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+Project Gutenberg's Letters to His Son, 1748, by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Letters to His Son, 1748
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2004 [EBook #3352]
+[Last updated on February 14, 2007]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1748 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+               LETTERS TO HIS SON
+                    1748
+
+           By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+          on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                   and a
+ 
+                 GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV
+
+January 2, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I am edified with the allotment of your time at Leipsig; which
+is so well employed from morning till night, that a fool would say you
+had none left for yourself; whereas, I am sure you have sense enough to
+know, that such a right use of your time is having it all to yourself;
+nay, it is even more, for it is laying it out to immense interest, which,
+in a very few years, will amount to a prodigious capital.
+
+Though twelve of your fourteen 'Commensaux' may not be the liveliest
+people in the world, and may want (as I easily conceive that they do) 'le
+ton de la bonne campagnie, et les graces', which I wish you, yet pray
+take care not to express any contempt, or throw out any ridicule; which I
+can assure you, is not more contrary to good manners than to good sense:
+but endeavor rather to get all the good you can out of them; and
+something or other is to be got out of everybody. They will, at least,
+improve you in the German language; and, as they come from different
+countries, you may put them upon subjects, concerning which they must
+necessarily be able to give you some useful informations, let them be
+ever so dull or disagreeable in general: they will know something, at
+least, of the laws, customs, government, and considerable families of
+their respective countries; all which are better known than not, and
+consequently worth inquiring into. There is hardly any body good for
+every thing, and there is scarcely any body who is absolutely good for
+nothing. A good chemist will extract some spirit or other out of every
+substance; and a man of parts will, by his dexterity and management,
+elicit something worth knowing out of every being he converses with.
+
+As you have been introduced to the Duchess of Courland, pray go there as
+often as ever your more necessary occupations will allow you. I am told
+she is extremely well bred, and has parts. Now, though I would not
+recommend to you, to go into women's company in search of solid
+knowledge, or judgment, yet it has its use in other respects; for it
+certainly polishes the manners, and gives 'une certaine tournure', which
+is very necessary in the course of the world; and which Englishmen have
+generally less of than any people in the world.
+
+I cannot say that your suppers are luxurious, but you must own they are
+solid; and a quart of soup, and two pounds of potatoes, will enable you
+to pass the night without great impatience for your breakfast next
+morning. One part of your supper (the potatoes) is the constant diet of
+my old friends and countrymen,--[Lord Chesterfield, from the time he was
+appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 1775, used always to call the Irish
+his countrymen.]--the Irish, who are the healthiest and the strongest
+bodies of men that I know in Europe.
+
+As I believe that many of my letters to you and to Mr. Harte have
+miscarried, as well as some of yours and his to me; particularly one of
+his from Leipsig, to which he refers in a subsequent one, and which I
+never received; I would have you, for the future, acknowledge the dates
+of all the letters which either of you shall receive from me; and I will
+do the same on my part.
+
+That which I received by the last mail, from you, was of the 25th
+November, N. S.; the mail before that brought me yours, of which I have
+forgot the date, but which inclosed one to Lady Chesterfield: she will
+answer it soon, and, in the mean time, thanks you for it.
+
+My disorder was only a very great cold, of which I am entirely recovered.
+You shall not complain for want of accounts from Mr. Grevenkop, who will
+frequently write you whatever passes here, in the German language and
+character; which will improve you in both. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV
+
+LONDON, January 15, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I willingly accept the new-year's gift which you promise me for
+next year; and the more valuable you make it, the more thankful I shall
+be. That depends entirely upon you; and therefore I hope to be presented,
+every year, with a new edition of you, more correct than the former, and
+considerably enlarged and amended.
