his valuable and original Theory of Vision' was considered a philosophical romance, yet his doctrines are now incorporated with every system of optics. His style is clear and unaffected, with the easy grace of the polished philosopher. A love of description and of external nature is evinced at times, and possesses something of the freshness of old Izaak Walton. The following extract is taken from 'An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,' written soon after the affair of the South Sea scheme :

INDUSTRY.

Industry is the natural sure way to wealth; this is so true, that it is impossible an industrious free people should want the necessaries and comforts of life, or an idle enjoy them under any form of government. Money is so far useful to the public, as it promoteth industry, and credit having the same effect, is of the same value with money; but money or credit circulating through a nation from hand to hand, without producing labour and industry in the inhabitants, is direct gaming.

It is not impossible for cunning men to make such plausible schemes, as may draw those who are less skillful into their own and the public ruin. But surely there is no man of sense and honesty but must see and own, whether he understands the game or not, that it is an evident folly for any people, instead of prosecuting the old honest methods of industry and frugality, to sit down to a public gaming-table and play off their money one to another.

The more methods there are in a state for acquiring riches without industry or merit, the less there will be of either in that state: this is as evident as the ruin that attends it. Besides, when money is shifted from hand to hand in such a blind fortuitous manner, that some men shall from nothing acquire in an instant vast estates, without the least desert; while others are as suddenly stripped of plentiful fortunes, and left on the parish by their own avarice and credulity, what can be hoped for on the one hand but abandoned luxury and wantonness, or on the other but extreme madness and despair?

In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the public, and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in the public

God grant the time be not near when men shall say, 'This island was once inhabited by a religious, brave, sincere people, of plain uncorrupt manners, respecting inbred worth rather than titles and appearance, assertors of liberty, lovers of their country, jealous of their own rights, and unwilling to infringe the rights of others; improvers of learning and useful arts, enemies to luxury, tender of other men's lives and prodigal of their own; inferior in nothing to the old Greeks or Romans, and superior to each of those people in the perfections of the other. Such were our ancestors during their rise and greatness; but they degenerated, grew servile flatterers of men in power, adopted Epicurean notions, became venal, corrupt, injurious, which drew upon them the hatred of God and man, and occasioned their final ruin.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, the writer with whom we shall close our remarks on the present period, was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Kingston, and was born in 1690. She was educated, like her brothers, in the Latin, Greek, and French languages, with each of which she became entirely familiar. In 1712, she married Edward Wortley Montagu, and on

her husband being appointed a commissioner of the treasury, she was introduced to the courtly and polished circles of London, and secured the friendship of Addison, Pope, Gay, and other distinguished literati of that period. Her personal beauty, and the charms of her conversation were, at that time, unrivalled. In 1716, her husband was appointed ambassador to the Porte, and Lady Mary accompanied him to Constantinople. During the journey, and her residence in the Levant, she corresponded with her sister, the Countess of Mar, Lady Rich, Pope, and others, delineating European and Turkish scenery and manners with accuracy and minuteness. On observing, among the villages in Turkey, the practice of inoculating for the small-pox, she bocame convinced of its utility and efficacy, and applied it to her own son, at that time about three years old. By great exertions, Lady Mary afterwards established the practice of inoculation in England, and from that country it has spread throughout the civilized world.

In 1718, Lady Mary's husband being recalled from his embassy, she returned to England, and, by the advice of Pope, settled at Twickenham. The rival wits did not, however, long continue friends. Pope seems to have entertained for Lady Mary a passion warmer than friendship; and on one occasion he is said to have made a tender declaration to her, which threw the lady into an immoderate fit of laughter, and made the sensitive poet ever afterwards her implacable enemy. In 1739, her health having declined, Lady Mary again left England, and after visiting Rome, Naples, and other prominent places, she finally settled at Louverre, in the Venetian territory, whence she corresponded freely and fully with her female friends and relations. Montagu died in 1761, immediately after which Lady Mary returned to England, but she did not long survive her husband, as her own death occurred on the twenty-first of August, 1762.

Few persons of any age or country ever united more solid sense and learning, to wit, fancy, and lively powers of description, than Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In epistolary composition she has very few equals, and scarcely a superior. Walpole may be more witty and sarcastic, and Cowper more unaffectedly natural, pure, and delightful; but if we consider the variety and novelty of the objects described in Lady Mary's letters, the fund of anecdote and observation they display, the just reflections that spring out of them, and the happy clearness and idiomatic grace of her style, we shall hesitate about placing her below any letter-writer that England ever produced. Her letters, it is true, may sometimes betray a want of feminine softness and delicacy; but that is attributable rather to the fashion of the times, than to any defect in her taste. Of these incomparable letters we present the following:

TO E. W. MONTAGU, ESQ.-ON MATRIMONIAL HAPPINESS.

