In the reign of King Richard III, as I have read, deformity of body was the fashion, and the nobility and gentry of the court thought it an indispensable requisite of a graceful form to pad for themselves a round shoulder, because the king was crooked.  And can we think human nature so absurdly wicked, that it would not much rather have tried to imitate a personal perfection, than a deformity so shocking in its appearance, in people who were naturally straight?

’Tis melancholy to reflect, that of all professions of men, the mariners, who most behold the wonders of Almighty power displayed in the great deep (a sight that has struck me with awe and reverence only from a coast prospect), and who every moment, while at sea, have but one frail plank betwixt themselves and inevitable destruction, are yet, generally speaking, said to be the most abandoned invokers and blasphemers of the name of that God, whose mercies they every moment unthankfully, although so visibly, experience.  Yet, as I once heard at your table, Sir, on a particular occasion, we have now a commander in the British navy, who, to his honour, has shewn the force of an excellent example supporting the best precepts:  for, on board of his ship, not an oath or curse was to be heard; while volleys of both (issued from impious mouths in the same squadron, out of his knowledge) seemed to fill the sails of other ships with guilty breath, calling aloud for that perdition to overtake them, which perhaps his worthy injunctions and example, in his own, might be of weight to suspend.

If such then, dear Sir, be the force of a good example, what have parents to do, who would bring up a child at home under their own eye, according to Mr. Locke’s advice, but, first, to have a strict regard to their conduct!  This will not want its due influence on the servants; especially if a proper enquiry be first made into their characters, and a watchful eye had over them, to keep them up to those characters afterwards.  And when they know they must forfeit the favour of a worthy master, and their places too (which may be thought to be the best of places, because an uniform character must make all around it easy and happy), they will readily observe such rules and directions, as shall be prescribed to them—­Rules and directions, which their own consciences will tell them are right to be prescribed; and even right for them to follow, were they not insisted upon by their superiors:  and this conviction must go a great way towards their thorough reformation:  for a person wholly convinced is half reformed.  And thus the hazard a child will run of being corrupted by conversing with the servants, will be removed, and all Mr. Locke’s other rules be better enforced.

I have the boldness, Sir, to make another objection; and that is, to the distance which Mr. Locke prescribes to be kept between children and servants:  for may not this be a means to fill the minds of the former with a contempt of those below them, and an arrogance that is not warranted by any rank or condition, to their inferiors of the same species?