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Rh avere to every thing like application, he allowed to read novels: and ued to jutify his conduct by aying, that if he ever attained a relih for reading them, he hould have ome foundation to work upon; and that erroneous opinions were better than none at all.

In fact the female mind has been o totally neglected, that knowledge was only to be acquired from this muddy ource, till from reading novels ome women of uperiour talents learned to depie them.

The bet method, I believe, that can be adopted to correct a fondnes for novels is to ridicule them: not indicriminately, for then it would have little effect; but, if a judicious peron, with ome turn for humour, would read everal to a young girl, and point out both by tones, and apt comparions with pathetic incidents and heroic characters in hitory, how foolihly and ridiculouly they caricatured human nature, jut opinions might be ubtituted intead of romantic entiments.

In one repect, however, the majority of both exes reemble, and equally hew a want of tate and modety. Ignorant women, forced to be chate to preerve their reputation, allow their imagination to revel in the unnatural and meretricious cenes ketched by the novel writers of the day, lighting as inipid the ober dignity and matronly graces of hitory, whilt men carry Rh