" above all other things, love the duties of my sex: that " I should be a good economist, a good mistress, as well " as a good mother of a family. I wish my Eudora to be able " to accompany her voice agreeably on the harp. I wish " that she may play agreeably on the piano-forte; that she " may know enough of drawing, to feel pleasure from the " sight and from the examination of the finest pictures of "the great painters; that she may be able to draw a flow" er that happens to please her; and that she may unite " in her dress elegance and simplicity. I should wish " that her talents might be such, that they should neither " excite the admiration of others, nor inspire her with va"nity; I should wish that she should please by the gene"ral effect of her whole character, without ever striking

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any body with astonishment at first sight; and that she "should attach by her good qualities, rather than shine " by her accomplishments."

Women cannot foresee what may be the tastes of the individuals with whom they are to pass their lives. Their own tastes should not, therefore, be early decided; they should, if possible, be so educated that they may attain any talent in perfection which they may desire, or which their circumstances may render necessary. If, for instance, a woman were to marry a man who was fond of music, or who admired painting, she should be able to cultivate these talents for his amusement and her own. If he be a man of sense and feeling, he will be more pleased with the motive than with the thing that is actually done. But if it be urged, that all women cannot expect to marry men of sense and feeling; and if we are told, that nevertheless they must look to "an advantageous " establishment," we must conclude, that men of rank and fortune are meant by that comprehensive phrase. Another set of arguments must be used to those who speculate on their daughters accomplishments in this line. They They have, perhaps, seen some instances of what they call success; they have seen some young women of their acquaintance, whose accomplishments have attracted men of fortune superior to their own; consequently, maternal tenderness is awakened, and many mothers are sanguine in their expectations of the effect of their daughters education. But they forget that every body now makes the same reflections, that parents are, and have been for some years, speculating in the same line; consequently, the market is likely to be overstocked, and, of course, the value of the commodities mustfall. Every young lady (and every young woman is now a young lady) has some pretensions to accomplishments. She draws a little; or she plays a little, or she speaks French a little. Even the blue-board boarding schools, ridiculed by Miss Allscript in the Heiress, profess to perfect young ladies in some or all of these necessary parts of education. Stop at any good inn on the London roads, and you will probably find that the landlady's daughter can shew you some of her own framed drawings, can play a tune upon her spinnet, or support a dialogue in French of a reasonable length, in the customary questions and answers. Now it is the practice in high life to undervalue, and avoid as much as possible, every thing which descends to the inferior classes of society. The dress of to-day is unfashionable to-morrow, because every body wears it. The dress is not preferred because it is pretty or useful, but because it is the distinction of well bred people. In the same manner accomplishments have lost much of that value which they acquired from opinion, since they have become common. They are now so common, that they cannot be considered as the distinguishing characteristics of even a gentlewoman's education. The higher classes in life, and those individuals who aim at distinction, now establish another species of monopoly, and secure to themselves a certain set of expensive masters in music, drawing, dancing, &c. and they endeavor to believe, and to make others believe, that no one can be well educated without having served an apprenticeship of so many lessons under some of these privileged masters. But it is in vain that they intrench themselves, they are pursued by the intrusive vulgar. In a wealthy, mercantile nation, there is nothing which can be bought for money, which will long continue to be an envied distinction. The hope of attaining to that degree of eminence in the fine arts which really deserves celebrity, becomes every day more difficult to private practitioners, because the number of competitors daily increases; and it is the interest of masters to forward their pupils by every possible means. Both genius and perseverance must now be united to obtain the prize of distinction; and how seldom are they found, or kept together, in the common course of education!

Considering all these circumstances, is not there some reason to apprehend, that in a few years the taste for several fashionable appendages of female education, may change, and that those will consequently be treated with neglect, who have no other claim to public regard, than their proficiency in what may, perhaps, then be thought vulgar or obsolete accomplishments? Our great grandmothers distinguished themselves by truly substantial tent-work chairs and carpets, by needle-work pictures of Solomon and the queen of Sheba. These were admirable in their day, but their day is over; and these useful, ingenious, and laborious specimens of female talents, are consigned to the garret, or they are produced but as curiosities, to excite wonder at the strange patience and miserable destiny of former generations: the taste for tapestry and embroidery is thus past; the long labors of the loom have ceased. Cloth-work, crape-work, chenillework, ribbon-work, wafer-work, with a long train of etceteras,

etceteras, have all passed away in our own memory; yet these conferred much evanescent fame, and a proportional quantity of vain emulation. A taste for drawing, or music, cannot be classed with any of these trifling performances; but there are many faded drawings of the present generations, which cannot stand in competition with the glowing and faithful colors of the silk and worsted of former times; and many of the hours spent at a stammering harpsichord, might, surely, with full as much domestic advantage, have been devoted to the embellishment of chairs and carpets. We hope that no one will so perversely misunderstand us, as to infer from these remarks, that we desire to see the revival of old tapestry work; or that we condemn the elegant accomplishments of music and drawing. We condemn only the abuse of these accomplishments; we only wish that they should be considered as domestic occupations, not as matters of competition, or of exhibition, nor yet as the means of attracting temporary admiration. We are not afraid that any, who are really conscious of having acquired accomplishments with these prudent and honorable views, should misapprehend what has been said. Mediocrity may, perhaps, attempt to misrepresent our remarks, and may endeavor to make it appear that we have attacked, and that we would discourage, every effort of female taste and inge. nuity in the fine arts; we cannot, therefore, be too explicit in disclaiming such illiberal views.

We have not yet spoken of dancing, though it is one of the most admired of female accomplishments. This evidently is an amusement, not an occupation; it is an agreeable exercise, useful to the health, and advantageous, as it confers a certain degree of habitual ease and grace. Mr. Locke seems to think, that it gives young people confidence in themselves when they come into company, and that it is, therefore, expedient to teach children early

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to dance: but there are so many other methods of inspiring young people with this confidence in themselves, that it appears unnecessary to lay much stress upon this argument. If children live in good company, and see constantly people with agreeable manners, they will acquire manners which the dancing master does not always teach; and they will easily vary their forms of politeness with the fashion of the day. Nobody comes into a room regularly as their dancing master taught them to make their entrance; we should think a strict adherence to his lessons ridiculous and aukward in well bred company; therefore much must be left to the discretion and taste of the pupil, after the dancing master has made his last bow. Ease of manners is not always attained by those who have been strictly disciplined by a Vestris, because the lessons are not always practised in precisely the same circumstances in which they were learnt: this confuses and confounds the pupils, and they rather lose than gain confidence in themselves, from perceving that they cannot immediately apply what they have been taught. But we need not expatiate upon this subject, because there are few parents of good sense, in any rank of life, who will not perceive that their daughters' manners cannot be formed or polished by a dancing-master. We are not to consider dancing in a grave and moral light; it is an amusement much more agreeable to young people, and much better suited to them in every respect, than cards, or silent assemblies of formal visitors. It promotes cheerfulness, and prevents, in some measure, the habits of gossiping conversation, and the love of scandal. So far we most willingly agree with its most vivacious advocates, in its common eulogium. But this is not, we fear, saying enough. We see, or fancy that we see, the sober matron lay down her carefully assorted cards upon the card-table, and with dictatorial solemnity she pronounces, "That "dancing