NUMBER LXIV.

OF FRIVOLITY OF CHARACTER.

THERE are of both sexes a number of volatile persons, who bear a near resemblance to the little playsome birds that skip perpetually from bush to bush. Their attention is never fixed; their thoughts run upon every thing by turns, and stay upon nothing long. In conversation they are unsettled and flighty; when they read, "they gallop through a book like a child looking for pictures."

Characters of this sort abound in the upper regions of life, among those who have been badly educated, and have nothing to do; and by a celebrated writer they are admirably hit off in the following pictorial sketch of Vetusta.

"She is to be again dressed fine, and keep her visiting day; again to change the color of her clothes, again to have a new head, and again to put patches on her face. She is again to see who acts best at the playhouse, and who sings finest at the opera. She is again to make ten visits in a day, and be ten times in a day trying to talk artfully, easily, and politely about nothing.

She is again to be delighted with some new fashion, and again angry at the change of some old one. She is again to be at cards and gaming at midnight, and again in bed at noon. She is to be again pleased with hypocritical compliments, and again disturbed at imaginary affronts. She is to be again pleased at her good luck at gaming, and again tormented with the loss of her money. She is again to prepare herself for a birthnight, and again to see the town full of company. She is again to hear the cabals and intrigues of the town; again to have secret intelligence of private amours, and early notices of marriages, quarrels, and partings."

Such is the description of an elderly fashionable lady, of the London stamp; a description which, under the fictitious name of a single individual, was meant to embrace a large class.

Nor is it only in the regions of fashion and high life, that frivolity of character is seen; though there it has the strongest stimulants, and the most ample means of displaying itself. Fortunate are they, on whom is imposed the salutary necessity of doing something valuable with their existence; whose daily occupations, as well as worldly circumstances, withhold them from an imitation of those called the great, but who by their frivolous pursuits, render themselves least among the little.

A flighty, frivolous turn of mind, is owing partly to nature, partly to education, and partly to habit.

Every body that is observant, must have seen that some children are more sedate, and others more volatile; and that the latter, during their infantile years, are peculiarly pleasing for their pert vivacity. They perform childish things in the most engaging manner. And not in childhood only do they

gratify and please; in the following stage of early youth there is a charm in the vivaciousness of their temper, which we are apt to mistake for the germ of genius. But the expectation is often disappointed at the period of mature age. There is then found a gay surface, but no depth; a high-fed fancy, but a lank understanding and feeble judgment. The man, even the aged man, is still as volatile, still as fond of little sports and of little things, still as boyish, as when he was a boy.

The fruit of age is generally corresponding to the education of childhood. Education goes far, very far, in determining and fixing characters; and of none more than of young minds remarkably vivacious. Though a more than ordinary degree of vivacity, in the early years of life, affords no sure promise of superior strength of understanding, neither is it to be interpreted, on the other hand, as a sign that the understanding will be weak; for it sometimes is an accompaniment of great and shining parts. But in either case, the management of children of this description is a matter of peculiar delicacy. If prudent care be taken to curb and regulate, without extinguishing, the vivacity of their tempers; if their attention be directed betimes to things most important and serious; if the solid parts of education be well wrought into their minds;-in such cases, although, at last, they should turn out to be but merely of moderate abilities, yet they would stand a fair chance of being not only useful, but peculiarly agreeable members of society. Contrariwise, if their education be conducted, as too often it happens, in a manner calculated to nourish and confirm the volatile bias of their nature, there will be very little hope of their future respectability or usefulness. For should they have talents never so

bright, the chances are ten to one that they will misemploy them. Or, on the other hand, if their understandings prove but slender, they will be always children in manners and behavior;—pert, lively, frolicksome children, with hoary heads, and spectacles on

the nose.

“Habit is second nature." Especially when habit is superadded to the strong bias of nature, it is the hardest thing in the world to overcome it. And thus it happens that children of more than common liveliness of temper, so seldom learn to "put away childish things," when they come to be full grown men and women. Permitted to spend their early days in little else than trifles, the habit of trifling becomes firmly rooted, and triflers they continue to be throughout the whole of their lives. The same volatileness, which made them so pleasing in their childhood, renders them shiftless, worthless, and of small repute, ever after.

NUMBER LXV.

OF THE NATURAL AND THE MORAL HEART.

"Thy own things, and such as are grown up with thee, thou canst not know."

To obtain conviction of the truth of this observation of Esdras, the Jewish sage, we need look only to that part of our own system, called the heart. Both the material and the moral heart

of man are of mysterious and wonderful construction; too deep to be fathomed by the line of philosophy, and too intricate to be explored by human ken.

In regard to the material heart, as stated in Keil's Anatomy, "each ventricle of the heart will at least contain one ounce of blood. The heart contracts four thousand times in one hour; from which it follows, that there passes through the heart, every hour, four thousand ounces, or three hundred and fifty pounds of blood. Now the whole mass of blood (in a common-sized human body) is said to be about twenty-five pounds; so that a quantity of blood equal to the whole mass of blood passes through the heart fourteen times in one hour; which is about once in every four minutes."