+
+Since you do not care to be an assessor of the imperial chamber, and that
+you desire an establishment in England; what do you think of being Greek
+Professor at one of our universities? It is a very pretty sinecure, and
+requires very little knowledge (much less than, I hope, you have already)
+of that language. If you do not approve of this, I am at a loss to know
+what else to propose to you; and therefore desire that you will inform me
+what sort of destination you propose for yourself; for it is now time to
+fix it, and to take our measures accordingly. Mr. Harte tells me that you
+set up for a----------; if so, I presume it is in the view of succeeding
+me in my office;--[A secretary of state.]--which I will very willingly
+resign to you, whenever you shall call upon me for it. But, if you intend
+to be the--------, or the-----------, there are some trifling
+circumstances upon which you should previously take your resolution. The
+first of which is, to be fit for it: and then, in order to be so, make
+yourself master of ancient and, modern history, and languages. To know
+perfectly the constitution, and form of government of every nation; the
+growth and the decline of ancient and modern empires; and to trace out
+and reflect upon the causes of both. To know the strength, the riches,
+and the commerce of every country. These little things, trifling as they
+may seem, are yet very necessary for a politician to know; and which
+therefore, I presume, you will condescend to apply yourself to. There are
+some additional qualifications necessary, in the practical part of
+business, which may deserve some consideration in your leisure moments;
+such as, an absolute command of your temper, so as not to be provoked to
+passion, upon any account; patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and
+unreasonable applications; with address enough to refuse, without
+offending, or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation;
+dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie; sagacity
+enough to read other people's countenances; and serenity enough not to
+let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness with a real
+reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your
+grammar.
+
+Three mails are now due from Holland; so that I have no letters from you
+to acknowledge. I therefore conclude with recommending myself to your
+favor and protection when you succeed. Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVI
+
+LONDON, January 29, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I find, by Mr. Harte's last letter, that many of my letters to
+you and him, have been frozen up on their way to Leipsig; the thaw has, I
+suppose, by this time, set them at liberty to pursue their journey to
+you, and you will receive a glut of them at once. Hudibras alludes, in
+this verse,
+
+        "Like words congealed in northern air,"
+
+to a vulgar notion, that in Greenland words were frozen in their
+utterance; and that upon a thaw, a very mixed conversation was heard in
+the air, of all those words set at liberty. This conversation was, I
+presume, too various and extensive to be much attended to: and may not
+that be the case of half a dozen of my long letters, when you receive
+them all at once? I think that I can, eventually, answer that question,
+thus: If you consider my letters in their true light, as conveying to you
+the advice of a friend, who sincerely wishes your happiness, and desires
+to promote your pleasure, you will both read and attend to them; but, if
+you consider them in their opposite, and very false light, as the
+dictates of a morose and sermonizing father, I am sure they will be not
+only unattended to, but unread. Which is the case, you can best tell me.
+Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it
+the least. I hope that your want of experience, of which you must be
+conscious, will convince you, that you want advice; and that your good
+sense will incline you to follow it.
+
+Tell me how you pass your leisure hours at Leipsig; I know you have not
+many; and I have too good an opinion of you to think, that, at this age,
+you would desire more. Have you assemblies, or public spectacles? and of
+what kind are they? Whatever they are, see them all; seeing everything,
+is the only way not to admire anything too much.
+
+If you ever take up little tale-books, to amuse you by snatches, I will
+recommend two French books, which I have already mentioned; they will
+entertain you, and not without some use to your mind and your manners.
+One is, 'La Maniere de bien penser dans les Ouvrages d'Esprit', written
+by Pere Bouhours; I believe you read it once in England, with Monsieur
+Coderc; but I think that you will do well to read it again, as I know of
+no book that will form your taste better. The other is, 'L'Art de plaire
+dans la Conversation', by the Abbe de Bellegarde, and is by no means
+useless, though I will not pretend to say, that the art of pleasing can
+be reduced to a receipt; if it could, I am sure that receipt would be
+worth purchasing at any price. Good sense, and good nature, are the
+principal ingredients; and your own observation, and the good advice of
+others, must give the right color and taste to it. Adieu! I shall always
+love you as you shall deserve.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVII
+
+LONDON, February 9, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: You will receive this letter, not from a Secretary of State but
+from a private man; for whom, at his time of life, quiet was as fit, and
+as necessary, as labor and activity are for you at your age, and for many
+years yet to come. I resigned the seals, last Saturday, to the King; who
+parted with me most graciously, and (I may add, for he said so himself)
+with regret. As I retire from hurry to quiet, and to enjoy, at my ease,
+the comforts of private and social life, you will easily imagine that I
+have no thoughts of opposition, or meddling with business. 'Otium cum
+dignitate' is my object. The former I now enjoy; and I hope that my
+conduct and character entitle me to some share of the latter. In short, I
+am now happy: and I found that I could not be so in my former public
+situation.
