Their first words are mimicries of what they 

 hear pronounced before them : hence the 

 origin of different idioms and enunciations. 

 Montaigne made Latin the mother tongue of 

 his son, by surrounding him with persons 

 who spoke no other language, and even a nurse 

 who spoke Latin. The intellect of children 

 expands long before they have the power of 

 expressing their ideas. Physicians have af- 

 firmed that children have been known to die 

 of jealousy, before they were old enough to 

 express their sensations. Excessive notice 

 of another child, or seeming neglect of them- 

 selves, has been found to induce a state of 

 langor, and hasten their end. Young child- 

 ren suffer doubly in illness, from the inca- 

 pability of expressing their pain. Their 

 language being formed upon our own, and 

 their conduct framed upon our own, the duty 

 of placing desirable examples before them is 

 sufficiently evident; yet we frequently punish 

 them for faults of which the first lesson was 

 given by ourselves. In many conditions of 

 life, however, parents are forced to delegate 

 to other hands the care of their progeny. 

 The laboring poor, for instance, cannot con- 

 stantly watch over them. While the rich 

 wantonly confide their infants to the care of 

 menial hands, the poor trust them to any 

 which God is pleased to send to their aid. 

 It is even more essential to avoid giving bad 

 examples to children than to offer them good. 

 Yet how often are family dissensions and re- 

 criminations exposed to their observation ! A 

 man and wife living ill together, who so far 

 forget themselves as to quarrel before their 

 children, create a preference and partizan- 

 ship which must diminish the respect equally 

 due to both parents. In humbler life, 

 abusive language often ends with blows ; and 

 what must be the effect of such scenes on 

 the tender mind of infancy? The presence 

 of children on such occasions, when proved 

 before the magistracy, ought to be consi- 

 dered an aggravation of the offence against 

 the law. Fathers and mothers by upbraid- 

 ing each other in the presence of their 

 children, often beget impressions which all 

 their future representations are unable to 

 eradicate ; and of what avail to the comfort 

 of parents the brilliant accomplishments and 

 attractive manners of their children, if a son f 

 have been taught to disparage his father, or 

 a daughter to think ill of her mother ! Often 

 do children so young as to appear deficient 

 in observation, receive vague but indelible 

 impressions, afterwards recalled by a re- 

 trospective view ; when the past appears 

 clear and free from the vapors which veiled 

 it from our earlier comprehension. Among 

 the lower orders, if a poor man be laborious, 

 his son is usually the same. But the son of 

 a father who ill-uses the mother, is pretty 

 sure to turn out an idler and a dunce in 

 childhood, and, in riper years, a ruffian. 



THE MAN OF ADVENTURES. 



I was sitting in the coffee-room of the 

 Swan Inn, at Hastings, enjoying the cool sea- 

 breeze and a pint of Madeira, when the 

 entrance of a stranger dissipated the short 

 reverie into which I had fallen. " Waiter," 

 quoth he, as he walked up the room, " the 

 train starts at nine precisely, and therefore, 

 my fine fellow, you must please to give me 

 notice of the time ; for if I should be, by any 

 chance, disappointed — beware, revenge ! 

 Better you had never breathed this vital air 

 than answer my fell wrath." The waiter 

 departed with an incredulous smirk, and the 

 stranger, who had uttered the above fearful 

 threat with the cool unconcern of an oracu- 

 lar presence, began to hum an air, and to 

 arrange his neckcloth at the glass ; the swell 

 of such air being augmented or diminished 

 exactly in accordance with the folds and 

 windings of the cravat, and terminating in a 

 graceful shake on the completion of that 

 arrangement. 



During this short period, however, I had 

 been strictly scrutinising the appearance of 

 this mysterious person. He was a man some- 

 what below the ordinary size, and apparently 

 between forty and fifty years of age. His face 

 was of a copper complexion, and garnished 

 with a pair of exaggerated whiskers, which, 

 like his redundant head of hair, seemed to 

 have sustained some injury in an escape from 

 recent and devouring flames. There was a 

 singed aridity in both, as of a blighted furze- 

 bush. His eyes had all the restless activity 

 of bullets, and his promontory of a chin was 

 sustained by the neckcloth above-mentioned, 

 which meandered round his neck in an in- 

 finite multiplicity of windings, and at length 

 fell down his waistcoat with all the prodigality 

 of a cataract. 



While I was thus engaged in examining 

 this strange being, he approached, and offer- 

 ing me his snuff-box with much courteous- 

 ness, took a seat at the same table. 



" Charming view of the sea," said he, 

 "splendid prospect — ocean, ocean, — nothing 

 like ocean; what does the poet say — splen- 

 did poet, Byron — what says he of ocean? 

 Let me see, he likens it — to a horse, is it ? 

 No — yes — to a horse, certainly ; says he, 

 ' I'll lay my hand upon thy mane ' — glorious 

 burst that — as though it were the mane of a 

 horse, you perceive — ' I'll lay my hand upon 

 thy mane.' " Here he attempted to describe 

 the action by clinching one hand upon the 

 table in a convulsive manner, while he 

 snatched an enormous pinch of snuff with the 

 other. 



As I was not a little amused by this 

 original, I rather encouraged than repulsed 

 his advances towards conversation — an en- 

 couragement not at all necessary ; for I 

 found, ere long, that the main difficulty would 



