well as nature. The influence of example is very great, and almoſt univerſal, eſpecially of parents over their children. In all countries it has been obſerved, that vices, as well as virtues, run down in families, very often, from age to age. Any man may run over in his thoughts the circle of his acquaintance, and he will probably recoiled inſtances of a diſpoſition to miſchief, malice, and revenge, deſcending, in certain breeds, from grandfather to father and ſon. A young woman was lately convicted at Paris of a trifling theft, barely within the law, which decreed a capital puniſhiment. There were circumſtances, too, which greatly alleviated her fault; ſome things in her behaviour that ſeemed innocent and modeſt: every ſpectator, as well as the judges, was affected at the ſcene, and ſhe was adviſed to petition for a pardon, as there was no doubt it would be granted. "No," ſays ſhe, "my grandfather, father, and brother, were all hanged for ſtealing; it runs in the blood of our family to ſteal, and be hanged; if I am pardoned now, I ſhall ſteal again in a few months more inexcuſeably: and therefore I will be hanged now."—An hereditary paſſion for the halter is a ſtrong inſtance, to be ſure, and cannot be very common: but ſomething like it too often deſcends, in certain breeds, from generation to generation.
If vice and infamy are thus rendered leſs odious, by being familiar in a family, by the example of parents, and by education, it would be as unhappy as unaccountable, if virtue and honour were not recommended and rendered more amiable to children by the ſame means.
There are, and always have been, in every ſtate, numbers poſſeſſed of ſome degree of family pride, who have been invariably encouraged, if not flat-
