ons of it, he seems rather to have contracted a habit of
life, than manner of discourse. To his books he seems to owe a good
economy in his affairs, and a complacency in his manners, though in
others that way of education has commonly a quite different effect. The
epistles of the other son are full of accounts of what he thought most
remarkable in his reading. He sends his father for news the last noble
story he had read. I observe, he is particularly touched with the
conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had
said, if he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country.
Many other incidents in his little letters give omens of a soul capable
of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is, that
this gentleman had, in the present war, the honour and happiness of
doing an action for which only it was worth coming into the world. Their
father is the most intimate friend they have, and they always consult
him rather than any other, when any error has happened in their conduct
through youth and inadvertency. The behaviour of this gentleman to his
sons has made his life pass away with the pleasures of a second youth;
for as the vexations which men receive from their children hasten the
approach of age and double the force of years; so the comforts which
they reap from them are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the
injuries of time. Parents of children repeat their lives in their
offspring, and their concern for them is so near, that they feel all
their sufferings and enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own
proper persons. But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common
race of squires in this kingdom use their sons as persons that are
waiting only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and
happiness; as indeed they are by their own making them such. In cases
where a man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it
is commonly said, "Let him look at home." I am sorry to own it; but
there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs, who have been as
erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family whatsoever. The
head of this branch is now in town, and has brought up with him his son
and daughter (who are all the children he has) in order to be put some
way into the world, and see fashions. They are both very ill-bred cubs,
and having lived together from their infancy without knowledge of the
distinctions and decencies