658 
Tory and Whig party. Never, it is said, 
was known such intellectual gladiators 
ship: 
€¢ So frown’d the mighty combitants, that 
hell 
Grew darker at their frown, so match’d they 
stood !” 
If, however, when provoked, their pawer 
to crush their opponents was equal, yét 
a great difference in mental temperament 
yemains in favour of Dr. Parr; since, 
when properly respected, he is kind and 
sunny of spirit, and punishes not, as the 
surly despot punished, a liberal and po- 
lite dissent from his opinions. Then, far 
from the Johnsonian niggardliness’ of 
praise, where deserved, he dispenses it 
bounteously ; and none better know to 
give that praise characteristic discrimi- 
nation, of which each of you have doubt- 
Jess perused many instances, 
FEMALE EDUCATION. 
_ Were Ta mother, instead of adopting 
Mr. Gisborne’s and Mr. Wilberforce’s 
voluminous number of penal laws for the 
souls of youthful females, I would sub- 
stitute the following exertions, I would 
induce them to be religious, by applying 
the Christian system rather to their hopes 
than to their fears. I would endeavour 
to inspire them with an high sense of 
virgin honour and truth, and of the 
grace and beauty of rational decorum ; 
with a terror as well as abhorrence of 
female libertinism, by placing before 
their eyes, from real life, strovg instances 
of its misery; while, by every opportu- 
nity of judicious ridicule, F would inspire 
a sovereign contempt of male profligacy ; 
of gamesters, sots, fops, and fox-hunters. 
Thus, instead of making myself and my 
daughters ridiculous, as Mr. Gisborne 
advises, by demanding testimonials of 
the moral and pious character of every 
man who may ask them to dance acou- 
ple of dances at a ball, I should depend 
upon their principles and good sense for 
despising, instead of being corrupted by 
inproper conversation, or indecent free- 
dom in the momentary pauses of the 
dance; attempts which it is in the ut- 
.most degree improbable that they should 
encounter, even from the most aban- 
doned libertine. When the dance is 
over, by all the indispensable rules of 
fashionable life, every young woman 
takes her seat by her mother or chaperon. 
I would very early introduce my 
daughters to the finest English writers, 
both in prose or verse, rather than de- 
yote all their leisure to the comparatively 
v 
Letters of Anna Seward. 
worthless acquisition of modern. accoms 
plishments, -[ would teach them to turng 
with disgust, from the perusal of frivos 
lous novels, nét by invective, not by, pro= 
hibition, but by early setting their taste 
above them, and, this, by familiarizing. 
their memory and mind with the twa 
great works of Richardson, which involve 
all that can operate as warning and ex- 
ample; all that is elevated and beautiful 
in imagination, in wit, in eloquence, in 
characteristic discrimination, and piety. 
Thus. fortifying their understandings 
and their hearts, I would disdain coer= 
cion, and even teasing interference; 
every thing that wears the slightest ap- 
pearance of suspicious watchfulness. So 
should their home be delightful; nor 
would an oisori ide ire of leavs 
ing it for the married state, subject them 
to the danger of an unhappy marriage; 
while their habits of life and taste for 
literature, must preclude the discontents, 
of celibacy, should celibacy be their lot. 
OPINIONS'@ ‘ 
O! this horrid, this remorseless war? 
Infatwated ministry! who have rejected 
so many opportunities of terminating it, 
with honour and advantage to this de- 
ceived country ; on the taking of Toulon 
and Valenciennes; om the desertion of 
Prussia; on the subsidiary claims of the 
emperor; yet still they went on, regards 
less of our exhausted wealth,of the miseries 
of a bleeding world; floundering deeper 
and deeper in defeated prafects, ull the 
olive, with all its healing blesseduess, is 
perhaps no longer within our reach. Yet 
it ought to have been tried, if it could 
have been procured even by the sacrifice 
of that (no Jonger great) title, King of 
France; by the restitution of the Toulon 
ships, and by the cession of all our 
foreign conquests, whose advantages are 
as dust in the balance against the nuse- 
ries of protracted war. Peace is worth 
any price to England, short of the re- 
duction of her navy. In another twelve- 
month we shall offer the recently-re- 
jected terms, and’ then offer them in 
vain. So it has been through the whole 
progress of this mad contest. Nothing 
but the blindest prejudice can prevent 
the public from being universally sensible 
of that melancholy truth, 
_. WASHINGTON. 
No, dear Madam, I was not, as you 
suppose, favoured with a letter from 
General Washington, expressly addressed 
to myself; but, a few years after peace 
was signed between this country and 
America, - 
