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HEAR you bring up your children with too much tenderness. You wish to be a good mother; but dear friend, the first duty of a good mother consists not in procuring pleasant sensations to her children, but in training them as early as possible to temperance, and a dominion over their sensual desires, which is the principal foundation of all virtues. You ought therefore to take the greatest care not to let the tender mother degenerate into a flatterer. Children who, from their tender infancy are brought up in a voluptuous manner, must necessarily become incapable of ever resisting the charms of sensuality, which operate so powerfully upon them. You are therefore bound by your maternal duty to educate them so as to prevent their nature from taking a vicious turn, which is inevitable if love of pleasure gain the ascendancy in their soul, and their body be accustomed constantly to demand pleasing sensations, which render the latter immoderately delicate and sensible, and the former averse from all labour and exertion. Nothing is therefore more necessary than that we should train our pupils chiefly to that from which they are most averse, although it should give them pain, and make them look sour: for there exist no better means of animating them with an early regard for every thing that is beautiful and noble, instead of rendering them the slaves of voluptuousness, and as averse from labour as they will be eager to gratify their sensuality. Therefore, dear friend, if you feed your children too abundantly and delicately, incur great expenses in order to procure them now this and now that pleasure; if you always suffer them to play, and to practise wantonness; and suffer them to say and to begin whatever they list, always are afraid of making the poor child weep, and constantly exert yourself to make it laugh; if you laugh and are pleased when it beats its nurse, or calls you naughty names; further, if you take so much pains to keep your children always cool in summer, and warm and well covered in winter, you must give me leave to tel you, that you do extremely wrong. Don't you see that the children of poor people, who know nothing of all this, nevertheless grow up better, thrive and prosper, and in general feel themselves happier? You, on the contrary, bring up your

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children like young Sardanapalus, and by rendering them effeminate, give their manly nature a blow from which they will never be able to recover. Tell me only what will become of a boy who weeps if he get not his victuals in the very moment in which he calls for them? who always demands the choicest dainties when he is to eat? who fears to melt with heat when the air is warm, and shakes when it is cold? is full of contradiction and obstinacy when he is reprimanded? pouts when he cannot obtain what he demands? in short, if he know of no other occupation than that of hunting after pleasure, and of wallowing in vile sensuality? What else can be expected than that such spoiled children, when they attain the age of manhood, will become miserable slaves to their own passions, and to those of others? Let it therefore be your dearest concern, my beloved friend, thoroughly to reform your method of education, and to introduce a rigorous education in your house instead of that effeminate one; teach them to endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and inure them to bear it patiently, by setting before their eyes the examples of children of their own age, or of their superiors ......* for bracing the body, labour and bodily fatigue are for youthful minds what alum-water is for stuffs which are to be tinged with purple; the stronger they are impregnated with them, the more will the colour of virtue incorporate itself with them, the more beautiful, lively, and durable will it be. Therefore take heed, my dear, lest your children share the same fate with vines, which, when nourished by bad juices, must of necessity produce indifferent grapes; for how is it possible that a voluptuous and effeminate education should produce better fruits than heedlessness, presumption, and the reverse of what renders a person useful to himself and to others?

THEANO TO NIKOSTRATA.

I also have been told, my dearest friend, that your husband is so weak as to keep a mistress: but I am sorry to learn at the same time that you are foolish enough to be affected by it. As for your husband, I know but too many men who are afflicted with the same disease. These poor people suffer themselves to be ensnared, like stupid birds, by the lures of these creatures; as soon as they are entangled, they seem to have lost all power of reflexion, and therefore rather deserve pity than anger. You, on the contrary, abandon

*Here are left out a few lines, the sense of which seems to have been rendered unintelligible by the neglect or the ignorance of the copyist.

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yourself day and night to an immoderate grief and despair, and think of nothing else but how you can vex him and embitter the enjoyment of his new love. You should not do this, my dearest friend! the virtue of a wife consists not in watching her husband, but in accommodating herself to his disposition; and she can effect this by no other means than by patiently bearing his follies. Besides, as he sees in his mistress only a person in whose company he seeks for amusement, he looks upon his wife as a consort, who has a common interest with him. But this common interest is not to be promoted by adding to the sum of evil; therefore if he be a fool, it is no reasonable ground why you also should be -one. There are passions, my friend, which are more inflamed by reproaches, but by silence and patience may be totally removed; a fire which we suffer to burn undisturbed, extinguishes itself. A wife who upbraids her husband, if he labour to conceal his infidelity from her, removes the veil under which he hoped to sin secretly; and what does she gain by it? He continues to sin, and lets her be a witness of his excesses. If you will take my advice, I counsel you not to think that his affection for you is absolutely connected with the purity of his morals. Consider this matter in another point of view. Think that your connexion with him is an union for life-that he goes to his mistress only when he cannot light upon a better and more prudent amusement, and hopes to rid himself in her company of the weariness which oppresses him, but that he always returns to you again, because he wishes to live with no other person but you. He loves you when he is ruled by reason, and her when he is under the controul of passion; the latter lasts but a short time, we soon grow tired of it, and it vanishes almost as soon as it appears. A man would be a thorough villain, if a mistress could engross his affections for any length of time. For what can be more stupid than preposterous enjoyment by which we injure ourselves? He will soon perceive how much he injures his property and character by that connexion. No person who has not entirely lost the power of reflection, will run with open eyes into the gulph of perdition. Be therefore assured that the claim which you have upon him will restore him again to you; he will perceive that his present manner of life is highly injurious to his domestic happiness; he will not be able to endure any longer the ignominy of general disapprobation, his sense of your worth will awake again, and he will soon be of a different opinion. But you, my dearest friend, instead of attempting to cope with a kept woman, endeavour to render the contrast between such a

