.r5$pTION XI. Row hard for parents to manage their own authority with so much gentleness, and to regulate the liberties of their children with so wise a discipline, as to fall into neither extreme, nor give unhappy occasion for censure ! though I have spoken my opinion freely, that it is safer to err on the side of restraint, than of exces- sive indulgence. Antigone had an excellent mother, but she died young: Antigone with her elder sister, from their very infancy, were placed under a grand-mother's care. The good old gentlewoman trained them up precisely in the forms in which she herself was educated, when the modes of breeding had (it must be confessed) too much narrowness and austerity. She gave them all the good instructions she had received from her ancestors, and would scarcely ever suffer them to be out of her sight. She saw the eldest well married at five and twenty, and settled in a course of virtue and religion : she found her zeal and pious care attend- ed with success in several of her posterity, and she departed this life in peace. But unhappy Antigone took a different turn: she was let loose into the world with all her possessions and powers in her own hand ; and falling into vain company, she got such a taste of unbounded liberty and modish vices, that she could never reflect upon the method of her own education without angry re- marks or ridicule. When she came to have children of her own, she still retained the resentment which she had conceived at the conduct of her grandmother, and therefore she resolved that her 'daughters should be bred up in the other extreme. "In my younger times (said she) we were kept hard to the labour of lice needle, and spent six hours a -.day at it, as though- were to get my bread by my finger ends; but a little of that business shall serve these children, for their father has left them good fortunes of their own. " We were not suffin.ed to read any thing but the bible and sermon -books ; but I shall teach mine politer lessons out of plays and romances, that they may be acquainted with the world beti mes. " My eldest sister was scarcely ever allowed to 'speak in company till she was married, and it was a tiresome length of years before that day came. The old proverb ran thus, That a maiden must be seen and not heard: but I hope my little daughters will not be dumb. L° We were always confined to dwell at home, unless some extraordinary occasion called us abroad, perhaps once in a month or twice in a summer. We were taught to play the good house- wife in the kitchen and the pastry, and were well instructed in the conduct of the broom and duster ; but we knew nothing of the mode of the court, and the diversions of the town. I
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