ngs, thy own guilt will multiply Crimes by example, and as it were,
confirme Ill by authority." And "Shift not yourself in the sight of
others" hardly does duty for the precept, "It is insufferable
impoliteness to stretch the body, extend the arms, and assume different
postures." There are, however, but few instances in which the sense of
the original has been lost; indeed, the rendering of the Washington MS.
is generally an improvement on the original, which is too diffuse, and
even more an improvement on the Hawkins version.

Indeed, although Washington was precocious,--a surveyor at
seventeen,--it would argue qualities not hitherto ascribed to him were
we to suppose that, along with his faulty grammar and spelling, he was
competent at fourteen for such artistic selection and prudent omission
as are shown by a comparison of his 110 Rules with the 170 much longer
ones of the English version. The omission of religious passages, save
the very general ones with which the Rules close, and of all scriptural
ones, is equally curious whether we refer the Rules to young Washington
or to the Rector who taught him. But it would be of some significance if
we suppose the boy to have omitted the precept to live "peeceably in
that vocation unto which providence hath called thee;" and still more
that he should have derived nothing from the following: "Do not think
thou canst be a friend to the King whilst thou art an enemy to God: if
thy crying iniquity should invite God's judgments to the Court, it would
cost thy Soveraigne dear, to give them entertainment." If Washington was
acquainted with Part II. of "Youth's Behaviour," relating to women and
dedicated to ladies of the Washington race, it is remarkable that no
word relating to that sex is found among his Rules.[1]

[Footnote 1: In the edition of Hawkins (1663) bound up with Part II. in
the British Museum (bearing on the cover the name and arms of the
"Hon'ble Thos. Greville") there is just one precept concerning women:
"If thou art yet unmarried, but intendest to get thee a wife modest,
rather than beautiful, meddle not with those Ladies of the Game, who
make pageants of their Cheeks, and Shops of their Shoulders, and
(contrary to all other Trades) keep open their Windows on the
Sabbath-day, impudently exposing their nakedness to the view of a whole
Congregation," &c. There are, in an appendix, pictures of a
puritanically shrouded "Virtue," and a "Vice" who, apart from the
patch