friendship is so rare. You will know how to use your friends to more purpose. They will aid you in all your difficulties with advice-with upholding; and lastly and most dearly, with sympathy in your inevitable sorrows. May you be blest with a true friend, who will adhere to you inflexibly through good report and evil report; through prosperity and adversity; through all the changes of this mutable world, and even smooth the bed of death in the closing struggle of nature. I can wish you few better things on this side heaven. With true regard, I remain,

LETTER XV.

Ever yours.

MY DEAR MARY,

It is customary in the present age, to condemn, en masse, the whole race of romances as dangerous productions. But I cannot consent to sweep away so large a portion of the blossoms of literature, and so fair a field for the exercise and improvement of taste. Dry writers, who contend for the daily bread of sober, nutritious morality, are afraid to allow any mixture of fancy's flowers, with the intellectual banquet of philosophy and science. But though I would certainly prefer solid works to the light productions of fancy, yet I cannot but desire to retain the latter as auxiliaries in my plan of mental improvement.

To ground an education upon romance reading, would be like building a portico instead of a dwelling house. But no one will deny that the portico is a pleasing, and

even useful, appendage to the comfortable mansion, when it is erected on a firm.foundation. Besides, if all moralists were to unite in prohibiting works of fancy, it would be impossible to enforce the prohibition. If they are not read openly, they will be devoured in secret; and the habit of practising deception is more dangerous to the morals, than a list of romances. I never knew an instance of an imperative prohibition of this sort, that was not accompanied with evasions, if not positive infractions. Parents should avoid enforcing such rules as may admit the imputation of needless severity, or fastidious particularity. However dutiful their children may be, they will find human nature harder to control than they imagined, when they were forming their theories upon some beautiful abstract system. It is better, therefore, to make timely allowance for those exuberances, which will infallibly present difficulties in practice, though they may have been overlooked in theory. But even supposing it practicable to keep young people from romances of every description, it certainly is not desirable in my opinion. There are works of moral fiction in our day, which are eminently calculated to exalt the moral sense and develop the social virtues. The mode of illustrating by fictitious examples, the most needful moral qualities, has been practised successfully in all ages. The sacred parables themselves are beautiful specimens of this method of instruction: most of the books intended for children, are on this plan. But when the intellect has expanded, and can comprehend the abstract principles of ethics, it is alleged that the mind can receive more solid improvement from works of reason and philosophy. This is very true. There are individuals in both sexes, who are capable of comprehending the deepest and most abstract disquisitions on morals, and such works should indubi

tably be read by those gifted individuals. But there are many females, (I will confine myself to them,) who have not sufficiently strong minds, to enter into deep investigations. To all such, a lighter method of instruction is valuable, because it enables them to draw important truths from accessible sources. And to many, whose opportunities of acquiring solid information are rare, those works which simplify important knowledge, are valuable. But for you, my dear Mary, who have every advantage in acquiring an education, I would lay down a plain and easy rule.

Never suffer yourself to be seduced into novel reading as an occupation. In your hours of recreation, read those works of fiction which have been put forth by writers of undoubted talent. To suppose that you could prey upon the garbage of a circulating library, would be to draw the painful inference that you were destitute of taste, and this I cannot bear to do even in conjecture. A mind that can take pleasure in the trash of silly novels, which may be raked from the charnel houses of literature, deserves to be compared to the female monster in the Arabian tales, who fed upon dead bodies. I cannot imagine so degraded a state of intellect among the enlightened people of our age and country. But if such a morbid appetite should by chance exist, it should be resisted like the depraved desire to eat chalk and other unnatural food, which betokens a diseased state of the animal system. There can be no regular rule for indulging a taste for the higher works of fancy. Each individual is the best judge of what is safe and salutary for his own case. As particular articles of food disagree with particular constitutions, so there are certain intellectual repasts which cannot be partaken without danger, by minds in a certain state. I once knew a fine girl, who could not venture to read a line of Byron's poetry.

She began by reading his works with avidity, as fast as they were published; but they brought on such an unnatural and feverish excitement of her imagination, that she determined to abstain from them as poisonous aliment. I would advise you to keep this rule steadily yourself, and never to read any thing that carries you away from the every-day concerns of life. There are some imaginations that fly away from reason and reality, as soon as they borrow wings from poetry or romance. There are others that merely skim along lightly, and experience a pleasant buoyancy of spirits, from the perusal of the most animated work of fancy. The first should avoid, as dangerous, every thing which tends to excite them: the last may venture to employ leisure time in light reading. But never suffer yourself to neglect serious study or occupation, for the sake of the finest poem or romance that ever was composed. I would as soon live upon syllabub or honey, as to fill up my mind with the froth and foam of romance; but I nevertheless eat syllabub with pleasure in its proper place, after I have satisfied myself with nutritious diet; and I read Scott's romances (some of them) with great pleasure by way of recreation: they relax the mind pleasantly enough, after long tension; but they would degrade it utterly to frivolity, if nothing more serious was put before them. Read then, solely for recreation, both romances and poetry, unless you find that they unfit you for serious thought; if they have that effect, discard them as you have already discarded plays and balls. Every thing that unhinges the mind and slackens the intellectual nerve, is dangerous, and must be avoided. We have too much use for our sober faculties in this perplexed scene of life, to allow them to weaken or droop over fiction or sentiment: the medium is always best and safest. Some people are so fond of visiting,

that they will not mind their own affairs at home; but we would not therefore prohibit young people from visiting their friends, lest they should contract a habit of gadding. All amusements are dangerous, when the mind becomes exclusively, or disproportionably attached to them; but no moralist would on that account, prohibit recreations entirely. The abuse of any good thing, is no argument against the judicious use of it. For my part, I wish all our amusements could be intellectual instead of sensual; and surely one of Scott's best romances, or a sublime piece of poetry, would fill up a leisure hour more profitably than chess, or cards, or riddles, not to mention the senseless games in vogue among the young and thoughtless. The novels of Mrs. Brunton, and Miss Grace Kennedy, are calculated to impress the fundamental truths of religion indelibly upon the mind. They exhibit the beauties and advantages of Christian faith and practice, in an interesting delineation of characters drawn from real life. The little work, by the last named author, entitled, "Profession not Principle, or the name of Christian not Christianity," contains the best description I have ever seen, of the gradual change which takes place in the heart, when it is renewed by grace. Among the many irreligious persons in our age and country, there are not a few who persist in unbelief, from utter ignorance of the beauties of true Christianity. They have been nurtured in darkness, and therefore do not seek the light. 'The veil has often been removed from the vision of such people, by a clear and lucid exposition of divine truth, brought before the mind in the narrative form. I remember being greatly aided in my researches by Mrs. Brunton's "Discipline," which came in my way, in the midst of the perplexity attendant on my first examination into the mysteries of revelation. But in recom