The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength, as to be never violated, except by those whose feelings are withered by the refining of vitiated society. Holy, simple, and beautiful in its construction, is the emblem of all we can imagine of fidelity and truth, is the blessed tie whose value we feel in the cradle, and whose loss we lament on the verge of the very grave, where our mother moulders in dust and ashes. In all our trials, amid all our afflictions, she is our friend: let the world forsake us, she is still by our side; if we sin, she reproves more in sorrow than in anger, nor can she tear us from her bosom, nor forget we are her child. ❦ [Sidenote: Louis XVIII.] “There is no etiquette requisite when we talk to our friends:” such was the kind encouragement given to me by the benevolent Louis XVIII. of France, when I expressed my apprehension that the deep interest of the subject on which he permitted me to address him, might so engross my feelings as to render me, (in appearance,) unmindful of the respectful deference due to his exalted station; and with truth did the monarch honour me by designating himself as a friend. At his death I had not to regret only the loss of a sovereign whose condescending kindness admitted the petitioner to his presence, but also those lengthened conversations in which were displayed the brilliant emanations of his highly cultivated mind, and the fruits of deep classical research: or did I only lament the deprivation of his royal bounties. I wept for the loss of the beneficent being, whose heart had expanded in sympathy to the sorrows of a widowed mother, whose gracious recollections honoured a father’s grave, and to whom in the hour of trial I never appealed in vain. Would that my words could do justice to the devoted veneration my heart bears him! Wit and eloquence were his to a supreme degree. None ever possessed to a greater extent the talent of saying that which was appropriate, kind, or conciliating. In his language he reminded me of the fairy tale, which describes pearls, diamonds, and precious stones as falling from the lips of the speaker. ❦ [Sidenote: Education.] ’Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, Our most important are our earliest years; The mind, impressible and soft, with ease Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, And through life’s labyrinth holds fast the clue That _Education_ gives her, false or true. ❦ [Sidenote: Dr. Johnson on the loss of his Mother.]