, the third son of the Bad Family, is a great dunce. Yet he
is very capable of learning well, if he chose to take the trouble, but
he is fond of idleness and of nothing else. In the morning when he is
called, though he knows it is time to get up, he will lie still, and
after he has been called again and again, he is never ready in time for
breakfast. At his meals he lolls upon the table, or against the back of
his chair, and is just as slow and drawling in his manner of eating as
in his learning. When he is sent to school, instead of looking at his
book, he is gazing all round the room, or cutting bits of stick with his
knife; sometimes he lays his head down on the desk and falls asleep, and
then pretends to have the headache to excuse his idleness. His master is
obliged often to punish him, and then for an hour or two he will learn
very well, but next day he gets back to all his idle tricks, and does
nothing; so that he is far below many boys that are much younger than
himself. When other children go to play, he sits still or lies down
upon the ground; he can take no pleasure, for he hates the trouble of
moving, and there he sits yawning and pining for want of something to
do. When he walks, he drags his feet along as if they were too heavy to
lift up. His clothes are always dirty, for he will not brush them; his
eyes are dull and heavy; he looks like a clown and speaks like a
blockhead. Idle Richard is a burthen to himself, and scorned by
everybody.

MISS FANNY has got the title of Careless, because she minds no one thing
that she ought. If she goes out to walk, she is sure to lose one of her
gloves, or lets her bonnet blow off into the mud, or steps into the
middle of some filthy puddle, because she is staring about and not
minding which way she goes. At home, when she should go to work, her
needle-book, or her thimble, or her scissors cannot be found; though
she has a work-basket to put these things in, they are never in the
right place.

At dinner she does not observe how her plate stands on the table, and
perhaps her meat and all the gravy tumble into her lap. If she has a
glass of wine, she spills it on her frock; if she hands a plate of bread
and butter to any one, she is sure either to drop the plate, or to
let the bread and butter fall upon the carpet. She wears very coarse
clothes, for she cannot be trusted with good ones. At night when she
undresses to go to bed, she throws her frock on a chair or the groun