STUDY VII. , 141 



threatened with the rod by their mothers and nurfes, 

 as with us. They are not gay, but they are con- 

 tented. You obferve on their countenance an air 

 of tranquility and fatisfadion which is perfeflly 

 enchanting, and infinitely more interefting than 

 the boifterous mirth of our young people when 

 they are no longer under the eye of their fathers or 

 preceptors. 



This calmnefs is difFufed over all their adions, and 

 is the fource of a happy compofure which charac-^ 

 terizes their whole future life. I never faw any coun- 

 try where parental lendernefs was fo ftrikingly ex- 

 prefled. The children, in their turn, repay them, 

 in their old-age, the indulgence with which they 

 were treated in helplefs infancy. By bonds fo en- 

 dearing are thefe people attached to their country, 

 and fo powerfully that we find very few of them fet- 

 tling among fhrangers. With us, on the contrary, 

 fathers like better to fee their children fprightly 

 than good, becaufe in a conftitution of ambitious 

 fociety, fpirit raifes a man to the head of a party, 

 but goodnefs makes dupes. They have colledions 

 of epigrams compofed by their children ; but wit 

 being only the perception of the relations of fociety, 

 children fcarcely ever have any but what is bor- 

 rowed. Wit itfelf is frequently, in them, the proof 

 of a miferable exiftence, as may be remarked in the 

 fchool-boys of our cities, who ufually are fpright- 



lier 



