these islands, we were very forry to find a recital of what paffed between them and the women, calculated to offend modeft readers of every defcription. There was no neceffity for bringing fuch fcenes forwards, particularly that of poor Harris, which ought to have been buried in eternal oblivion. At fuch paragraphs the infidel fneers, and the fober-minded Chriftian fhuts up the book in difguft.

The Appendix is curious, and contains fome pleasing information refpecting the Otaheitans.

The maps and prints are neatly executed, and the volume, with the above exceptions, may be read with pleasure.

Strictures on the Modern Syftem of Female Education, with a View of the Principles and Conduct prevalent among Women of Rank and Fortune. By Hannah More. Two Volumes. Second Edition, corrected. Cadell.

MISS More has, in this work, employed her elegant pen to expose the abufes and follies of the fashionable world. The undertaking is hazardous, nor will it, we are afraid, meet with the attention which the importance of the object demands. Her good intention, however, remains equally meritorious, and fhe has difcharged her duty to fociety.

But though we applaud the defign of these volumes, and are, in general, pleafed with the execution, yet we must enter our protest against that horrible tenet, that man is naturally depraved, which Mifs More places at the foundation of her fyftem of amendment. For our part, we are of opinion that the Divine Being still creates man in his own image; and that his depravity proceeds from his own individual degeneracy.

This work may, with propriety, be deemed an appendix to Mr. Wilbeforce's Treatife on Religion, with

this difference, that the fair authorefs has addressed her reflections to her own fex. It contains many excellent obfervations on the follies of the gay world, and affigns with judgment the duties which ought to occupy rational beings deftined for immortality.

The following ftrictures on female education are just, and we recommend them to our fair readers;

"Though a well-bred young lady may lawfully learn moft of the fashionable arts, yet it does not seem to be the true end of education to make women of fashion dancers, fingers, players, painters, actreffes, fculptors, gilders, varnishers, engravers, and embroiderers. Moft men are commonly deftined to fome profeffion, and their minds are confequently turned each to its respective object. Would it not be ftrange if they were called out to exercife their profeffion, or to fet up their trade, with only a little general knowledge of the trades of all other men, and without any previous definite application to their own peculiar calling? The profeffion of ladies, to which the bent of their inftruction fhould be turned, is that of daughters, wives, mothers, and miftreffes of families. They fhould be therefore trained with a view to these several conditions, and be furnished with a flock of ideas and principles, and qualifications and habits, ready to be applied and appropriated, as occafion may demand, to each of these respective fituations: for though the arts which merely embellish life must claim admiration; yet when a man of fenfe comes to marry, it is a companion whom he wants, and not an artist. It is not merely a creature who can paint, and play, and dress, and dance; it is a being who can comfort and counsel him; one who can reafon and reflect, and feel, and judge, and act, and discourse, and difcriminate; one who can affift him in his affairs, lighten his cares, footh his forrows, purify his joys, ftrengthen his principles, and edu→ cate his children.

"Almost any ornamental talent is a good thing, when it is not the best thing a woman has; and talents are admirable when not made to ftand proxy for virtues. The writer of these pages is intimately acquainted with feveral ladies who, excelling most of their fex in the art of mufic, but excelling them alfo in prudence and piety, find little leifure or temptation, amidst the delights and duties of a large and lovely family,'

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for

for the exercife of this talent, and regret that so much of their own youth was wafted in acquiring an art which can be turned to fo little account in married life; and are now confcientiously restricting their daughters in the portion of time allotted to its acquifition.

"Far be it from me to difcourage the cultivation of any exifting talent; but may it not be fuggefted to the fond believing mother, that talents, like the fpirit of Owen Glendower, though conjured by parental partiality with ever fo loud a voice,

Yet will not come when you do call for them?

