conftantly recollect the power which he poffeffes of influencing the conduct and manners of others. Next to the example of perfons allied to the Monarch on the throne, that of the Peer is the most alluring and efficacious. It diffufes its effects not merely among those who are admitted to his fociety and to his table; but is propagated from one knot of imitators to another, and spreads through the adjoining country far and wide. The pattern which he exhibits has a prevailing influence in deciding whether vanity and pride shall be deemed honourable, or difgraceful; whether the tide of extravagance, luxury and diffipation fhall be quickened, or retarded; whether ufeful plans and inftitutions fhall meet with countenance, or neglect; whether industry, morality and religion shall flourish, or decline; whether unaffuming merit fhall be encouraged, or its recompenfe be intercepted by fhameless ignorance, and accommodating, perhaps brilliant, vice. Viewing all his own proceedings in this light, let him be careful, and not for his own fake only but for the fake also of fociety, that the influence of religion be not diminished by his example; and diminished it

will be, if he is negligent and irregular in his attendance on public worship; if he employs the sabbath in needless journies, or furrenders it without urgent neceffity to the hurry of vifits abroad, or of company at home; much more if he abets the growing fashion, a fashion unknown till of late in this country, (e) of giving up its evenings to routs and mufical entertainments. If he thinks proper to have a clergyman refide in his family, either as chaplain, or in any other capacity; let the perfon

(e) The modern concerts termed facred appear by no means to deferve an exception. If they confift, as is faid not unfrequently to be the cafe, of common music interspersed for the fake of decorum with a fparing mixture of facred performances, the intention and the effect of them are equally obvious. And fuppofing them to be really and altogether what they profefs to be, they will in few cafes excite religious impreffions fufficiently strong to repay the hearers for the interruption of thofe Sunday evening occupations, which might otherwise have taken place at home; while the fervants of all the parties, instead of being left at leisure for religious employments, are occupied precisely as on a common vifiting day. And the lower claffes of the people, who do not make refined distinctions, will conceive their fuperiors to be in pursuit of their amusements on the Sunday as during the rest of the week; and will thence learn to indulge themselves without fcruple in their own.

be felected for qualities which befit a minister of the gospel, and be treated uniformly in a manner becoming his profeffion. Let the Nobleman avoid all culpable facility in the exercife of his right of nominating chaplains; and when he bestows the title, whether as a mark of his favour or as a step to preferment, let him be careful that it be conferred only on fuch men, as he ought to distinguish by his countenance, or contribute to promote. Let his mode of life, while fuited to his place in society, be under the control of an unfeigned spirit of moderation. Let him chase away the fwarm of fervile hangers-on, who delight to bask in the sunshine of Nobility, and to fasten on rich and powerful patrons; who search out the weak fide of the man by whose bounty they are fed; and, inwardly defpifing while they would be thought to adore him, are ready to flatter his defects, to applaud his abfurdities, to minister to his vices, to fubmit to the most ignominious and difgufting offices and compliances, in the hope of being rewarded with civil, military, or ecclefiaftical preferment. Shunning the contagion of fuch affociates, let him cultivate a familiar intercourfe with men,

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from whom he may derive knowledge and information which may enable him to act with greater usefulness in his public capacity as a Legislator. The fame pattern which from confcientious motives the mafter of the family displays in his own behaviour, habits, and pursuits, he will affiduously imprefs on every member of it. Not only in the common course of his proceedings, but even during the urgency of political occupations, let him consider the bofom of his family as defigned to be the scene of his pureft delights; and fet his face against the present fyftem of modifh life, which renders the wife and the husband as it were ftrangers to each other. Separate habits, separate establishments, separate sets of acquaintance, gradually lead to separate pursuits, inclinations, and interefts. The ties of domeftic intercourse are broken; connubial affection declines; principle may remain, but fondness is gone; and when indifference or difguft has taken the place of fondness, principle has loft one of its moft powerful collateral fupports. Nor is this all. Parental regard decays; and parental duties are forgotten: the children, committed to uninfpected teachers, hear

little from either parent but cenfures of the other, and thus are trained in the habit of defpifing both; and learn betimes to confider the marriage state as a state of vexation, or at least as one in which the permanence of mutual love would be thought of by none but those who are ignorant of the world. These evils are not confined to the Nobility; they extend to Commoners who move in the fame fashionable circle. They are noticed in this place, partly because they attach chiefly on the Nobility; and partly because the influence of perfons in that class is peculiarly adapted either to encourage or to check their progrefs. In the partner of his honours and of his influence the Nobleman will find, or he will, ftrive to create, a partner of his laudable views in domestic life, and an affiftant in carrying them into effect. He will infpire his children from their earliest youth with a love for the fame virtuous principles which guide his own actions; and by a judicious choice and folicitous obfervance of the inftructors to whom the care of their education is committed, and by a truly paternal attention to their conduct when firft introduced into the world, will train them in

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thofe