311.  And, first of all, whether as to boys or girls, I deprecate romances of every description.  It is impossible that they can do any good, and they may do a great deal of harm.  They excite passions that ought to lie dormant; they give the mind a taste for highly-seasoned matter; they make matters of real life insipid; every girl, addicted to them, sighs to be a SOPHIA WESTERN, and every boy, a TOM JONES.  What girl is not in love with the wild youth, and what boy does not find a justification for his wildness?  What can be more pernicious than the teachings of this celebrated romance?  Here are two young men put before us, both sons of the same mother; the one a bastard (and by a parson too), the other a legitimate child; the former wild, disobedient, and squandering; the latter steady, sober, obedient, and frugal; the former every thing that is frank and generous in his nature, the latter a greedy hypocrite; the former rewarded with the most beautiful and virtuous of women and a double estate, the latter punished by being made an outcast.  How is it possible for young people to read such a book, and to look upon orderliness, sobriety, obedience, and frugality, as virtues?  And this is the tenor of almost every romance, and of almost every play, in our language.  In the ‘School for Scandal,’ for instance, we see two brothers; the one a prudent and frugal man, and, to all appearance, a moral man, the other a hair-brained squanderer, laughing at the morality of his brother; the former turns out to be a base hypocrite and seducer, and is brought to shame and disgrace; while the latter is found to be full of generous sentiment, and Heaven itself seems to interfere to give him fortune and fame.  In short, the direct tendency of the far greater part of these books, is, to cause young people to despise all those virtues, without the practice of which they must be a curse to their parents, a burden to the community, and must, except by mere accident, lead wretched lives.  I do not recollect one romance nor one play, in our language, which has not this tendency.  How is it possible for young princes to read the historical plays of the punning and smutty Shakspeare, and not think, that to be drunkards, blackguards, the companions of debauchees and robbers, is the suitable beginning of a glorious reign?

312.  There is, too, another most abominable principle that runs through them all, namely, that there is in high birth, something of superior nature, instinctive courage, honour, and talent.  Who can look at the two royal youths in CYMBELINE, or at the noble youth in DOUGLAS, without detesting the base parasites who wrote those plays?  Here are youths, brought up by shepherds, never told of their origin, believing themselves the sons of these humble parents, but discovering, when grown up, the highest notions of valour and honour, and thirsting for military renown, even while tending their reputed