courages amongst young people, who live much together. Had Madame, with the same good sense, the same high principle, and general benevolence towards young people, lived in society such as is to be met with in Britain, the principle upon which she acted would have led her to have encouraged in such society more gaiety and freedom of manners. As the regulated forms of life in Britain set bounds to the ease that accompanies good breeding, and refinement, generally diffused, supplies the place of native delicacy, where that is wanting, a certain decent freedom is both safe and allowable. But amid the simplicity of primitive manners, those bounds are not so well defined. Under these circumstances, mirth is a romp, and humor a buffoon; and both must be kept within strict limits.

Chapter XXXI

HOSPITALITY-ACHIEVEMENTS BY THE

ΤΗ

NEGROES

HE hospitalities of this family were so far beyond their apparent income, that all strangers were astonished at them. To account for this, it must be observed that, in the first place, there was perhaps scarce an instance of a family possessing such uncommonly well trained, active, and diligent slaves as that I describe. The set that were staid servants, when they married, had some of them died off by the time I knew the family; but the principal roots from whence the many branches, then flourishing, sprung, yet remained. These were two women, who had come originally from Africa while very young; they were most excellent servants, and the mothers or grand-mothers of the whole set, except one white-wooled negro man; who, in my time, sat by the chimney and made shoes for all the rest. The great pride and happiness of these sable matrons were, to bring up their children to dexterity, diligence, and obedience. Diana being determined that Maria's children should not excel hers in any quality, which was a recommendation to favor; and Maria equally resolved

that her brood, in the race of excellence, should outstrip Diana's. Never was a more fervent competition. That of Phillis and Brunetta, in the Spectator, was a trifle to it; and it was extremely difficult to decide on their respective merits; for though Maria's son Prince, cut down wood with more dexterity and dispatch than any one in the province, the mighty Cæsar, son of Diana, cut down wheat and threshed it, better than he. His sister Betty, who, to her misfortune, was a beauty of her kind, and possessed wit equal to her beauty, was the best seamstress and laundress, by far, I have ever known; and plain unpretending Rachel, sister to Prince, wife to Titus, alias Tyte, and head cook, dressed dinners that might have pleased Apicius. I record my old humble friends by their real names, because they allowedly stood at the head of their own class; and distinction of every kind should be respected. Besides, when the curtain drops, or indeed long before it falls, 't is perhaps more creditable to have excelled in the lowest parts, than to have fallen miserably short in the higher. Of the inferior personages, in this dark drama I have been characterizing, it would be tedious to tell suffice it, that besides filling up all the lower departments of the household, and cultivating to the highest advantage a most extensive farm, there was a thoroughbred carpenter and shoemaker, and an universal genius who made canoes, nets, and paddles ; shod horses, mended implements of husbandry,

managed the fishing, in itself no small department, reared hemp and tobacco, and spun both; made cider, and tended wild horses, as they call them; which it was his province to manage and to break. For every branch of the domestic economy, there was a person allotted, educated for the purpose; and this society was kept immaculate, in the same way that the Quakers preserve the rectitude of theirs; and indeed, in the only way that any community can be preserved from corruption; when a member showed symptoms of degeneracy, he was immediately expelled, or in other words, more suitable to this case, sold. Among the domestics, there was such a rapid increase, in consequence of their marrying very early, and living comfortably without care, that if they had not been detached off with the young people brought up in the house, they would have swarmed like an overstocked hive.

The prevention of crimes was so much attended to in this well-regulated family, that there was very little punishment necessary; none that I ever heard of, but such as Diana and Maria inflicted on their progeny, with a view to prevent the dreaded sentence of expulsion; notwithstanding the petty rivalry between the branches of the two original stocks, intermarriages between the Montagues and Capulets of the kitchen, which frequently took place, and the habit of living together under the same mild, though regular government, produced a general cordiality and affection among all the members

of the family, who were truly ruled by the law of love: and even those who occasionally differed about trifles, had an unconscious attachment to each other, which showed itself on all emergencies. Treated themselves with care and gentleness, they were careful, and kind, with regard to the only inferiors and dependents they had, the domestic animals. The superior personages in the family, had always some good property to mention, or good saying to repeat of those whom they cherished into attachment, and exalted into intelligence; while they, in their turn, improved the sagacity of their subject animals, by caressing and talking to them. Let no one laugh at this; for whenever a man is at ease and unsophisticated, where his native humanity is not extinguished by want, or chilled by oppression, it overflows to inferior beings; and improves their instincts, to a degree incredible to those who have not witnessed it. In all mountainous countries, where man is more free, more genuine, and more divided into little societies much detached from others, and much attached to each other, this cordiality of sentiment, this overflow of good will take place. The poet says,

"Humble love, and not proud reason,
Keeps the door of heaven."

This question must be left for divines to determine; but sure am I that humble love, and not proud reason, keeps the door of earthly happiness, as far