is "Idylls" is that published by himself, in two
volumes, 4to, illustrated by his own engravings.--ED.]

To know this incomparable woman we must hear her. "Consider your father's
precepts as oracles of wisdom; they are the result of the experience he
has collected, not only of life, but of that art which he has acquired
simply by his own industry." She would not have her son suffer his strong
affection to herself to absorb all other sentiments. "Had you remained at
home, and been habituated under your mother's auspices to employments
merely domestic, what advantage would you have acquired? I own we should
have passed some delightful winter evenings together; but your love for
the arts, and my ambition to see my sons as much distinguished for their
talents as their virtues, would have been a constant source of regret at
your passing your time in a manner so little worthy of you."

How profound is her observation on the strong but confined attachments
of a youth of genius! "I have frequently remarked, with some regret,
the excessive attachment you indulge towards those who see and feel
as you do yourself, and the total neglect with which you seem to treat
every one else. I should reproach a man with such a fault who was
destined to pass his life in a small and unvarying circle; but in an
artist, who has a great object in view, and whose country is the whole
world, this disposition seems to be likely to produce a great number of
inconveniences. Alas! my son, the life you have hitherto led in your
father's house has been in fact a pastoral life, and not such a one as was
necessary for the education of a man whose destiny summons him to the
world."

And when her son, after meditating on some of the most glorious
productions of art, felt himself, as he says, "disheartened and cast down
at the unattainable superiority of the artist, and that it was only by
reflecting on the immense labour and continued efforts which such
masterpieces must have required, that I regained my courage and my
ardour," she observes, "This passage, my dear son, is to me as precious
as gold, and I send it to you again, because I wish you to impress it
strongly on your mind. The remembrance of this may also be a useful
preservative from too great confidence in your abilities, to which a warm
imagination may sometimes be liable, or from the despondence you might
occasionally feel from the contemplation of grand originals. Continue,
therefore, my dear s