ever so inert and heavy. Nobody taught the nightingale to sing, yet every foolish father and mother conceive they can teach their jackdaw to carol like that heaven-born songstress. It is lost labour to manure and dress a soil, in which there is no principle of vegetation. This I trust is not the case with my grandson John: He is a manly, sensible, honorable boy, and has given striking proof of a benevolent heart in his conduct towards the poor soldier, who died in my house; this he did without instruction from his Horace or his Juvenal, and this perhaps he would not have had an opportunity of doing at a public school; at all events I should not have had the opportunity of witnessing it. I therefore give my preference to a private and domestic education. Now, Mr. Edward Wilson, you, who are covered with laurels, worthily bestowed upon you by your venerable Alma Mater, if you think I am in error, convince me of my error, and you will not find me backward to retract my opinion and adopt a better. To give my opinion, replied Edward Wilson, in a question of such magnitude would in all cases be presumptuous, but to obtrude it in contradiction to your superior judgment would be unpardonable. Circumstanced however as your grandson is in point of age and understanding, I hold him so unfitted for a station at the very bottom of a public school, that even without adverting to the very strong motives, which you assign for education under your own eye, I answer without hesitation, that my sentiments perfectly agree and coincide with yours. I am made very happy by your approbation, said De Lancaster, and now I must tell you, Mr. Wilson, that an event has been announced to me by this letter, which in one sense I must consider as a loss, in another as a gain. My loss is that of an old acquaintance and contemporary, the late Reverend Dr. Mathew Philips; my gain is the opportunity it affords me of tendering to you the benefice, which he held by my gift--I perceive you are about to thank me, but I must request that neither you nor your father will oppress me on this occasion--for in making you this offer I do it from my firm persuasion of your fitness, and not merely through my friendship for your worthy father, which, great and sincere although it be, would never bias me against my conscience to commit the charge of souls into the hands of any man, of whose sufficiency I had cause to doubt. Spare yourselves therefore and me the needless ceremony of bestowing thanks, where in reality they are not due; for what would you say, if it should turn out, that I have an object in my view, which would at once convince you, that in serving you I have not overlooked myself? Name the object, I beseech you, Sir, said Edward; and if you hold me capable of the undertaking, command me!