* * If we marry, our happiness must consist in loving one another: 'tis principally my concern to think of the most probable method of making that love eternal. You object against living in London; I am not fond of it myself, and readily

give it up to you, though I am assured there needs more art to keep a fondness alive in solitude, where it generally preys upon itself. There is one article absolutely necessary to be ever beloved, one must be ever agreeable. There is no such thing as being agreeable without a thorough good-humour, a natural sweetness of temper, enlivened by cheerfulness. Whatever natural funds of gayety one is born with, 'tis necessary to be entertained with agreeable objects. Any body capable of tasting pleasure, when they confine themselves to one place, should take care 'tis the place in the world the most agreeable. Whatever you may now think (now, perhaps, you have some fondness for me), though your love should continue in its full force, there are hours when the most beloved mistress would be troublesome. People are not forever (nor is it in human nature that they should be) disposed to be fond; you would be glad to find in me the friend and the. companion. To be agreeably the last, it is necessary to be gay and entertaining. A perpetual solitude, in a place where you see nothing to raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation insensibly falls into dull and insipid. When I have no more to say to you, you will like me no longer. How dreadful is that view! You will reflect, for my sake you have abandoned the conversation of a friend that you liked, and your situation in a country where all things would have contributed to make your life pass in (the true volupté) a smooth tranquillity. I shall lose the vivacity which should entertain you, and you will have nothing to recompense you for what you have lost Very few people that have settled entirely in the country, but have grown at length weary of one another. The lady's conversation generally falls into a thousand impertinent effects of idleness; and the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and his horses, and out of love with every thing else. I am not now arguing in favour of the town; you have answered me as to that point. In respect of your health, 'tis the first thing to be considered, and I shall never ask you to do any thing injurious to that. But 'tis my opinion, 'tis necessary to be happy, that we neither of us think any place more agreeable than that where we are.

TO THE COUNTESS OF BUTE-ON FEMALE EDUCATION.

Louverre, Jany. 28. N. S., 1753.

DEAR CHILD-You have given me a great deal of satisfaction by your account of your eldest daughter. I am particularly pleased to hear she is a good arithmetician; it is the best proof of understanding: the knowledge of numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and brutes.

in

If there is any thing in blood, you may reasonably expect your children should be endowed with an uncommon share of good sense. Mr. Wortley's family and mine have both produced some of the greatest men that have been born in England; I mean Admiral Sandwich, and my grandfather, who was distinguished by the name of Wise William. I have heard Lord Bute's father mentioned as an extraordinary genius, though he had not many opportunities of showing it; and his uncle, the present Duke of Argyll, has one of the best heads I ever knew. I will therefore speak to you as supposing Lady Mary not only capable, but desirous of learning; that case by all means let her be indulged in it. You will tell me I did not make it a part of your education; your prospect was very different from hers. As you had much in your circumstances to attract the highest offers, it seemed your business to learn how to live in the world, as it is hers to know how to be easy out of it. It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so), without considering that nothing is beautiful which is displaced. Hence we see so many edifices raised, that the raisers can never inhabit, being too large for their fortunes. Vistas are laid open over barren heaths, and apartments contrived for a coolness very agreeable in Italy, but killing in the north of Britain: thus every woman endeavours to breed her daughter a fine lady,

