold, and instead of making them the partners of our souls, attempt to debase them into mere objects of sense? Is not our conduct mean and dastardly? Does it not look as if we were afraid that, with equal opportunities, they would rival us in intellect, and examine and refute our pretended superiority? Are we not playing off upon them the policy of the Roman Church; and practically confessing that it is only while we can keep them in ignorance, that we can expect them to acknowledge our boasted su premacy. There is another point of view in which this subject cannot be too often held up to us; it appeals, too, to that very passion for the pre-eminent dignity of the males on which the fathers of the present day so vehemently insist. Who is it that moulds and directs the character of our boys for the first ten or twelve decisive years of their life?—Not the father; for such are his engagements, or such the state and reserve of his manners, that his sons but rarely come in contact with him. No: it is in the nursery, it is in the gentle and attractive society of the mother, it is in her af fectionate bosom and on her lap that the blossoms of the heart and mind begin their bloom; it is she who bends the twig and thus decides the character of the tree. How then ought she to be accomplished for this important office! How wide and diversified her reading and informa tion! How numerous the historic models of great men with which her memory should be stored! How grand and noble the tone of her own character! These are a few of the many considerations, which the brevity of a News-paper essay will merely permit me to touch; and which appeal to us so powerfully as men, as patriots and as christians to alter and enlarge the plan of female education. I beg Mr. Squaretoes to weigh these thoughts with candor and to amplify, by his own reflection, what I have merely room to hint. At the same time, if Mr. Squaretoes can vanquish his 1 antipathy to newspaper essays, so far as to read my fourth number, he will see, in the example of my friend Bianca, that The Old Bachelor is no advocate for the excessive use of novels, nor for the neglect of domestic duties. But I am convinced that there are very few girls in Virginia, so circumstanced as not to be able, by system and activity, in their household employments, to command every day an hour or two, of those sixteen which they with draw from sleep: And that hour or two judiciously directed and diligently employed, would fit them to form the characters of the future patricts of their country. There is another subject introduced by Mr. Squaretoes on which I shall take an early occasion to dilate; it is the article of female dress; of which I shall only say, here, that I am very far from being satisfied with it. Finally, I must insist upon it, that my friend Grace shall take her turn in the female duties of her father's house, and that not reluctantly; but on the contrary, that for her own sake as well as the honor of the Old Bachelor, whose disciple she professes to be, she will distinguish herself above all the rest, by discharging those duties with pre-eminent cheerfulness, grace and spirit. There is a style of doing even those things which marks the superiority of mind and character; and distinguishes one woman as strongly from another as the style of beauty, dress or conversation. At the same time I am sure that Grace has too much sweetness as well as understanding to make it necessary for me to say, that she must not permit her literary emulation to generate a spirit of asperity towards others; much less to interfere either with her reverential duty and love for her father, or her pious affection for her elder sisters. The winning softness and delicacy of her sex are for no consideration to be renounced. I should be very sorry to see her in the character either of Mrs. Hamilton's Modern female philosopher, with her obtrusive and disgusting pedantry and bombast; or of a celebrated historian of her sex of whom I have heard it said, that she would sit all day on her bed, in the Turkish posture, with her writingdesk in her lap, her snuff-box open on one side of her, and her documents on the other-her hair disshevelled, her person and dress hideously neglected-and her unlustrous eye fixed for hours on vacancy. Nor would I have her to experience the more pitiable fate of that celebrated female novelist in England, who is said to have realised the fiction of Don Quixotte, and to have turned her brain by the too intense contemplation of the horrors of her own fancy and those of others. There is no necessity for any such castastrophe: my counsels lead to none such. And, I can add, that already, there is more than one example in the circle of my acquaintance of the sweet and enchanting union which may be formed between genius, science, literature and female gentleness, modesty and grace. -cach moment brings New vigor to her flight, new pinions to her wings. Dryden. The last mail brought me from different quarters of the State the most pleasing proofs that Galen's well-intended prediction has failed: for The Old Bachelor, I find, is read; and read, too, with the most propitious effects. As the number of my correspondents is beginning to encrease, I avail myself of this occasion to settle with them the few simple terms on which our intercourse is to continue. I hope I need scarcely say, in the first place, that nothing will find its way to the public under the sanction of The Old Bachelor, but what is calculated, according to his opinion, to promote the cause in which he has embarked; virtuously to instruct, or innocently to amuse: no letter, however