in
his Son is a Pleasure scarce inferior to the Hopes of the Continuance of his own Life. That Man is happy who can believe of his Son, that he will escape the Follies and Indiscretions of which he himself was guilty, and pursue and improve every thing that was valuable in him. The Continuance of his Virtue is much more to be regarded than that of his Life; but it is the most lamentable of all Reflections, to think that the Heir of a Man's Fortune is such a one as will be a Stranger to his Friends, alienated from the same Interests, and a Promoter of every thing which he himself disapproved. An Estate in Possession of such a Successor to a good Man, is worse than laid waste; and the Family of which he is the Head, is in a more deplorable Condition than that of being extinct.
When I visit the agreeable Seat of my honoured Friend Ruricola, and walk from Room to Room revolving many pleasing Occurrences, and the Expressions of many just Sentiments I have heard him utter, and see the Booby his Heir in Pain while he is doing the Honours of his House to the Friend of his Father, the Heaviness it gives one is not to be expressed. Want of Genius is not to be imputed to any Man, but Want of Humanity is a Man's own Fault. The Son of Ruricola, (whose Life was one continued Series of worthy Actions and Gentleman-like Inclinations) is the Companion of drunken Clowns, and knows no Sense of Praise but in the Flattery he receives from his own Servants; his Pleasures are mean and inordinate, his
base and filthy,
his
Behaviour rough and absurd. Is this Creature to be accounted the Successor of a Man of Virtue, Wit and Breeding? At the same time that I have this melancholy Prospect at the House where I miss my old Friend, I can go to a Gentleman's not far off it, where he has a Daughter who is the Picture both of his Body and Mind, but both improved with the Beauty and Modesty peculiar to her Sex. It is she who supplies the Loss of her Father to the World; she, without his Name or Fortune, is a truer Memorial of him, than her Brother who succeeds him in both. Such an Offspring as the eldest Son of my Friend, perpetuates his Father in the same manner as the Appearance of his Ghost would: It is indeed Ruricola, but it is Ruricola grown frightful.
I know not to what to attribute the brutal Turn which this young Man has taken, except it may be to a certain Severity and Distance which his Father used towards him, and might, perhaps, have occasioned a Dislike to those Modes of Life which were not made amiable to him by Freedom and Affability.