+
+As I like your correspondence better than that of all the kings, princes,
+and ministers, in Europe, I shall now have leisure to carry it on more
+regularly. My letters to you will be written, I am sure, by me, and, I
+hope, read by you, with pleasure; which, I believe, seldom happens,
+reciprocally, to letters written from and to a secretary's office.
+
+Do not apprehend that my retirement from business may be a hindrance to
+your advancement in it, at a proper time: on the contrary, it will
+promote it; for, having nothing to ask for myself, I shall have the
+better title to ask for you. But you have still a surer way than this of
+rising, and which is wholly in your own power. Make yourself necessary;
+which, with your natural parts, you may, by application, do. We are in
+general, in England, ignorant of foreign affairs: and of the interests,
+views, pretensions, and policy of other courts. That part of knowledge
+never enters into our thoughts, nor makes part of our education; for
+which reason, we have fewer proper subjects for foreign commissions, than
+any other country in Europe; and, when foreign affairs happen to be
+debated in Parliament, it is incredible with how much ignorance. The
+harvest of foreign affairs being then so great, and the laborers so few,
+if you make yourself master of them, you will make yourself necessary;
+first as a foreign, and then as a domestic minister for that department.
+
+I am extremely well pleased with the account which you give me of the
+allotment of your time. Do but go on so, for two years longer, and I will
+ask no more of you. Your labors will be their own reward; but if you
+desire any other, that I can add, you may depend upon it.
+
+I am glad that you perceive the indecency and turpitude of those of your
+'Commensaux', who disgrace and foul themselves with dirty w----s and
+scoundrel gamesters. And the light in which, I am sure, you see all
+reasonable and decent people consider them, will be a good warning to
+you. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVIII
+
+LONDON, February 13, O. S. 1748
+
+DEAR BOY: your last letter gave me a very satisfactory account of your
+manner of employing your time at Leipsig. Go on so but for two years
+more, and, I promise you, that you will outgo all the people of your age
+and time. I thank you for your explanation of the 'Schriftsassen', and
+'Amptsassen'; and pray let me know the meaning of the 'Landsassen'. I am
+very willing that you should take a Saxon servant, who speaks nothing but
+German, which will be a sure way of keeping up your German, after you
+leave Germany. But then, I would neither have that man, nor him whom you
+have already, put out of livery; which makes them both impertinent and
+useless. I am sure, that as soon as you shall have taken the other
+servant, your present man will press extremely to be out of livery, and
+valet de chambre; which is as much as to say, that he will curl your hair
+and shave you, but not condescend to do anything else. I therefore advise
+you, never to have a servant out of livery; and, though you may not
+always think proper to carry the servant who dresses you abroad in the
+rain and dirt, behind a coach or before a chair, yet keep it in your
+power to do so, if you please, by keeping him in livery.
+
+I have seen Monsieur and Madame Flemming, who gave me a very good account
+of you, and of your manners, which to tell you the plain truth, were what
+I doubted of the most. She told me, that you were easy, and not ashamed:
+which is a great deal for an Englishman at your age.
+
+I set out for Bath to-morrow, for a month; only to be better than well,
+and enjoy, in, quiet, the liberty which I have acquired by the
+resignation of the seals. You shall hear from me more at large from
+thence; and now good night to you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIX
+
+BATH, February 18, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: The first use that I made of my liberty was to come here, where
+I arrived yesterday. My health, though not fundamentally bad yet, for
+want of proper attention of late, wanted some repairs, which these waters
+never fail giving it. I shall drink them a month, and return to London,
+there to enjoy the comforts of social life, instead of groaning under the
+load of business. I have given the description of the life that I propose
+to lead for the future, in this motto, which I have put up in the frize
+of my library in my new house:--
+
+     Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis
+     Ducere sollicitae jucunda oblivia vitas.