qualifying her for a station in which she will never appear, and at the same time incapacitating her for that retirement to which she is destined. Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make her contented, but happy in it. No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions, nor regret the loss of expensive diversions, or variety of company, if she can be amused with an author in her closet. To render this amusement complete, she should be permitted to learn the languages. I have heard it lamented that boys lose so many years in mere learning of words: this is no objection to a girl, whose time is not so precious: she can not advance herself in any profession, and has therefore more hours to spare; and as you say her memory is good, she will be very agreeably employed this way. There are two cautions to be given on this subject: first, not to think herself learned when she can read Latin, or even Greek. Languages are more properly to be called vehicles of learning than learning itself, as may be observed in many schoolmasters, who, though perhaps critics in grammar, are the most ignorant fellows upon earth. True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words. I would no further wish her a linguist than to enable her to read books in their originals, that are often corrupted, and are always injured, by translations. Two hours' application every morning will bring this about much sooner than you can imagine, and she will have leisure enough besides to run over the English poetry, which is a more important part of a woman's education than it is generally supposed. Many a young damsel has been ruined by a fine copy of verses, which she would have laughed at if she had known it had been stolen from Mr. Waller. I remember, when I was a girl, I saved one of my companions from destruction, who communicated to me an epistle she was quite charmed with. As she had naturally a good taste, she observed the lines were not so smooth as Prior's or Pope's, but had more thought and spirit than any of theirs. She was wonderfully delighted with such a demonstration of her lover's sense and passion, and not a little pleased with her own charms, that had force enough to inspire such elegancies. In the midst of this triumph, I showed her that they were taken from Randolph's poems, and the unfortunate transcriber was dismissed with the scorn he deserved. To say truth, the poor plagiary was very unlucky to fall into my hands; that author being no longer in fashion, would have escaped any one of less universal reading than myself. You should encourage your daughter to talk over with you what she reads; and as you are very capable of distinguishing, take care she does not mistake pert folly for wit and humour, or rhyme for poetry, which are the common errors of young people, and have a train of ill consequences. The second caution to be given her (and which is absolutely necessary), is to conceal whatever learning she attains, with as much solicitude as she would hide crookedness or lameness: the parade of it can only serve to draw on her the envy, and consequently the most inveterate hatred, of all he and she fools, which will certainly be at least three parts in four of her acquaintance. The use of knowledge in our sex, besides the amusement of solitude, is to moderate the passions, and learn to be contented with a small expense; which are the certain effects of a studious life; and it may be preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves, and will not suffer us to share. You will tell me I have not observed this rule myself; but you are mistaken: it is only inevitable accident that has given me my reputation that way. I have always carefully avoided it, and ever thought it a misfortune. The explanation of this paragraph would occasion a long digression, which I will not trouble you with, it being my present design only to say what I think useful for the instruction of my granddaughter, which I have much at heart. If she has the same inclination (I should say passion) for learning I was born with, history, geography, and philosophy will furnish her with materials to pass away cheerfully a longer life than is allotted to mortals. I believe there are few heads capable of making Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, but

the result of them is not difficult to be understood by a moderate capacity. Do not fear this should make her affect the character of Lady or Lady, or Mrs.

; those women are ridiculous, not because they have learning, but because they have it not. One thinks herself a complete historian, after reading Echard's Roman History; another a profound philosopher, having got by heart some of Pope's unintelligible essays; and a third an able divine, on the strength of Whitfield's sermons; thus you hear them screaming politics and controversy.

It is a saying of Thucydides, that ignorance is bold, and knowledge reserved. Indeed it is impossible to be far advanced in it without being more humbled by a conviction of human ignorance than elated by learning. At the same time I recommend books, I neither exclude work nor drawing. I think it is as scandalous for a woman not to know how to use a needle, as for a man not to know how to use a sword. I was once extremely fond of my pencil, and it was a great mortification to me when my father turned off my master, having made a considerable progress for the short time I learned. My over-eagerness in the pursuit of it had brought a weakness in my eyes, that made it necessary to leave off; and all the advantage I got was the improvement of my hand. I see by hers that practice will make her a ready writer: she may attain it by serving you for a secretary, when your health or affairs make it troublesome to you to write yourself; and custom will make it an agreeable amusement to her. She can not have too many for that station of life which will probably be her fate. The ultimate end of your education was to make you a good wife (and I have the comfort to hear that you are one); hers ought to be to make her happy in a virgin state. I will not say it is happier, but it is undoubtedly safer, than any marriage. In a lottery where there is (at the lowest computation) ten thousand blanks to a prize, it is the most prudent choice not to venture. I have always been so thoroughly persuaded of this truth, that, notwithstanding the flattering views I had for you (as I never intended you a sacrifice to my vanity), I thought I owed you the justice to lay before you all the hazards attending matrimony: you may recollect I did so in the strongest manner. Perhaps you may have more success in the instructing your daughter; she has so much company at home, she will not need seeking it abroad, and will more readily take the notions you think fit to give her. As you were alone in my family, it would have been thought a great cruelty to suffer you no companions of your own age, especially having so many near relations, and I do not wonder their opinions influenced yours. I was not sorry to see you not determined on a single life, knowing it was not your father's intention; and contented myself with endeavouring to make your home so easy, that you might not be in haste to leave it.

I am afraid you will think this a very long insignificant letter. hope the kindness of the design will excuse it, being willing to give you every proof in my power that I am your most affectionate mother.