e me. I have no authority to be believed, neither do I desire it,
being too conscious of my own inerudition to be able to instruct others.

Some one, then, having seen the preceding chapter, the other day told me
at my house, that I should a little farther have extended my discourse on
the education of children.--["Which, how fit I am to do, let my friends
flatter me if they please, I have in the meantime no such opinion of my
own talent, as to promise myself any very good success from my
endeavour." This passage would appear to be an interpolation by Cotton.
At all events, I do not find it in the original editions before me, or in
Coste.]--

Now, madam, if I had any sufficiency in this subject, I could not
possibly better employ it, than to present my best instructions to the
little man that threatens you shortly with a happy birth (for you are too
generous to begin otherwise than with a male); for, having had so great a
hand in the treaty of your marriage, I have a certain particular right
and interest in the greatness and prosperity of the issue that shall
spring from it; beside that, your having had the best of my services so
long in possession, sufficiently obliges me to desire the honour and
advantage of all wherein you shall be concerned. But, in truth, all I
understand as to that particular is only this, that the greatest and most
important difficulty of human science is the education of children. For
as in agriculture, the husbandry that is to precede planting, as also
planting itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which
is planted comes to life, there is a great deal more to be done, more art
to be used, more care to be taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate
and bring it to perfection so it is with men; it is no hard matter to get
children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude,
and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. The symptoms of
their inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so
uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid
judgment or conjecture upon them. Look at Cimon, for example, and
Themistocles, and a thousand others, who very much deceived the
expectation men had of them. Cubs of bears and puppies readily discover
their natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are grownup,
applying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in certain
opinions, and conforming the