figurative Representation you may easily prove by comparing it with the History of your own Mind, where you can trace the Goddess from her Birth, to the full Charms of her ripeft Age. Friend, and may she still attend Adieu, my you thro' Life in every Purfuit, whether in Arts, Sciences, Morals, or Religion. I am Your, &c. &c. The End of the LETTERS. ESSAYS Ο Ν SEVERAL SUBJECTS. L ESSAY I On EDUCATION. IFE, as CEBES * paints it, is a large Manfion, and Infancy the Entrance into it, where ten thoufand Fancies and Opinions of different kinds are continually waiting to allure every new Comer to their respective Apartments: 'tis the Duty therefore of Parents, like the good Genius he defcribes, to inform them which of * In the mythological Picture. thefe these are invested with true, and which with fallacious Appearances. But there is a Defect too often in the manner ufed to attain this defireable End; for Aufterity and Rigour are indifcriminately exerted toward the Good and the Bad, the Generous and the Froward; fo that very frequently the Punishments which are intended to drive them by Force from Vice, give them a Difguft to Virtue, which, properly recommended, has Charms fufficient, when known, to attract the Mind without any fecondary Motive. In that polite Age, when Greece was in all her Glory, there lived at Athens a noble Citizen named DEMOCRITUS; whom Affluence of Fortune, Generofity of Temper, and Extent of Knowledge, made the Delight of the Poor, an Example to the Rich, a Benefactor to the Dif treffed, and an Ornament to his Country. But amidst all the Bleffings Power and Virtue could bestow, he was fuddenly rendered the most miferable of Men, by the Death of his Wife ASPASIA, who dying in Childbed, left him the Confolation alone of being Father to an Infant |