"That injudicious practice, therefore, cannot be too much difcouraged, of endeavouring to create talents which do not exist in nature. That their daughters fhall learn every thing, is fo general a maternal maxim, that even unborn daughters, of whofe expected abilities and conjectured faculties, it is prefumed, no very accurate judgment can previously be formed, are yet predestined to this univerfality of accomplishments. This comprehenfive maxim, thus almoft univerfally brought into practice, at once weakens the general powers of the mind, by drawing off its frength into too great a variety of direc tions; and cuts up time into too many portions, by splitting it into fuch an endless multiplicity of employments. I know that I am treading on tender ground; but I cannot help thinking that the restless pains we take to cram up every little vacuity of life, by crowding one new thing upon another, rather creates a thirst for novelty than knowledge; and is but a well-difguifed contrivance to keep us in after-life more effectually from converfing with ourselves. The care taken to prevent ennui is but a creditable plan for promoting self-ignorance. We run from one occupation to another (I fpeak of thofe arts to which little intellect is applied) with a view to lighten the preffure of time; above all, we fly to them to fave us from our own thoughts; whereas, were we thrown a little more on our own hands, we might at last be driven, by way of fomething to do, to try to get acquainted with our own hearts; and though our being less absorbed by this bufy trifling, which dignifics its inanity with the impofing name of occupation, might render us fomewhat more fenfible of the tædium of life; might not this very fenfation tend to quicken our pursuit

of

of a better? For an awful thought here suggests itself. If life be fo long that we are driven to fet at work every engine to país away the tediousness of time; how shall we do to get rid of the tedioufnefs of eternity? an eternity in which not one of the acquifitions which life has been exhausted in acquiring, will be of the leaft ufe? Let not then the foul be ftarved by feeding it on these empty husks, for it can be no more nourished by them than the body can be fed with ideas and principles.

"Among the boafted improvements of the prefent age, none affords more frequent matter of peculiar exultation, than the manifeft fuperiority in the employments of the young ladies of our time over thofe of the good housewives of the last century. They glory that they are at prefent employed in learning the polite arts, or in acquiring liberal accomplishments; while the others wore out their joyless days in adorning the manfion-house with hangings of hideous tapestry and disfiguring tent-ftitch. Moft cheerfully do I allow to the reigning modes their boafted fuperiority; for certainly there is no piety in bad taste. Still, granting all the deformity of the exploded ornaments, one advantage attended them : the walls and floors were not vain of their decorations; and it is to be feared, that the little perfon fometimes is. The flattery heftowed on the obfolete employments, for probably even they had their flatterers, furnished lefs aliment and lefs gratification to vanity, and was less likely to impair the delicacy of modefty, than the exquifite cultivation of personal accomplishments or perfonal decorations; and every mode which keeps down vanity and keeps back felf, has at least a moral use. And while one admires the elegant fingers of a young lady, bufied in working or painting her ball diefs, one cannot help fufpecting that her alacrity may be a little ftimulated by the animating idea how very well the fhall look in it. Nor was the industrious matron of Ithaca more foothed at her folitary loom with the fweet reflection, that by her labours the was gratifying her filial and conjugal feelings, than the pleasure-loving damfel, by the anticipated admiration which her ingenuity is procuring for her beauty.

"Might not this propenfity be a little checked, and an interefting feeling combined with her industry, were the fair

*This web a robe for poor Ulyffes' fire.

ODYSSEY.

artif

artist habituated to exercise her skill in adorning some one elfe rather than herfelf? For it will add no lightness to the lightest head, nor vanity to the vainest heart, to take pleasure in reflecting how exceedingly the gown fhe is working will become her mother. This fuggeftion, trifling as it may seem, of habituating young ladies to exercise their taste and devote their leisure, not to the decoration of their own perfons, but to the fervice of those to whom they are bound by every tender tie, would not only help to reprefs vanity, but by thus affociating the idea of industry with that of filial affection, would promote, while it gratified fome of the best affections of the heart. The Romans (and it is mortifying, on the subject of Chriftian education to be driven so often to refer to the fuperiority of Pagans) were fo well aware of the importance of keeping up a fense of family fondness and attachment by the very fame means which promoted simple and domestic employment, that no citizen of note ever appeared in public in any garb but what was fpun by his wife and daughter; and this virtuous fashion was not confined to the days of republiçan feverity, but even in all the pomp and luxury of imperial power, Auguftus preferved in his own family this fimplicity of manners."

We are fearful that Mifs More, by carrying her ideas to the utmost extent, has injured the caufe fhe meant to ferve. Many of her own fex will be frightened from the adoption of her plan by the feeming aufterity of her reftrictions. We, however, are pleafed with her honeft cenfures of practices which the believes to be injurious to the interefts of the human race. Fashionable folly cannot be too feverely reprobated-it is the bane and deftruction of society.

Poems by Thomas Smith. Manchefter.

THESE pieces were written in a fociety of young men, formed for mutual improvement. Such affociations are highly laudable, and though their productions be not of the firft kind, yet they are deferving of our attention.

The