distinguished by the name of Wise William.  I have heard Lord Bute’s father mentioned as an extraordinary genius, though he had not many opportunities of showing it; and his uncle, the present Duke of Argyll, has one of the best heads I ever knew.  I will therefore speak to you as supposing Lady Mary not only capable, but desirous of learning; in that case by all means let her be indulged in it.  You will tell me I did not make it a part of your education:  your prospect was very different from hers.  As you had no defect either in mind or person to hinder, and much in your circumstances to attract, the highest offers, it seemed your business to learn how to live in the world, as it is hers to know how to be easy out of it.  It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so), without considering that nothing is beautiful that is displaced.  Hence we see so many edifices raised that the raisers can never inhabit, being too large for their fortunes.  Vistas are laid open over barren heaths, and apartments contrived for a coolness very agreeable in Italy, but killing in the north of Britain:  thus every woman endeavours to breed her daughter a fine lady, qualifying her for a station in which she will never appear, and at the same time incapacitating her for that retirement to which she is destined.  Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make her contented, but happy in it.  No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.  She will not want new fashions, nor regret the loss of expensive diversions, or variety of company, if she can be amused with an author in her closet.  To render this amusement extensive, she should be permitted to learn the languages.  I have heard it lamented that boys lose so many years in mere learning of words:  this is no objection to a girl, whose time is not so precious:  she cannot advance herself in any profession, and has therefore more hours to spare; and as you say her memory is good, she will be very agreeably employed this way.  There are two cautions to be given on this subject:  first, not to think herself learned when she could read Latin, or even Greek.  Languages are more properly to be called vehicles of learning than learning itself, as may be observed in many schoolmasters, who, though perhaps critics in grammar, are the most ignorant fellows upon earth.  True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words.  I would wish her no further a linguist than to enable her to read books in their originals, that are often corrupted, and always injured, by translations.  Two hours’ application every morning will bring this about much sooner than you can imagine, and she will have leisure enough besides to run over the English poetry, which is a more important part of a woman’s education than it is generally supposed.  Many a young damsel has been ruined by a fine copy of verses, which she would have laughed at if she had known it had been