those who do not prize straightforwardness for its own sake to perceive that it is the wisest course. The maxim that 'honesty is the best policy' is one which, perhaps, no one ever is habitually guided by in practice. An honest man is always before it, and a knave is generally behind it. He does not find out, till too late, 'What a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive.'

No one, in fact, is capable of fully appreciating the ultimate expediency of a devoted adherence to Truth, save the divine Being, who is 'the Truth;' because He alone comprehends the whole of the vast and imperfectly-revealed scheme of Providence, and alone can see the inmost recesses of the human heart, and alone can foresee and judge of the remotest consequences of human actions.

ESSAY VII. OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

THE HE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears; they cannot utter the one, nor they will not' utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men-and surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed-so the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses are most indulgent towards their children, beholding them as the continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work; and so both children and creatures.

The difference in affection of parents towards their several children is many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, especially in the mother; as Solomon saith, A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the mother."2 A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons; but in the midst some that are as it were forgotten, who, many times, nevertheless, prove the best. The illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their children, is a harmful3 error, and makes them base, acquaints them with shifts, makes them sort with mean company, and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty; and therefore the proof is best when men keep their authority towards their children, but not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both parents, and schoolmasters, and servants), in creating and breeding an emulation between brothers

1 Nor they will not. 3 Harmful.

4 Sort.

Nor will they.

Pernicious.

2 Proverbs x. I.

'Sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield.'-Dryden.

To associate with; to consort. Metals sort and herd with other metals in the earth.'- Woodward.

during childhood, which many times sorteth' to discord when they are men, and disturbeth families. The Italians make little difference between children and nephews, or near kinsfolks; but so they be of the lump they care not, though they pass not through their own body-and, to say truth, in nature it is much a like matter; insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle, or a kinsman, more than his own parents, as the blood happens. Let parents chuse betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take, for then they are most flexible; and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as thinking they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true, that if the affection, or aptness, of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it; but generally the precept is good, 'Optimum elige, suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo.'3 Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited.

ANNOTATIONS.

'Let parents chuse betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take. And let them not too much apply themselves to the dispositions of their children.'

It is only in very rare and extreme cases that Bacon allows the inclination of children to be followed in the choice of a profession. But he surely makes too little allowance (and, perhaps, the majority of parents do so) for the great diversity of natural faculties. It is not only such marvellous geniuses as occur but in five out of a million, that will succeed in one course far better than in any other. Numbers of men who would never attain any extraordinary eminence in anything,

2 Affection.

All my pains is sorted to no proof.'-Shakespere.

Strong inclination to. All the precepts of Christianity command

us to temper our affections towards all things below.'-Temple.

3 Chuse the best, and custom will render it agreeable and easy.'

are yet so constituted as to make a very respectable figure in the department that is suited for them, and to fall below mediocrity in a different one.

The world has been compared by some one to a board covered with holes of many various shapes, and pegs fitted for each, but which are scattered about at random, so that it is a mere chance whether a peg falls into the hole that fits it.

A. B. was the son of a schoolmaster who had a great love of literature. He had a perfect hatred of it, and was a mere dunce at his book. Various attempts were made, which proved perfect failures, to train him to some of what are called the learned professions; and he was, to all appearance, turning out what they call a 'ne'er-do-weel.' As a last resource he was sent out to a new colony. There he was in his element; for, when at school, though dull at learning and soon forgetting what he had read, he never saw a horse or a carriage once that he did not always recognise; and he readily understood all that belonged to each. In the colony he became one of the most thriving settlers; skilful in making roads, erecting mills, draining, cattle-breeding, &c., and was advanced to a situation of trust in the colony. And it is worth remarking that he became a very steady and well-conducted man, having been before the reverse. For it adds greatly to a young man's temptations to fall into habits of idleness and dissipation, if he is occupied in some pursuit in which he despairs of success, and for which he has a strong disinclination.

C. D., again, was at a university, and was below the average in all academical pursuits; but he was the greatest mechanical genius in the university, not excepting the professors. He never examined any machine, however complex, that he could not with his own hands construct a model of it, and sometimes with improvements. He would have made a first-rate engineer; but family arrangements caused him to take Orders. He was a diligent and conscientious clergyman, but a dull and commonplace one; except that, in repairing, and altering, and fitting up his parsonage and his church, he was unrivalled. In this sense no one could be more edifying.

When, however, a youth is supposed to have, and believes himself to have, a great turn for such and such a profession, you should make sure that he understands what the profession is,

and has faculties for what it really does require. A youth, e.g., who is anxious to enter the Navy, and thinks only of sailing about to various countries, having an occasional brush with an enemy, and leading altogether a jolly life, without any notion of the study, and toils, and privations he will have to go through, should have his views corrected.

E. F. was thought by his friends to have made this mistake; and when, at his earnest entreaty, he was sent to sea, they secretly begged the captain to make his life as unpleasant as possible, being anxious to sicken him. He was accordingly snubbed, and rated, and set to the most laborious duties, and never commended or encouraged. But he bore all, and did all, with unflinching patience and diligence. At last the captain revealed the whole to him, saying, 'I can carry on this disguise no longer; you are the finest young man I ever had under me, and I have long admired your conduct while I pretended to scold you.' But perhaps part of his good conduct may have sprung from the cause which Bacon alludes to in the last sentence of his Essay on Marriage.

It is observable that a parent who is unselfish, and who is never thinking of personal inconvenience, but always of the children's advantage, will be likely to make them selfish; for she will let that too plainly appear, so as to fill the child with an idea that everything is to give way to him, and that his concerns are an ultimate end. Nay, the very pains taken with him in strictly controlling him, heightens his idea of his own vast importance; whereas a parent who is selfish will be sure to accustom the child to sacrifice his own convenience, and to understand that he is of much less importance than the parent. This, by the way, is only one of many cases in which selfishness is caught from those who have least of it.