and to this hope fhe conftantly referred in all her converfations with them; affuring them that all her, happiness depended on their future elevation.

Their father hoped, with far more judgment, that they would be a comfort to him both in sickness and in health. He had had no learning himself, and could write but poorly, and owed what skill he had in figures to his natural turn for business. He reasonably hoped that his daughters, after all the money he had fpent on them, would now write his letters and keep his accounts, And as he was now and then laid up with a fit of the gout, he was enjoying the profpect of having two affectionate children to nurse him, as well as two skilful assistants to relieve him.

When they came home, however, he had the mortification to find, that though he had two finart fhowy ladies to visit him, he had neither dutiful daughters to nurfe him, nor faithful stewards to keep his

books,

books, nor prudent children to manage his house. They neither foothed him by their kindness when he was fick, nor helped him by their induftry when he was busy. They thought the maid might take care of him in the gout as he did before; for they fancied that nurfing was a coarse and fervile employment: and as to their skill in cyphering he foon found, to his coft, that though they knew how to spend both pounds, fhillings, and pence, yet they did not know fo well how to caft them up. Indeed it is to be regretted that women in general, especially in the middle clafs, are fo little grounded in fo indispensable, folid, and valuable an acquirement as arithmetic.

Mrs. Bragwell being one day very bufy in preparing a great dinner for the neighbours, ventured to request her daughters to assist in making the pastry. They asked her with a scornful fmile, whether she had fent them to boarding school to learn to cook; and added, that they supposed the would

I

would expect them next to make hafty. puddings for the hay-makers. So faying they coolly marched off to their mufic. When the mother found her girls were too polite to be of any ufe, fhe would take comfort in obferving how her parlour was fet out with their fillagree and flowers, their embroidery and cut paper. They fpent the morning in bed, the noon in dreffing, the evening at the harpfichord, and the night in reading novels.

With all these fine qualifications it is eafy to fuppofe, that as they defpised their fober duties, they no lefs defpifed their plain neighbours. When they could not get to a horse-race, a petty ball, or a strolling play, with fome company as idle and as fmart as themselves, they were driven for amusement to the circulating library. Jack, the plough-boy, on whom they had now put a livery jacket, was employed half his time in trotting backwards and forwards with the moft wretched trafh the little neighbouring book-fhop could furnish.

The

The choice was often left to Jack, who could not read, but who had general orders to bring all the new things, and a great many of them.

It was a misfortune, that at the school at which they had been bred, and at fome others, there was no fyftem of education which had any immediate reference to the ftation of life to which the girls chiefly belonged. As perfons in the middle line, for want of that acquaintance with books, and with life and manners, which the great poffefs, do not always fee the connexion between remote confequences and their caufes, the evils of a corrupt and inappropriate fyftem of education do not ftrike them fo forcibly; and provided they can pay for it, which is made the grand criterion between the fit and the unfit, they are too little difpofed to confider the value, or rather the worthleffness, of the thing which is paid for; but literally go on to give their money for that which is not bread.

VOL. IV.

Their

Their fubfequent courfe of reading ferves to establish all the errors of their education. Inftead of fuch books as might help to confirm and ftrengthen them in all the virtues of their station; in humility, œconomy, meekness, contentment, self-denial, and industry; the studies now adopted are, by a graft on the old ftock, made to grow on the habits acquired at school. Of thofe novels and plays which are fo eagerly devoured by perfons of this defcription, there is perhaps fcarce one which is not founded upon principles which would lead young women of the middle ranks to be difcontented with their ftation. It is rank-it is elegance-it is beauty-it is fentimental feelings-it is fenfibility—it is fome needlefs, or fome fuperficial, or fome quality hurtful, even in that fashionable perfon to whom the author afcribes it, which is the ruling principle. This quality tranfferred into the heart and the conduct of an illiterate woman in an inferior station becomes impropriety, becomes abfurdity, becomes finfulness.