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creature and yourself as striking as possible by a proper conduct towards your husband, a careful management of your domestic concerns, a good understanding with your acquaintance, and by maternal tenderness for your children. Do not honour that creature so much as to be her rival; for emulation of virtuous characters is the only honourable emulation. As for your husband, show yourself ever disposed to reconciliation. A noble conduct gains in time even the heart of our enemics, and virtue procures us general regard. The practice of virtue puts it into the power of a wife even to rule her husband in a certain degree, and he will always rather be esteemed by such a wife than watched by her like an enemy. But the more attention you shew towards him, the more will he be ashamed, the sooner will he desire to be again reconciled to you, and love you the more firmly and tenderly, when the reflection upon your irreproachable conduct, and your love for him, has made him sensible of his injustice towards you. The present short interruption of your happiness will then only render it greater: for the differences between real friends generally terminate in a more cordial union of soul, as after a painful illness, nothing is sweeter than the first perception of the return of health-Compare this advice with the suggestions of passion. The latter hurries you through grief and vexation to do evil, because he sets you the example; to sin against propriety, because he sins against probity; to contribute your share towards ruining his fortune by separating your interest from his, because he injures his pro-. perty and credit. You imagine to chastise him, and you punish yourself. For, tell me, how will you revenge yourself upon him? Perhaps by being divorced from him? As you are yet too young to remain a widow, you will, in that case, try your fortune with another husband; and when he also should fail you, with a third-or be obliged to spend your life unmarried and deserted*.-Or would you cease to take care of your domestic concerns, and ruin your husband by suffering every thing to be in a state of disorder? Would you not thereby render yourself as unhappy and miserable as you would render him?-You threaten his mistress with your revenge. She will take care to keep out of your way; and if you were to make a personal attack upon her, you will find that a woman without sense of shame is generally the boldest fighter.If you think it would do you credit daily to scold and quarrel with your husband, you ought to consider

*It cannot be denied, that the idea to live without a husband had something terrible for Greek ladies. This remonstrance must therefore have taken effect.

VOL. II.

T

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that all scolding and quarrelling will be insufficient to set bounds to his excesses, and rather will serve to render your animosity incurable. Or should you, perhaps, meditate schemes against his life! No, my friend, then the tragedy which represents to us the crimes of a Medea, with their dreadful consequences, would have no proper effect upon you*; for it is to teach us to bridle our jealousy, and not to give way to it. The disease with which you are afflicted resembles, in this point, the diseases of the eyes; we must absolutely keep our hands off: patience and firmness of mind are the only remedy by which you can expect to cure it.

P. W.

(To be continued.)

Extracts from two Letters by d'Olbers, at Bremen, to Major de Zach, at Gotha, on astronomical and meteorological Subjects.

Bremen, Jan. 18, and April 5, 1800.

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Hasten to communicate to you some interesting astronomical intelligence, which I have received this moment from our indefatigable Schröter. He writes to me: "I have the honour to inform you, that from my latest observations, I am intitled to draw, with a degree of probability approaching to demonstration, the following interesting conclusions, first, 'That Mercury's rotation upon his axis is performed in twentyfour hours, or a few minutes more or less. Secondly, That its figure, as well as the qualities of its atmosphere, are much the same with those observed of the planet Venus. Thirdly, That Mercury's highest mountains are on its southern hemisphere, precisely as is the case with our Earth, the Moon, and Venus. Fourthly, That the proportion of the height of its mountains to its diameter is rather greater than that which obtains on the Moon and Venus."

These inferences Mr. Schröter has made from having observed, March 26, 1800, seven o'clock in the afternoon, the southern horn of Mercury to be as blunt as he had formerly observed that of Venus. The appearance of that horn was exactly the same after twenty-four hours; though in the mean time the two horns of that planet were sharp pointed, as at the mo

*This allusion to the tragedy of Medea almost had made me suspect the genuineness of this beautiful letter, which is so deserving of a Theano, if I had not recollected that Eschylus was a cotemporary of Pythagoras, and is said to have written a Medea; not to mention Thesis and Phrynichus, who took the subjects of their dramatic monologues from the history of the ancient heroes, long before schylus made use of it.

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