ch temptations! The
boy must have immediately perceived the object of his nurse's
casuistry. He must guess that she would be blamed for the addition of
the sugar, else why should she wish to suppress the word? His
gratitude is engaged to his nurse for running this risk to indulge
him; his mother, by the force of contrast, appears a severe person,
who, for no reason that he can comprehend, would deprive him of the
innocent pleasure of eating sugar. As to its making him sick, he has
eat it, and he is not sick; as to its spoiling his teeth, he does not
care about his teeth, and he sees no immediate change in them:
therefore he concludes that his mother's orders are capricious, and
that his nurse loves him better because she gives him the most
pleasure. His honour and affection towards his nurse, are immediately
set in opposition to his duty to his mother. What a hopeful beginning
in education! What a number of dangerous ideas may be given by a
single word!

The taste for sugared bread and butter is soon over; but servants
have it in their power to excite other tastes with premature and
factitious enthusiasm. The waiting-maid, a taste for dress; the
footman, a taste for gaming; the coachman and groom, for horses and
equipage; and the butler, for wine. The simplicity of children is not
a defence to them; and though they are totally ignorant of vice, they
are exposed to adopt the principles of those with whom they live, even
before they can apply them to their own conduct.

The young son of a lady of quality, a boy of six or seven years old,
addressed, with great simplicity, the following speech to a lady who
visited his mother.

_Boy._ Miss N----, I wish you could find somebody, when you go to
London, who would keep you. It's a very good thing to be kept.

_Lady._ What do you mean, my dear?

_Boy._ Why it's when--you know, when a person's kept, they have every
thing found for them; their friend saves them all trouble, you know.
They have a _carriage_ and _diamonds_, and every thing they want. I
wish somebody would keep you.

_Lady_, laughing. But I'm afraid nobody would. Do you think any body
would?

_Boy_, after a pause. Why yes, I think Sir ----, naming a gentleman
whose name had, at this time, been much talked of in a public trial,
would be as likely as any body.

The same boy talked familiarly of phaetons and gigs, and wished that he
was grown up, that he might drive four horses in hand. It is obvious
that th