THE

YOUNG GENTLEMAN AND LADY's

MONITOR,

AND

ENGLISH TEACHER's

ASSISTANT:

BEING

A COLLECTION OF SELECT PIECES

FROM OUR BEST MODERN WRITERS;

CALCULATED TO

Eradicate vulgar Prejudices and Rusticity of Manners;
Improve the Understanding; Rectify the Will; Purify thePassions;
Direct the Minds of Youth to the Pursuit of proper Objects;
and to facilitate their Reading, Writing, and Speaking the Englishlanguage,
with Elegance and Propriety.

Particularly adapted for the use of our eminent Schools andAcademies,
as well as private persons, who have not an opportunity of perusingthe
Works of those celebrated Authors, from whence this collection ismade.

DIVIDED INTO SMALL PORTIONS, FOR THE EASE OF READING INCLASSES.

THE LATEST EDITION.

BY J. HAMILTON MOORE,

AUTHOR OF

THE PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR AND SEAMAN'S NEW DAILY ASSISTANT.

1802.

PREFACE.

As the design of Learning is to render persons agreeablecompanions to themselves, and useful members of society; to supportsolitude with pleasure, and to pass through promiscuous temptationswith prudence; 'tis presumed, this compilation will not beunacceptable; being composed of pieces selected from the mostcelebrated moral writers in the English language, equallycalculated to promote the principles of religion, and to renderyouth vigilant in discharging, the social and relative duties inthe several stations of life; by instilling into their minds suchmaxims of virtue and good-breeding, as tend to eradicate localprejudices and rusticity of manners; and at the same time,habituate them to an elegant manner of expressing themselves eitherin Writing or Speaking.

And as the first impression made on the minds of youth is themost lasting, great care should be taken to furnish them with suchseeds of reason and philosophy as may rectify and sweeten everypart of their future lives; by marking out a proper behaviour bothwith respect to themselves and others, and exhibiting every virtueto their view which claims their attention, and every vice whichthey ought to avoid. Instead of this, we generally see youthsuffered to read romances, which impress on their minds suchnotions of Fairies, Goblins, &c. that exist only in theimagination, and, being strongly imbibed, take much time toeradicate, and very often baffle all the powers of philosophy. Ifbooks abounding with moral instructions, conveyed in a propermanner, were given in their stead, the frequent reading of themwould implant in their mind such ideas and sentiments, as wouldenable them to guard against those prejudices so frequently metwith amongst the ignorant.

Nor is it possible that any person can speak or write withelegance and propriety, who has not been taught to read well, andin such books where the sentiments are just and the languagepure.

An insipid flatness and languor is almost the universal faultin reading; often uttering their words so faint and feeble, thatthey appear neither to feel nor understand what they read, nor haveany desire it should be understood or felt by others. In order toacquire a forcible manner of pronouncing words, let the pupilsinure themselves, while reading, to draw in as much air as theirlungs can contain with ease, and to expel it with vehemence inuttering those sounds which require an emphatical pronunciation,and read aloud with all the exertion they can command; let all theconsonant sounds be expressed with a full impulse of the breath,and a forcible action of the organs employed in forming them; andall the vowel sounds hav