and still are his Expectations frustrated. But need we ask the Cause? Surely it is too plain. More Pains have been taken to pamper and humour him, than to make it unnecessary to do either: more Time and Care have been employ’d to furnish his Head, with perhaps merely ornamental Knowledge, than to correct and enrich his Heart with such Sentiments as might improve his Manners. Can we then wonder that he precipitates into Ruin? No surely; we may rather wonder if he escapes it. But admitting that Fortune still favours him, and that he keeps up his Dignity and Reputation; how does he possess his own Mind, as a rational Creature, or a Brute? Does he act so as to deserve the Esteem of Mankind? If not, Life is not worth enjoying. Let us now view the fairer part of our Species; those tender Branches our Daughters. They (thank Heaven) are not naturally so liable to Vices and Extravagancies as our Sons; but I wish I could say they were all as good as they are capable of being made; as amiable in their interior Sentiments, as their Forms might make us hope to see them. But alas! too often those choicest Charms of our Eyes are the chief Plagues of our Hearts; and it is we ourselves are the principal Causes, that they whom Nature seem’d to have form’d to be our principal Comforts, should thro’ our Mismanagement become the Disturbers of the Peace of us their Parents, and of their own Happiness. A Girl enter’d into the third Septenary passes soon into a Woman; but commonly speaking she is much sooner such in her Person and Appetites than in her Understanding: whence arise many of those glaring Mistakes they daily commit. A Girl who is tall generally conceits she is wise; and because ’till now she has liv’d without controul, she thinks Subjection and Obedience to her Parents, mean and slavish. It would be a Reflection on young Ladies to say they have no Manners, but still it is too generally true that their Manners are false ones; springing from Pride, and influenc’d by it. A Girl (of any Figure in Life) soon knows that the World has it’s Eyes upon her; and as there are certain Motives which induce her to exert all her Skill to seem well bred, so there are certain Times she really appears to advantage: but let the Mask be thrown off; let the Restraint be taken away by which she is confin’d; and we shall soon see where her Manners lye: we shall (I am afraid) oftentimes discover that they are not the Dictates of a well-regulated Heart. But as my Tenderness for the Sex will not suffer me designedly to misrepresent things, let us examine fairly the Conduct of a young Lady according to the too general Mode of breeding.