better than any Body.  I have bestowed two Months in teaching her to Sigh when she is not concerned, and to Smile when she is not pleased; and am ashamed to own she makes little or no Improvement.  Then she is no more able now to walk, than she was to go at a Year old.  By Walking you will easily know I mean that regular but easy Motion, which gives our Persons so irresistible a Grace as if we moved to Musick, and is a kind of disengaged Figure, or, if I may so speak, recitative Dancing.  But the want of this I cannot blame in her, for I find she has no Ear, and means nothing by Walking but to change her Place.  I could pardon too her Blushing, if she knew how to carry her self in it, and if it did not manifestly injure her Complexion.

They tell me you are a Person who have seen the World, and are a Judge of fine Breeding; which makes me ambitious of some Instructions from you for her Improvement:  Which when you have favoured me with, I shall further advise with you about the Disposal of this fair Forrester in Marriage; for I will make it no Secret to you, that her Person and Education are to be her Fortune.  I am, SIR, Your very humble Servant CELIMENE.

SIR, Being employed by Celimene to make up and send to you her Letter, I make bold to recommend the Case therein mentioned to your Consideration, because she and I happen to differ a little in our Notions.  I, who am a rough Man, am afraid the young Girl is in a fair Way to be spoiled:  Therefore pray, Mr. SPECTATOR, let us have your Opinion of this fine thing called Fine Breeding; for I am afraid it differs too much from that plain thing called Good Breeding. Your most humble Servant. [1]

The general Mistake among us in the Educating our Children, is, That in our Daughters we take care of their Persons and neglect their Minds:  in our Sons we are so intent upon adorning their Minds, that we wholly neglect their Bodies.  It is from this that you shall see a young Lady celebrated and admired in all the Assemblies about Town, when her elder Brother is afraid to come into a Room.  From this ill Management it arises, That we frequently observe a Man’s Life is half spent before he is taken notice of; and a Woman in the Prime of her Years is out of Fashion and neglected.  The Boy I shall consider upon some other Occasion, and at present stick to the Girl:  And I am the more inclined to this, because I have several Letters which complain to me that my Female Readers have not understood me for some Days last past, and take themselves to be unconcerned in the present Turn of my Writings.  When a Girl is safely brought from her Nurse, before she is capable of forming one simple Notion of any thing in Life, she is delivered to the Hands of her Dancing-Master; and with a Collar round her Neck, the pretty wild Thing is taught a fantastical Gravity of Behaviour, and forced to a particular Way of holding her Head, heaving her Breast,