ich was formerly sick
from inanition, is now in danger from a plethora. Much, however, will
depend on capacity and disposition. A child of slower parts may be
indulged till nine years old with books which a lively genius will look
down upon at seven. A girl of talents _will_ read. To _her_ no
excitement is wanting. The natural appetite is a sufficient incentive.
The less brilliant child requires the allurement of lighter books. She
wants encouragement as much as the other requires restraint."

"But don't you think," said Lady Belfield, "that they are of great use
in attracting children to love reading?"

"Doubtless they are," said Mr. Stanley. "The misfortune is, that the
stimulants used to attract at first, must be not only continued but
heightened, to keep up the attraction. These books are novels in
miniature, and the excess of them will lead to the want of novels at
full length. The early use of savory dishes is not usually followed by
an appetite for plain food. To the taste thus pampered, history becomes
dry, grammar laborious, and religion dull.

"My wife, who was left to travel through the wide expanse of Universal
History, and the dreary deserts of Rapin and Mezerai, is, I will venture
to assert, more competently skilled in ancient, French, and English
history, than any of the girls who have been fed, or rather starved, on
extracts and abridgments. I mean not to recommend the two last named
authors for very young people. They are dry and tedious, and children in
our day have opportunities of acquiring the same knowledge with less
labor. We have brighter, I wish I could say safer, lights. Still fact,
and not wit, is the leading object of history.

"Mrs. Stanley says, that the very tediousness of her historians had a
good effect; they were a ballast to her levity, a discipline to her
mind, of which she has felt the benefit in her subsequent life.

"But to return to the mass of children's books. The too great profusion
of them protracts the imbecility of childhood. They arrest the
understanding, instead of advancing it. They give forwardness without
strength. They hinder the mind from making vigorous shoots, teach it to
stoop when it should soar, and to contract when it should expand. Yet I
allow that many of them are delightfully amusing, and to a certain
degree instructive. But they must not be used as the basis of
instruction, and but sparingly used at all as refreshment from labor."

"They inculcate mora