+
+I must observe to you upon this occasion, that the uninterrupted
+satisfaction which I expect to find in that library, will be chiefly
+owing to my having employed some part of my life well at your age. I wish
+I had employed it better, and my satisfaction would now be complete; but,
+however, I planted while young, that degree of knowledge which is now my
+refuge and my shelter. Make your plantations still more extensive; they
+will more than pay you for your trouble. I do not regret the time that I
+passed in pleasures; they were seasonable; they were the pleasures of
+youth, and I enjoyed them while young. If I had not, I should probably
+have overvalued them now, as we are very apt to do what we do not know;
+but, knowing them as I do, I know their real value, and how much they are
+generally overrated. Nor do I regret the time that I have passed in
+business, for the same reason; those who see only the outside of it,
+imagine it has hidden charms, which they pant after; and nothing but
+acquaintance can undeceive them. I, who have been behind the scenes, both
+of pleasure and business, and have seen all the springs and pullies of
+those decorations which astonish and dazzle the audience, retire, not
+only without regret, but with contentment and satisfaction. But what I
+do, and ever shall regret, is the time which, while young, I lost in mere
+idleness, and in doing nothing. This is the common effect of the
+inconsideracy of youth, against which I beg you will be most carefully
+upon your guard. The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well
+employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable. Every moment may
+be put to some use, and that with much more pleasure, than if unemployed.
+Do not imagine, that by the employment of time, I mean an uninterrupted
+application to serious studies. No; pleasures are, at proper times, both
+as necessary and as useful; they fashion and form you for the world; they
+teach you characters, and show you the human heart in its unguarded
+minutes. But then remember to make that use of them. I have known many
+people, from laziness of mind, go through both pleasure and business with
+equal inattention; neither enjoying the one, nor doing the other;
+thinking themselves men of pleasure, because they were mingled with those
+who were, and men of business, because they had business to do, though
+they did not do it. Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it
+thoroughly, not superficially. 'Approfondissez': go to the bottom of
+things. Any thing half done or half known, is, in my mind, neither done
+nor known at all. Nay worse, it often misleads. There is hardly any place
+or any company, where you may not gain knowledge, if you please; almost
+everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk upon that one thing.
+Seek and you will find, in this world as well as in the next. See
+everything; inquire into everything; and you may excuse your curiosity,
+and the questions you ask which otherwise might be thought impertinent,
+by your manner of asking them; for most things depend a great deal upon
+the manner. As, for example, I AM AFRAID THAT I AM VERY TROUBLESOME WITH
+MY QUESTIONS; BUT NOBODY CAN INFORM ME SO WELL AS YOU; or something of
+that kind.
+
+Now that you are in a Lutheran country, go to their churches, and observe
+the manner of their public worship; attend to their ceremonies, and
+inquire the meaning and intention of everyone of them. And, as you will
+soon understand German well enough, attend to their sermons, and observe
+their manner of preaching. Inform yourself of their church government:
+whether it resides in the sovereign, or in consistories and synods.
+Whence arises the maintenance of their clergy; whether from tithes, as in
+England, or from voluntary contributions, or from pensions from the
+state. Do the same thing when you are in Roman Catholic countries; go to
+their churches, see all their ceremonies: ask the meaning of them, get
+the terms explained to you. As, for instance, Prime, Tierce, Sexte,
+Nones, Matins, Angelus, High Mass, Vespers, Complines, etc. Inform
+yourself of their several religious orders, their founders, their rules,
+their vows, their habits, their revenues, etc. But, when you frequent
+places of public worship, as I would have you go to all the different
+ones you meet with, remember, that however erroneous, they are none of
+them objects of laughter and ridicule. Honest error is to be pitied, not
+ridiculed. The object of all the public worships in the world is the
+same; it is that great eternal Being who created everything. The
+different manners of worship are by no means subjects of ridicule. Each
+sect thinks its own is the best; and I know no infallible judge in this
+world, to decide which is the best. Make the same inquiries, wherever you
+are, concerning the revenues, the military establishment, the trade, the
+commerce, and the police of every country. And you would do well to keep
+a blank paper book, which the Germans call an ALBUM; and there, instead
+of desiring, as they do, every fool they meet with to scribble something,
+write down all these things as soon as they come to your knowledge from
+good authorities.
+
+I had almost forgotten one thing, which I would recommend as an object
+for your curiosity and information, that is, the administration of
+justice; which, as it is always carried on in open court, you may, and I
+would have you, go and see it with attention and inquiry.
