mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed
for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may
give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed
the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well
before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This
ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often
raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much
as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her
son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of
the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the
service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far
gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers.
The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very
easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth
Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because
I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author,
as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the
mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt.
In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered
very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.
I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you
would stand in admiration."----"I assure you," continued she, "for all
he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never
spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the
character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:

_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,
Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?_[266]

and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar.
I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but
withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he
could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image
of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or
spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed.
But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of
parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding
their children to accomplishme