In looking over a manuscript life of Tobie Matthews, Archbishop of York in James the First’s reign, I found a curious anecdote of his grace’s disappointment in the dispositions of his sons.  The cause, indeed, is not uncommon, as was confirmed by another great man, to whom the archbishop confessed it.  The old Lord Thomas Fairfax one day finding the archbishop very melancholy, inquired the reason of his grace’s pensiveness:  “My lord,” said the archbishop, “I have great reason of sorrow with respect of my sons; one of whom has wit and no grace, another grace but no wit, and the third neither grace nor wit.”  “Your case,” replied Lord Fairfax, “is not singular.  I am also sadly disappointed in my sons:  one I sent into the Netherlands to train him up a soldier, and he makes a tolerable country justice, but a mere coward at fighting; my next I sent to Cambridge, and he proves a good lawyer, but a mere dunce at divinity; and my youngest I sent to the inns of court, and he is good at divinity, but nobody at the law.”  The relater of this anecdote adds, “This I have often heard from the descendant of that honourable family, who yet seems to mince the matter, because so immediately related.”  The eldest son was the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax—­and the gunsmith to Thomas Lord Fairfax, the son of this Lord Ferdinando, heard the old Lord Thomas call aloud to his grandson, “Tom!  Tom! mind thou the battle!  Thy father’s a good man, but a mere coward!  All the good I expect is from thee!” It is evident that the old Lord Thomas Fairfax was a military character, and in his earnest desire of continuing a line of heroes, had preconcerted to make his eldest son a military man, who we discover turned out to be admirably fitted for a worshipful justice of the quorum.  This is a lesson for the parent who consults his own inclinations and not those of natural disposition.  In the present case the same lord, though disappointed, appears still to have persisted in the same wish of having a great military character in his family:  having missed one in his elder son, and settled his other sons in different avocations, the grandfather persevered, and fixed his hopes, and bestowed his encouragements, on his grandson, Sir Thomas Fairfax, who makes so distinguished a figure in the civil wars.

The difficulty of discerning the aptitude of a youth for any particular destination in life will, perhaps, even for the most skilful parent, be always hazardous.  Many will be inclined, in despair of anything better, to throw dice with fortune; or adopt the determination of the father who settled his sons by a whimsical analogy which he appears to have formed of their dispositions or aptness for different pursuits.  The boys were standing under a hedge in the rain, and a neighbour reported to the father the conversation he had overheard.  John wished it would rain books, for he wished to be a preacher; Bezaleel, wool, to be a clothier like his father; Samuel, money, to be a merchant; and Edmund