+
+I have now but one anxiety left, which is concerning you. I would have
+you be, what I know nobody is--perfect. As that is impossible, I would
+have you as near perfection as possible. I know nobody in a fairer way
+toward it than yourself, if you please. Never were so much pains taken
+for anybody's education as for yours; and never had anybody those
+opportunities of knowledge and improvement which you, have had, and still
+have, I hope, I wish, I doubt, and fear alternately. This only I am sure
+of, that you will prove either the greatest pain or the greatest pleasure
+of, Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXX
+
+BATH, February 22, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR Boy: Every excellency, and every virtue, has its kindred vice or
+weakness; and if carried beyond certain bounds, sinks into one or the
+other. Generosity often runs into profusion, economy into avarice,
+courage into rashness, caution into timidity, and so on:--insomuch that,
+I believe, there is more judgment required, for the proper conduct of our
+virtues, than for avoiding their opposite vices. Vice, in its true light,
+is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight, and would hardly ever
+seduce us, if it did not, at first, wear the mask of some virtue. But
+virtue is, in itself, so beautiful, that it charms us at first sight;
+engages us more and more upon further acquaintance; and, as with other
+beauties, we think excess impossible; it is here that judgment is
+necessary, to moderate and direct the effects of an excellent cause. I
+shall apply this reasoning, at present, not to any particular virtue, but
+to an excellency, which, for want of judgment, is often the cause of
+ridiculous and blamable effects; I mean, great learning; which, if not
+accompanied with sound judgment, frequently carries us into error, pride,
+and pedantry. As, I hope, you will possess that excellency in its utmost
+extent, and yet without its too common failings, the hints, which my
+experience can suggest, may probably not be useless to you.
+
+Some learned men, proud of their knowledge, only speak to decide, and
+give judgment without appeal; the consequence of which is, that mankind,
+provoked by the insult, and injured by the oppression, revolt; and, in
+order to shake off the tyranny, even call the lawful authority in
+question. The more you know, the modester you should be: and (by the bye)
+that modesty is the surest way of gratifying your vanity. Even where you
+are sure, seem rather doubtful; represent, but do not pronounce, and, if
+you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
+
+Others, to show their learning, or often from the prejudices of a school
+education, where they hear of nothing else, are always talking of the
+ancients, as something more than men, and of the moderns, as something
+less. They are never without a classic or two in their pockets; they
+stick to the old good sense; they read none of the modern trash; and will
+show you, plainly, that no improvement has been made, in any one art or
+science, these last seventeen hundred years. I would by no means have you
+disown your acquaintance with the ancients: but still less would I have
+you brag of an exclusive intimacy with them. Speak of the moderns without
+contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their
+merits, but not by their ages; and if you happen to have an Elzevir
+classic in your pocket neither show it nor mention it.
+
+Some great scholars, most absurdly, draw all their maxims, both for
+public and private life, from what they call parallel cases in the
+ancient authors; without considering, that, in the first place, there
+never were, since the creation of the world, two cases exactly parallel;
+and, in the next place, that there never was a case stated, or even
+known, by any historian, with every one of its circumstances; which,
+however, ought to be known, in order to be reasoned from. Reason upon the
+case itself, and the several circumstances that attend it, and act
+accordingly; but not from the authority of ancient poets, or historians.
+Take into your consideration, if you please, cases seemingly analogous;
+but take them as helps only, not as guides. We are really so prejudiced
+by our education, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify
+their madmen; of which, with all due regard for antiquity, I take
+Leonidas and Curtius to have been two distinguished ones. And yet a solid
+pedant would, in a speech in parliament, relative to a tax of two pence
+in the pound upon some community or other, quote those two heroes, as
+examples of what we ought to do and suffer for our country. I have known
+these absurdities carried so far by people of injudicious learning, that
+I should not be surprised, if some of them were to propose, while we are
+at war with the Gauls, that a number of geese should be kept in the
+Tower, upon account of the infinite advantage which Rome received IN A
+PARALLEL CASE, from a certain number of geese in the Capitol. This way of
+reasoning, and this way of speaking, will always form a poor politician,
+and a puerile declaimer.
