CHILDHOOD.

Children are but little people, yet they form an important part of society, expand much of our capital, employ a greater portion of our population in their service, and occupy half the literati of our day in labours for their instruction and amusement. They cause more trouble and anxiety than the national debt; the loveliest of women, in her maturity of charms, breaks not so many slumbers, nor occasions so many sighs, as she did in her cradle; and the handsomest of men with full grown mustachios, must not flatter himself that he is half so much admired as he was when in petticoats. Without any reference to their being our future statesmen, philosophers, and magistrates, in miniature disguises, children form, in their present state of pigmy existence, a most influential class of beings; and the arrival of a bawling infant who can scarcely open his eyes, and only opens its mouth, like an unfledged bird, for food, will effect the most extraordinary alteration in a whole household; substitute affection for coldness, duty for dissipation, cheerfulness for gravity, bustle for formality, and unite hearts which time had divided.