cellent. As to those geniuses, which may seem to have an equal aptitude for several things, he regards them as so many unfinished pieces of nature wrought off in haste.

There are indeed but very few to whom nature has been so unkind, that they are not capable of shining in some science or other. There is a certain bias towards knowledge in every mind, which may be strengthened and improved by proper applications.

'The story of Clavius* is very well known. He was entered in a college of Jesuits, and after having been tried at several parts of learning, was upon the point of being dismissed as an hopeless blockhead, until one of the fathers took it into his head to make an essay of his parts in geometry, which, it seems, hit his genius so luckily, that he afterwards became one of the greatest mathematicians of the age. It is commonly thought that the sagacity of these fathers, in discovering the talent of a young student, has not a little contributed to the figure which their order has made in the world.

'How different from this manner of education is that which prevails in our own country! where nothing is more usual than to see forty or fifty boys of several ages, tempers, and inclinations, ranged together in the same class, employed upon the same authors, and enjoined the same tasks! Whatever their natural genius may be, they are all to be made poets, historians, and orators alike. They are all obliged to have the same capacity, to bring in the same tale of verse, and to furnish out the same portion of prose. Every

* Christopher Clavius, a geometrician and astronomer, author of five volumes in folio, who died at Rome in 1612, aged

75.

boy is bound to have as good a memory as the captain of the form. To be brief, instead of adapting studies to the particular genius of a youth, we expect from the young man, that he should adapt his genius to his studies. This, I must confess, is not so much to be imputed to the instructor, as to the parent, who will never be brought to believe, that his son is not capable of performing as much as his neighbour's, and that he may not make him whatever he has a mind

to.

'If the present age is more laudable than those which have gone before it in any single particular, it is in that generous care which several welldisposed persons have taken in the education of poor children; and as in these charity schools there is no place left for the overweening fondness of a parent, the directors of them would make them beneficial to the public, if they considered the precept which I have been thus long inculcating. They might easily, by well examining the parts of those under their inspection, make a just distribution of them into proper classes and divisions, and allot to them this or that particular study, as their genius qualifies them for professions, trades, handicrafts, or service, by sea or land.

'How is this kind of regulation wanting in the three great professions!

'Dr. South, complaining of persons who took upon them holy orders, though altogether unqualified for the sacred function, says somewhere, that many a man runs his head against a pulpit, who might have done his country excellent service at the plough-tail.

'In like manner many a lawyer, who makes but an indifferent figure at the bar, might have

made a very elegant waterman, and have shined at the Temple stairs, though he can get no business in the house.

'I have known a corn-cutter, who with a right education would have been an excellent physician.

'To descend lower, are not our streets filled with sagacious draymen, and politicians in liveries? We have several tailors of six foot high, and meet with many a broad pair of shoulders that are thrown away upon a barber, when perhaps at the same time we see a pigmy porter reeling under a burden, who might have managed a needle with much dexterity, or have snapped his fingers with great ease to himself, and advantage to the public.

The Spartans, though they acted with the spirit which I am here speaking of, carried it much further than what I propose. Among them it was not lawful for the father himself to bring up his children after his own fancy. As soon as they were seven years old, they where all listed in several companies, and disciplined by the public. The old men were spectators of their performances, who often raised quarrels among them, and set them at strife with one another, that by those early discoveries they might see how their several talents lay, and, without any regard to their quality, disposed of them accordingly, for the service of the commonwealth. By this means Sparta soon became the mistress of Greece, and famous through the whole world for her civil and military discipline.

'If you think this letter deserves a place among your speculations, I may perhaps trouble you with some other thoughts on the same subject. 'I am, &c.'

X.

"I GIVE you this trouble in order to propose myself to you as an assistant in the weighty cares which you have thought fit to undergo for the public good. I am a very great lover of women, that is to say, honestly; and as it is natural to study what one likes, I have industriously applied myself to understand them. The present circumstance relating to them is, that I think there wants under you, as Spectator, a person to be distinguished and vested in the power and quality of a censor on marriages. I lodge at the Temple, and know, by seeing women come hither, and afterwards observing them conducted by their counsel to judges' chambers, that there is a custom in case of making conveyance of a wife's estate, that she is carried to a judge's apartment, and left alone with him, to be examined in private, whether she has not been frightened or sweetened by her spouse into the act she is going to do, or whether it is of her own free will. Now. if this be a method founded upon reason and equity, why should there not be also a proper officer for examining such as are entering into the state of matrimony, whether they are forced by parents on one side, or moved by interest only on the other, to come together, and bring forth

such awkward heirs as are the product of half love and constrained compliances? There is nobody, though I say it myself, would be fitter for this office than I am: for I am an ugly fellow, of great wit and sagacity. My father was an hale country 'squire, my mother a witty beauty of no fortune. The match was made by consent of my mother's parents against her own, and I am the child of the rape on the wedding night; so that I am as healthy and as homely as my father, but as sprightly and agreeable as my mother. It would be of great ease to you, if you would use me under you, that matches might be better regulated for the future, and we might have no more chil dren of squabbles. I shall not reveal all my pretensions until I receive your answer; and am,

SIR,

Your most humble servant,
MULES PALFREY.'

MR. SPECTATOR,

'I AM one of those unfortunate men within the city-walls, who am married to a woman of quality, but her temper is something different from that of Lady Anvil. My lady's whole time and thoughts are spent in keeping up to the mode both in apparel and furniture. All the goods in my house have been changed tree times in seven years. I have had seven children by her: and by our marriage-articles she was to have her apartment new furnished as often as she lay-in.Nothing in our house is useful but that which is fashionable; my pewter holds out generally half a year, my plate a full twelve-month; chairs are not fit to sit in that were made two years since, nor beds fit for any thing but to sleep in, that have stood up above that time. My dear is of opinion