ather, and contain all the little passages of their lives, and
the new ideas they received as the years advanced. There is in them
an account of their diversions as well as their exercises; and what I
thought very remarkable is, that two sons of the family, who now make
considerable figures in the world, gave omens of that sort of character
which they now bear in the first rudiments of thought which they show
in their letters. Were one to point out a method of education, one could
not, methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the
children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and inclinations
to their best friend with so much freedom, that he can form schemes for
their future life and conduct from an observation of their tempers; and
by that means be early enough in choosing their way of life, to make
them forward in some art or science at an age when others have not
determined what profession to follow. As to the persons concerned in
this packet I am speaking of, they have given great proofs of the force
of this conduct of their father in the effect it has upon their lives
and manners. The older, who is a scholar, showed from his infancy
a propensity to polite studies, and has made a suitable progress in
literature; but his learning is so well woven into his mind, that from
the impressions 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