good management, according to her own, and perhaps their, conceptions of the subject.

Such lady managers can furnish directions to cheap shops; and are great adepts in the delinquencies of servants and tradespeople; and are very liberal with their advice; and very well acquainted with the concerns and resources of their friends: they are sometimes, too, very ill-used persons, and more imposed upon and deceived than such experienced good managers deserve.

But the wise and good directress of a family is not only neither of these, but has no one point of resemblance to them. She is one who has, by early cultivation, obtained correct notions and established habits of genuine economy, founded upon christian principles; acknowledging reciprocal duties in every degree, and in every circumstance where her fellow creatures are concerned: they allow no personal or family considerations to compensate for one deviation from truth and justice; and they can perceive at once the absurdity and the insufficiency of the selfish and contracted views of mere worldly economists.

But there are innumerable claims to the title of a good manager: it would be an endless attempt to describe either them, or the economists, as they exist in every rank and degree.

Many have discovered, in spite of defective education, that helplessness does not increase comfort, and that idleness, however varied, does not secure happiness; without, therefore, deprecating the system so far as to apply one which is more allied to usefulness with their children, they endeavour to repair the defects they discover, by a desire to become notable and industrious; but like every late acquirement, it is generally ungracefully and unsuccessfully employed.

Such proficients fix their attention upon some one point of domestic economy, and imagine that good management and industry are comprised in that which occupies their time and attention. They are too apt, too, to make a display of their proficiency, which is injurious to the cause they would promote; for the uninitiated are easily alarmed at any departure from good taste and refinement, and must be strongly prejudiced against a cause which they

perceive to produce hurry, bustle, or any sacrifice of peace or comfort; but to the better instructed, the existence of any of these proves a degree of error, in exact proportion to their extent or continuance.

Neither is the desire for making an appearance, which is at variance with actual circumstances, confined to any one station: it becomes only more ridiculous as it descends from the lady manager to others, actuated by the same views, and governed by the same principles, but exercising their powers under different cir

cumstances.

We may, perhaps, witness an absurdity in the shape of a man servant, useful, and really indispensable for certain employments of a multiform character. But good-nature itself may surely be permitted to smile on beholding this graceless pretender to liveried honors, fresh from the garden or the stable, attending at a table, infinitely more in keeping with the neatly-attired and dexterous female, who would have lent her more satisfactory assistance at the same board for the same company only a few years

ago.

E

But I need not seek to furnish instances of absurdity arising from this prevalent and established fashion of adopting the modes and habits of persons and stations at a distance from ourselves; or endeavour to expose the various follies and inconsistencies which result from such a departure from good sense and good order. Meanness, derogatory imitations, false principles, servility, and every other base and unworthy feeling must be resorted to for the purpose of keepin gup this stupid senseless race after imaginary consequence: this must be evident to all whose better feelings deter them altogether from such a pursuit.

51

CHAP. VI.

A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.

as

I AM already led very far from my original purpose of contemplating our influence wives; and so much remains yet to be considered, that I dare not venture to return to it, except to consider another duty and means of influence arising from and most intimately connected with it and here I find myself at once on tender ground; and though I am disposed to walk delicately, I fear, that like Agag, I shall be hewn in pieces. What less punishment can be anticipated by those who venture in these days to question the wisdom, and the degree of perfection in judgment, which regulates maternal duties?

I do not, however, find myself unsupported when I venture to give utterance to an opinion, that spoiled children are more numerous and more general than ever! They are totally unlike the kicking, screaming little victims of mis