have so many long stories when we come back in the evening. There are no such eggs, nor fowls, nor cream, as we meet with in those excursions. I am always appealed to as a voucher; and I can safely say, that we thought so, especially when we took a long walk, or fished or shot by the way.

Benevolus has four sons and three daughters. Their education has been scrupulously attended to; and there are perhaps no young people of their age more accomplished. When I speak of their accomplishments, I do not mean only their skill in the ordinary branches of education, music, dancing, drawing, and so forth. I have seen such acquirements pass through the memory and the fingers of young people, yet leave little fruit behind them. It is not so with my young friends here; not only are the faculties employed, but the mind is enriched by all their studies. I have learned a great deal of true philosophy, during the rainy days of this season, from the little philosophers in Benevolus's library; and when I indulge myself in a morning's lounge beside the young ladies and their mother, I always rise with sentiments better regulated, with feelings more attuned, than when I sat down. The young people's accomplishments are sometimes shewn, but never exhibted; brought forth, unassumingly to bestow pleasure on others, not to minister to their own vanity, or that of their parents. In music their talents are such as might attract the applause of the most skilful; yet they never refuse to exert them in the style that may please the most ignorant. Music their father confesses he is found of, beyond the moderation of a philosopher. 'Tis a relaxation, he says, which indulges without debasing the feelings, which employs without wasting the mind. first time I was here, I had rode in a very bad day through a very dreary road; it was dark before I

The

reached the house. ing rain, the howling wind, and a flooded road, to a saloon lighted cheerily up, and filled with the mingled sounds of their family concert, was so delightful, that I shall never forget it.

The transition from the batter

There is, however, a living harmony in the appearance of the family, that adds considerably to the pleasure of this and every other entertainment. To see how the boys hang upon their father, and with what looks of tenderness the girls gather ronnd their mother! To be happy at home,' said Benevolus one day to me, when we were talking of the sex, is one of the best dowries we can give a daughter with a good husband, and the best preventive against her chusing a bad one. How many miserable matches have I known some of my neighbours' girls make, merely to escape from the prison of their father's house; and having married for freedom, they resol ved to be as little as they could in their husband's.'

Benevolus's Lady, though the mother of so many children, is still a very fine woman. That lofty elegance, however, which, in her younger days, I re member awing so many lovers into adoration, she has now softened into a matron gentleness, which is infinitely engaging. There is a modest neatness in her dress, a chastened grace in her figure, a sort of timid liveliness in her conversation, which we cannot but love ourselves, and are not surprised to see her husband look on with delight. In the management of her household concerns, she exerts a quiet and unperceived attention to her family and her guests, to their convenience, their sports, their amusements, which accommodates every one without the tax of seeing it bustled for. In the little circles at breakfast, where the plans of the day are laid, one never finds those faces of embarrassment, those whispers of

Mamma is applied to in all arrangements, consulted in schemes for excursions, in the difficulty of interfering engagements, and is often pressed to be of parties, which she sometimes enlivens with her pre

sence.

Benevolus, in the same manner, is frequently the companion of his son's sports, and rides very keenly after an excellent pack of harriers, though they say he has gone rather seldomer out this season than he used to do, having got so good a deputy in me. He was disputing t'other day, with the clergyman of the parish, a very learned and a very worthy man, on the love of sport. I allow, my good Sir, (said Benevolus,) that there are better uses for time`; but, exclusive of exercise to the body, there are so many dissipations more hurtful to the mind, (dissipations even of reading, of thinking, and of feeling, which are never reckoned on as such,) that if sport be harmless, it is useful. I have another reason for encouraging it in my son. It will give him an additional tie to the country, which is to be the chief scene of his future life, as a man likes his wife the better that, besides more important accomplishments, she can sing and dance; and in both cases a man of a feeling mind will connect with the mere amusement, ideas of affection, and remembrances of tenderness. Methinks I perceive an error in the system of education which some country-gentlemen follow with their sons. They send them, when lads, to study at foreign universities, and to travel into foreign countries, and then expect them, rather unreasonably, to become country-gentlemen at their return. My son shall travel to see other countries, but he shall first learn to love his own. There is a polish, there are ornaments, I know, which travel gives; but the basis must be an attachment to home. My son's ruffles may be of lace, but his shirt must be of more durable stuff.›

In this purpose Benevolus has perfectly succeeded with his son, who is now eighteen, with much of the information of a man, but with all the unassuming modesty of a boy. 'Tis his pleasure and his pride to acknowledge the claims which his native scenes have upon him. He knows the name of every hamlet, and of its inhabitants; he visits them when he can be of use, gives encouragement to their improvements, and distributes rewards to the industrious. In return, they feel the most perfect fealty and regard to him. The old men observe how like he is to his father; and their wives trace the eyes and the lips of his mother.

The same good sense in their management, and a similar attention to their happiness, is shewn to every inferior member of Benevolus's household. His domestics revere and love him; yet regularity and attention are no where so habitual. Attention to every guest is one of the first lessons a servant learns at this house, and an attention of that useful and benevolent sort which is exactly the reverse of what is practised at some great houses in the country, where a man is vastly well attended, provided he has attendants of his own that make it needless; but a person of inferior rank may wait some time before he can find a servant whose province it is to take any care of him. At Benevolus's, it is every man's province to shew a stranger kindness; and there is an aspect of welcome in every domestic one meets. Even the mastiff in the court is so gentle, so humanized by the children, and bears his faculties so meek,' that the very beggar is not afraid of Trusty, though he bays him.

In such quarters and with such society, I do not count the weeks of my stay, like your correspondent Urbanus. The family talks of not visiting Edinburgh

I may stay with them till that time: so if your coffee, house-friend takes notes of arrivals this winter, he may possibly mark me down in my seat in the coach destined for N° 7, answering the questions of two cherub-faced boys, who are a sort of pupils of mine here in all the idle branches of their education.

V

I am,

SIR,

Your most obedient servant.

W. G.

N° 97. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1786,

To the feeling and the susceptible there is something wonderfully pleasing in the contemplation of genius, of that supereminent reach of mind by which some men are distinguished. In the view of highly superior talents, as in that of great and stupendous natural objects, there is a sublimity which fills the soul with wonder and delight, which expands it, as it were, beyond its usual bounds, and which, investing our nature with extraordinary powers, and extraordinary honours, interests our curiosity and flatters our pride.

This divinity of genius, however, which admiration is fond to worship, is best arrayed in the darkness of distant and remote periods, and is not easily acknowledged in the present times, or in places with which we are perfectly acquainted. Exclusive of all the deductions which envy or jealousy may sometimes be supposed to make, there is a familiarity in the near approach of persons around sistent with the lofty ideas which we wish to form of

us, not

very con