vation of the Virtues is forced to give way to the ftudy of the Graces ?Poor Chesterfield! Such was thy wretched system for the education of a darling and only fon! What pity thy agreeable talents had not been more worthily and more happily directed!

That celebrated man certainly poffeffed a brilliant and eafy wit, much elegance and fluency of pen, with a good share of tafte, and a confiderable tincture of learning. His remarks on a variety of topics are both sprightly and juft. Many of his inftructions are fenfible and important. He was well acquainted with that part of the fpecies which he had seen; not indeed the best of either sex, as is sufficiently apparent from his reprefentations of both, of the female especially. His frank confeffions of former follies and vices deferve commendation; and it is impoffible not to be pleased with the warmth and benignity of his paternal affection. But what, after VOL. II.

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all, was his main concern for its object? Why truly, that this fon, about whose figure and fortune he was immoderately anxious, should be a complete Man of the World, or what is ufually ftyled a Fine Gentleman, and a person of ability, infinuating, popular, applauded, fuccessful : for, pray take notice, we meet not, as I remember, in two large volumes, with a fingle sentence pointing to the immortality of man, or the approbation of God, or any other great principle of human excellence. Amidft many ufeful obfervations on life, and many neceffary axioms of prudence, the moft trivial leffons are taught; and his well-known favourite doctrine is, without the least attention to human nature, fo inceffantly repeated, that it could fcarcely fail to difguft, instead of impreffing the young man for whom it was defigned. That he fhould even not fcruple recommending to his fon the imitation of a deeply criminal fashion in foreign gallantry, is indeed fhocking, and what ought to excite

abhorrence in every one who retains any fenfe of decency. Shall I add in a few words, that to allure, to fparkle, to fhine, to flatter, to be flattered, and to rife, at whatever expence of truth, of rectitude, or of regard for nobler pursuits, are held up as the highest ends of existence; and instead of forming the person in question into a just model of improved and elevated nature, to frame him into a mere courtly artificial being, or rather to fabricate and hammer him into a piece of polished machinery, was the fupreme follicitude of that man to whom our modifh youth in this Christian land look up, as the all-accomplished pattern, judge, and master of life and manners?

But, that we may draw to a conclufion, let us now in the last place follow those pretty gentlemen-for fuch they wish to be thought let us follow them into the world. What do they fee and hear of there, but betting, and gaming, and in

trigues, and cabals, and places, and posts, and penfions, and stars, and garters; court favour and family intereft, ftatesmen regularly buying votes, and their opposers frequently feeking power; almost all mankind bowing in the temple of Rimmon, or elfe worshiping in that of Mammon; to which last idol, indeed, the apparent votaries of the other direct the homage of their hearts? In the early ages of Greece and Rome, Glory was the great object of men's devotion. In our times, it is Money: every thing now is facrificed to money: ambition itself, vanity, pride, all the paffions, wait on Avarice, 66 even as the eye of a "man-fervant on the hand of his mafter, "and the eye of a maid-servant on the "hand of her miftrefs." Money, my friends, money is now prized and purfued as that which can purchase all things

And fo it can, a few trifling enjoyments excepted, fuch as good health, true contentment, a good conscience, and unfeigned efteem. As to merit, ability, rectitude, patriotism, and the ho

hours which were wont to attend them in the genuine refpect and fincere applauses of the best men; this more sagacious age has difcovered, that fuch airy qualities, and shadowy acquisitions, might formerly do well enough to fatisfy those who were infected with the knight-ertantry of virtue; but that they fignify little now-a-days. Why? Because they would go for nothing on the turf, at the gamingtable, in the circles of fplendor, the abodes of luxury, or the resorts of diffipation. Such, my dear hearers but " tell it not

"in" France, publish it not in the streets of Madrid-fuch are the scenes, the very honourable and highly-improving scenes, which muft form, and finish, and fend forth from time to time, the hopeful perfonages that are to be the fathers of the next generation, that are to command our fleets and armies, that are to fit in the Britifh Senate, and give law to half the globe; that are to fill the chief offices of government, and affift in the councils of their fo