elegantly written, whose aim is malevolent, mischievous or vicious, will be farther noticed by him than to be committed to the flames. Nor will it be expected by his correspondents, even where their communications are well intended, that a whimsical Old Bachelor will always agree with them in point of sentiment and taste. He may sometimes judge so falsely as to suppose that however praise-worthy in design, their productions may, nevertheless, not be calculated, to advance the purpose of his papers. In such cases he must be permitted to with-hold them altogether from publication under his signature: but he will at the same time, consider himself bound to have the manuscript returned, sealed, to the Editor through whose hands he will have received it, for the purpose of being forwarded, if desired, to the Author's address. At other times the Old Bachelor may be of opinion, that a letter with a few alterations, not going to change either its sentiments or principles, may be better calculated to promote his purpose in such a case, he will make the alteration without ceremony or apology. There may be cases in which he may differ from the opinion of a correspondent in such cases if he gives the letter, he will express the difference of opinion. On these conditions and under these qualifications, his correspondents may rely on his most grateful acknowledgments for their contributions, and on their being, in due time, interwoven with The Old Bachelor's web, so as to diversify the work according to the best of his judgment. Here follows a letter from one, to whom he feels well assured that he will never have to propose either condition or qualification: It is from his first correspondent and his fast friend Lovetruth. Even the sorrows and the tears of my old friend are full of virtue and instruction. His is a pen, To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, "TO DOCTOR ROBERT CECIL "CARA-SELVA, Jan. 17th, 1811. "RESPECTED FRIEND, Thy eighth number was yesterday hailed by the small circle at Cara-Selva. Doubtless, thy approving smile is calculated to inspirit and energize its object. Thy esteem brings along with it something balmy and invigorating. Yet, wonder not, Good Cecil, if even thy indulgent reception of Lovetruth's hasty address, and thy flattering appeal to his feeble pen, want the power entirely to rouse his mind from its present dejection, and to efface from his darkened brow every sombre tint of melancholy. I mourn, honest Cecil, I mourn for a friend, I might say, for a brother. My worthy neighbor Charles Melmoth, is no more. Last week, his noble spirit, freed from the shackles of mortality, re-ascended to its native heaven. Already the sod and other pious emblems of af fectionate sorrow on his humble and solitary tomb, have been withered or dispersed by the rude blasts of winter: but his venerable figure is still seen by the eye of friendship; his voice still vibrates on my ears; in short, I can, at this moment think of nothing, speak of nothing, but the departed Melmoth. When the tempest of grief shall have subsided, when only a placid recollection of Melmoth's intellectual and moral excellence shall remain, when, with a steady hand, I shall be able to guide the pencil, and to spread the colors of biography, I may attempt to retrace the manly and dignified features which were combined in the character of my friend. The picture shall be faithful; yet, I fear some among us will take it for an antique, or for some fanciful delineation of ideal worth. At present, dear Cecil, desultory effusions only can be expected from Lovetruth; and unless the impressive, and, alas! the last conversation which passed between Melmoth and myself, be deemed by thee not altogether irrelative to the laudable purpose which thou hast in view, this, my second letter, must remain confined to thy own breast. Indeed, I wish for no more than the sympathy of a heart like thine. Parental affection was a prominent trait in the amiable and exalted character of my Friend. Death, five years since, tore from his bosom a beloved wife, and left the warmest sensibilities of his widowed heart to center in four children, three sons and a daughter. Melmoth had always considered their education as his first duty; the peformance of this duty now became the chief solace of his declining age. His children were his delight, his pride, his triumph. "Lovetruth, he once said to me, at sight of these fields which my industry has fertilised, of these orchards which my hands have planted, of these cottages which I have reared, and where the orphan and the widow bless me and mine; but, especially, at sight of my children, of their expanding intellect, of their ripening yirtues, I am tempted to exclaim, I also have deserved well of r fmy country, I also am a patriot !" Yes, worthy Melmoth, thou wert, indeed and in truth, a patriot! That name, so venerable, so sacred in itself, belongs to the industrious citizen, to the man of practical usefulness and benevolence, to the faithful and warm friend, the affectionate husband, the tender and watchful parent; it is polluted and disgraced by the empty declaimer, the wretched sycophant, the inactive speculatist, and above all, by that scourge of society, the base detractor of whatever is noble, exalted, generous! Excuse me, good Cecil, my feelings have betrayed me into a digression. I pass to the conversation at which I have hinted. Only let me inform thee that, after having been led by his father, through a systematic range of liberal and solid studies, Melmoth's eldest son, Edward, sailed last spring for Europe, in quest of that multifarious and K |