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as well have remained upon the common. I should be a fool indeed to pay such a price for a purchase, and let in my neighbours for a share; therefore I am determined to keep her for myself, for pleasure is my only object, and this I take it is a sort of pleasure, that does not consist in participation.

'The next question is, how I must contrive to keep her to myself.-Not by force; nor by locking her up; there is no pleasure in that notion; compulsion is out of the case; inclination therefore is the next thing; I must make it her own choice to be faithful: it seems then to be incumbent upon me to make a wise choice, to look well before I fix upon a wife, and to use her well, when I have fixed: I will be very kind to her, because I will not destroy my own pleasure; and I will be very careful of the tempations I expose her to, for the same reason. She shall not lead the life of your fine town ladies; I have a charming place in the country; I will pass most of my time in the country; there she will be safe, and I shall be happy. I love pleasure, and therefore I will have little to do with that curst intriguing town of London; I am determined to make my house in the country as pleasant as it is possible.

'But if I give up the gaieties of a town life, and the club, and the gaming-table, and the girls, for a wife and the country, I will have the sports of the country in perfection; I will keep the best pack of hounds in England, and hunt every day in the week.

-But hold a moment there! what will become of my wife all the while I am following the hounds? Will she follow nobody? will nobody follow her? A pretty figure I shall make, to be chasing a stag, and come home with the horns. At least I shall not risk the experiment; I shall not like to leave her at home, and I cannot take her with me, for that would spoil my pleasure; and I hate a horse-dog woman;

I will keep no whipper-in in petticoats.

I per

ceive therefore I must give up the hounds, for I am determined nothing shall stand in the way of my pleasure.

'Why then I must find out some amusements that my wife can partake in; we must ride about the park in fine weather; we must visit the grounds, and the gardens, and plan out improvements, and make plantations; it will be rare employment for the poor people that is a thought that never struck me before; methinks there must be a great deal of pleasure in setting the poor to work-I shall like a farm for the same reason; and my wife will take pleasure in a dairy; she shall have the most elegant dairy in England; and I will build a conservatory, and she shall have such plants and such flowers!-I have a notion I shall take pleasure in them myself-and then there is a thousand things to do within doors; it is a fine old mansion, that is the truth of it: I will give it an entire repair; it wants new furniture; that will be very pleasant work for my wife: I perceive I could not afford to keep hounds and to do this into the bargain. But this will give me the most pleasure all to nothing, and then my wife will partake of it-and we will have music and books-I recollect that I have got an excellent library-there is another pleasure I had never thought of-and then no doubt we shall have children, and they are very pleasant company, when they can talk and understand what is said to them; and now I begin to reflect, I find there is a vast many pleasures in the life I have chalked out, and what a fool should I be to throw away my money at the gaming-table, or my health at any table, or my affections upon harlots, or my time upon hounds and horses, or employ either money, health, affections, or time, in any other pleasures or pursuits, than these which I now perceive

will lead me to solid happiness in this life, and secure a good chance for what may befal me hereafter!'

NUMBER XXXVI.

Pudore et liberalitate liberos

Retinere satius esse credo, quàm metu ---TERENT.
-Better far

To bind your children to you by the ties

Of gentleness and modesty than fear.-COLMAN.

GEMINUS and Gemellus were twin sons of a country gentleman of fortune, whom I shall call Euphorion; when they were of age to begin their grammar learning, Euphorion found himself exceedingly puzzled to decide upon the best mode of education; he had read several treatises on the subject, which instead of clearing up his difficulties had increased them; he had consulted the opinions of his friends and neighbours, and he found those so equally divided, and so much to be said on both sides, that he could determine upon neither; unfortunately for Euphorion he had no partialities of his own, for the good gentleman had had little or no education himself: the clergyman of the parish preached up the moral advantages of private tuition; the lawyer, his near neighbour, dazzled his imagination with the connexions and knowledge of the world to be gained in a public school. Euphorion perceiving himself in a strait between two roads, and not knowing which to prefer, cut the difficulty by taking both; so that Geminus was put under private tuition of the clergyman above mentioned, and Gemellus was taken up to town by the lawyer to be entered at Westminster school.

Euphorion having thus put the two systems fairly to issue, waited the event, but every time that Gemellus came home at the breaking-up, the private system rose and the public sunk on the comparison in the father's mind, for Gemellus's appearance no longer kept pace with his brother's; wild and ragged as a colt, battered and bruised and dishevelled, he hardly seemed of the same species with the spruce little master in the parlour; Euphorion was shocked to find that his manners were no less altered than his person, for he herded with the servants in the stable, was for ever under the horses' heels, and foremost in all games and sports with the idle boys of the parish; this was a sore offence in Euphorion's eyes, for he abhorred low company, and being the first gentleman of his family, seemed determined to keep up to the title: misfortunes multiplied upon poor Gemellus, and every thing conspired to put him in complete disgrace, for he began to corrupt his brother, and was detected in debauching him to a game at cricket, from which Geminus was brought home with a bruise on the shin, that made a week's work for the surgeon; and what was still worse, there was conviction of the blow being given by a ball from Gemellus's bat; this brought on a severe interdiction of all farther fellowship between the brothers, and they were effectually kept apart for the future.

A suspicion now took place in the father's mind, that Gemellus had made as little progress in his books, as he had in his manners; but as this was a discovery he could not venture upon in person, he substituted his proxy for the undertaking. Gemellus had so many evasions and alibis in resource, that it was long before the clergyman could bring the case to a hearing, and the report was not very favourable in any sense to the unlucky school-boy,

for Gemellus had been seized with a violent fit of sneezing in the crisis of examination, to the great annoyance of the worthy preceptor, who was forced to break up the conference re infecta and in some disorder, for amongst other damages which had accrued to his person and apparel, he presented himself to the wondering eyes of Euphorion with a huge black bush wig stuck full of paper darts, and as thickly spiked as the back of a porcupine. The culprit was instantly summoned, and made no other defence, than that they slipt out of his hand, and he did not go to do it.'- Are these your Westminster tricks, sirrah?' cried the angry father, and aiming a blow at his skull with his crutch, brought the wrong person to the ground; for the nimble culprit had slipped out of the way, and Euphorion, being weak and gouty, literally followed the blow and was laid sprawling on the floor : Gemellus flew to his assistance, and jointly with the parson got him on his legs, but his anger was now so inflamed, that Gemellus was ordered out of the room under sentence of immediate dismission to school; Euphorion declared he was so totally spoilt, that he would not be troubled with him any longer in his family, else he would instantly have reversed his education; it was now too late (he observed to the parson, whilst he was drawing the paper darts from his wig), and therefore he should return to the place from whence he came, and order was given for passing him off by the stage next morning.

A question was asked about his holiday-task, but Geminus, who had now entered his father's chamber, in a mild and pacifying tone, assured Euphorion that his brother was provided in that respect, for that he himself had done the task for him: this was pouring oil upon flame, and the idle culprit was once more called to the bar to receive a most severe

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