ake up the Ill-will of our Parents, than to follow them in their
Friendships.

One would think there should need no more to make Men keep up this
sort of Relation with the utmost Sanctity, than to examine their own
Hearts. If every Father remembered his own Thoughts and Inclinations
when he was a Son, and every Son remembered what he expected from his
Father, when he himself was in a State of Dependance, this one
Reflection would preserve Men from being dissolute or rigid in these
several Capacities. The Power and Subjection between them, when
broken, make them more emphatically Tyrants and Rebels against each
other, with greater Cruelty of Heart, than the Disruption of States
and Empires can possibly produce. I shall end this Application to you
with two Letters which passed between a Mother and Son very lately,
and are as follows.

_Dear_ FRANK,

If the Pleasures, which I have the Grief to hear you pursue in Town,
do not take up all your Time, do not deny your Mother so much of it,
as to read seriously this Letter. You said before Mr. _Letacre_,
that an old Woman might live very well in the Country upon half my
Jointure, and that your Father was a fond Fool to give me a
Rent-Charge of Eight hundred a Year to the Prejudice of his Son.
What _Letacre_ said to you upon that Occasion, you ought to have
born with more Decency, as he was your Fathers well-beloved
Servant, than to have called him _Country-put_. In the first place,
_Frank_, I must tell you, I will have my Rent duly paid, for I will
make up to your Sisters for the Partiality I was guilty of, in
making your Father do so much as he has done for you. I may, it
seems, live upon half my Jointure! I lived upon much less, _Frank_,
when I carried you from Place to Place in these Arms, and could
neither eat, dress, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you a
weakly Child, and shedding Tears when the Convulsions you were then
troubled with returned upon you. By my Care you outgrew them, to
throw away the Vigour of your Youth in the Arms of Harlots, and deny
your Mother what is not yours to detain. Both your Sisters are
crying to see the Passion which I smother; but if you please to go
on thus like a Gentleman of the Town, and forget all Regards to your
self and Family, I shall immediately enter upon your Estate for the
Arrear due to me, and wi