Excerpt from Arithmetical Questions, on a New Plan: Intended to Answer the Double Purpose of Arithmetical Instruction and Miscellaneous Information The frivolity of the age (fays an elegant writer) affords very lhameful encoura ment to a fpecies of literary compo fition called a Nova L, which is nothing more than a romance taken from the manners of the times; and is, in general, worked up in fuch a form, as to camp: the minds of you women, and to enable old one: to murder that time of which they have fo little remainin It is, indeed, poflible, for excellent fcntiments, and valuable knowledge, to be commu nicated in the farm of a novel; but there are very few ro duelions of this kind in our language; and, in general, it is much better for youn perfons to employ fuch time as they can fpare for that purpofe in the perufal of real billory, and of biographical accounts of perfons eminent for virtue and for knowledge. The early hours of youth are invaluable, and {hould be conflantly improved; not always, indeed, in a duet! Manner, and with a profell'ed aim at improvement; yet alwa s as really, and as cll'eelually, as if that was, as Indeed it oug t to be, the {ludy of life. No book, therefore, lhould be put into their bands which does not aaually increafe their flock of knowledge, and either explicitly or implicitly promote yrrtue, general or particular. Now novel-reading not only indtfpofes thofe who Indulge in it for all other kinds of readilpg, but event ually injures the health. I have been told, fays Clarkfon, by a phyiician of the firll eminence, that mulic and needs haye done more to produeethe fickly countenances and nervous habit.

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