bold youth, in a Scotch play, the title of which I have forgotten, but the speech began with, ’My name is Norval:  on the Grampian Hills my father fed his flocks...’  And this in a voice so weak and distressing as to put me in mind of the plaintive squeaking of little pigs when the sow is lying on them.  As we were going home (one of my boys and I) he, after a silence of half a mile perhaps, rode up close to the side of my horse, and said, ‘Papa, where be the Grampian Hills?’ ‘Oh,’ said I, ’they are in Scotland; poor, barren, beggarly places, covered with heath and rushes, ten times as barren as Sherril Heath.’  ‘But,’ said he, ’how could that little boy’s father feed his flocks there, then?’ I was ready to tumble off the horse with laughing.

284.  I do not know any thing much more distressing to the spectators than exhibitions of this sort.  Every one feels, not for the child, for it is insensible to the uneasiness it excites, but for the parents, whose amiable fondness displays itself in this ridiculous manner.  Upon these occasions, no one knows what to say, or whither to direct his looks.  The parents, and especially the fond mother, looks sharply round for the so-evidently merited applause, as an actor of the name of MUNDEN, whom I recollect thirty years ago, used, when he had treated us to a witty shrug of his shoulders, or twist of his chin, to turn his face up to the gallery for the clap.  If I had to declare on my oath which have been the most disagreeable moments of my life, I verily believe, that, after due consideration, I should fix upon those, in which parents, whom I have respected, have made me endure exhibitions like these; for, this is your choice, to be insincere, or to give offence.

285.  And, as towards the child, it is to be unjust, thus to teach it to set a high value on trifling, not to say mischievous, attainments; to make it, whether it be in its natural disposition or not, vain and conceited.  The plaudits which it receives, in such cases, puffs it up in its own thoughts, sends it out into the world stuffed with pride and insolence, which must and will be extracted out of it by one means or another; and none but those who have had to endure the drawing of firmly-fixed teeth, can, I take it, have an adequate idea of the painfulness of this operation.  Now, parents have no right thus to indulge their own feelings at the risk of the happiness of their children.

286.  The great matter is, however, the spoiling of the mind by forcing on it thoughts which it is not fit to receive.  We know well, we daily see, that in men, as well as in other animals, the body is rendered comparatively small and feeble by being heavily loaded, or hard worked, before it arrive at size and strength proportioned to such load and such work.  It is just so with the mind:  the attempt to put old heads upon young shoulders is just as unreasonable as it would be to expect a