ridiculous to the ear of reason than the voice of a puppet.  You have invented sounds, which you worship, though they tyrannize over your peace; and are surrounded with empty forms, which take from the honest emotions of joy, and add to the poignancy of misfortune.”  “Sir!” said Harley - his friend winked to him, to remind him of the caution he had received.  He was silenced by the thought.  The philosopher turned his eye upon him: he examined him from top to toe, with a sort of triumphant contempt; Harley’s coat happened to be a new one; the other’s was as shabby as could possibly be supposed to be on the back of a gentleman: there was much significance in his look with regard to this coat; it spoke of the sleekness of folly and the threadbareness of wisdom.

“Truth,” continued he, “the most amiable, as well as the most natural of virtues, you are at pains to eradicate.  Your very nurseries are seminaries of falsehood; and what is called Fashion in manhood completes the system of avowed insincerity.  Mankind, in the gross, is a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been disappointed: nor is their vanity less fallacious to your philosophers, who adopt modes of truth to follow them through the paths of error, and defend paradoxes merely to be singular in defending them.  These are they whom ye term Ingenious; ’tis a phrase of commendation I detest: it implies an attempt to impose on my judgment, by flattering my imagination; yet these are they whose works are read by the old with delight, which the young are taught to look upon as the codes of knowledge and philosophy.

“Indeed, the education of your youth is every way preposterous; you waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour in discovering them; one promiscuous line of instruction is followed, without regard to genius, capacity, or probable situation in the commonwealth.  From this bear-garden of the pedagogue, a raw, unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the world to travel; without any ideas but those of improving his dress at Paris, or starting into taste by gazing on some paintings at Rome.  Ask him of the manners of the people, and he will tell you that the skirt is worn much shorter in France, and that everybody eats macaroni in Italy.  When he returns home, he buys a seat in parliament, and studies the constitution at Arthur’s.

“Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are taught, by the very rewards which their nurses