+
+There is another species of learned men, who, though less dogmatical and
+supercilious, are not less impertinent. These are the communicative and
+shining pedants, who adorn their conversation, even with women, by happy
+quotations of Greek and Latin; and who have contracted such a familiarity
+with the Greek and Roman authors, that they, call them by certain names
+or epithets denoting intimacy. As OLD Homer; that SLY ROGUE Horace; MARO,
+instead of Virgil; and Naso, Instead of Ovid. These are often imitated by
+coxcombs, who have no learning at all; but who have got some names and
+some scraps of ancient authors by heart, which they improperly and
+impertinently retail in all companies, in hopes of passing for scholars.
+If, therefore, you would avoid the accusation of pedantry on one hand, or
+the suspicion of ignorance on the other, abstain from learned
+ostentation. Speak the language of the company that you are in; speak it
+purely, and unlarded with any other. Never seem wiser, nor more learned,
+than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a
+private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that
+you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it; but do not
+proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman.
+
+Upon the whole, remember that learning (I mean Greek and Roman learning)
+is a most useful and necessary ornament, which it is shameful not to be
+master of; but, at the same time most carefully avoid those errors and
+abuses which I have mentioned, and which too often attend it. Remember,
+too, that great modern knowledge is still more necessary than ancient;
+and that you had better know perfectly the present, than the old state of
+Europe; though I would have you well acquainted with both.
+
+I have this moment received your letter of the 17th, N. S. Though, I
+confess, there is no great variety in your present manner of life, yet
+materials can never be wanting for a letter; you see, you hear, or you
+read something new every day; a short account of which, with your own
+reflections thereupon, will make out a letter very well. But, since you
+desire a subject, pray send me an account of the Lutheran establishment
+in Germany; their religious tenets, their church government, the
+maintenance, authority, and titles of their clergy.
+
+'Vittorio Siri', complete, is a very scarce and very dear book here; but
+I do not want it. If your own library grows too voluminous, you will not
+know what to do with it, when you leave Leipsig. Your best way will be,
+when you go away from thence, to send to England, by Hamburg, all the
+books that you do not absolutely want.
+
+                         Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXI
+
+BATH, March 1, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: By Mr. Harte's letter to Mr. Grevenkop, of the 21st February,
+N. S., I find that you had been a great while without receiving any
+letters from me; but by this time, I daresay you think you have received
+enough, and possibly more than you have read; for I am not only a
+frequent, but a prolix correspondent.
+
+Mr. Harte says, in that letter, that he looks upon Professor Mascow to be
+one of the ablest men in Europe, in treaty and political knowledge. I am
+extremely glad of it; for that is what I would have you particularly
+apply to, and make yourself perfect master of. The treaty part you must
+chiefly acquire by reading the treaties themselves, and the histories and
+memoirs relative to them; not but that inquiries and conversations upon
+those treaties will help you greatly, and imprint them better in your
+mind. In this course of reading, do not perplex yourself, at first, by
+the multitude of insignificant treaties which are to be found in the
+Corps Diplomatique; but stick to the material ones, which altered the
+state of Europe, and made a new arrangement among the great powers; such
+as the treaties of Munster, Nimeguen, Ryswick, and Utrecht.
+
+But there is one part of political knowledge, which is only to be had by
+inquiry and conversation; that is, the present state of every power in
+Europe, with regard to the three important points, of strength, revenue,
+and commerce. You will, therefore, do well, while you are in Germany, to
+inform yourself carefully of the military force, the revenues, and the
+commerce of every prince and state of the empire; and to write down those
+informations in a little book, for that particular purpose. To give you a
+specimen of what I mean:--
+
+            THE ELECTORATE OF HANOVER
+
+   The revenue is about L500,000 a year.
+
+   The military establishment, in time of war, may be about 25,000 men;
+   but that is the utmost.
+
+   The trade is chiefly linens, exported from Stade.
+
+   There are coarse woolen manufactures for home-consumption.
+
+   The mines of Hartz produce about L100,000 in silver, annually.
+
+Such informations you may very easily get, by proper inquiries, of every
+state in Germany if you will but prefer useful to frivolous
+conversations.
+
+There are many princes in Germany, who keep very few or no troops, unless
+upon the approach of danger, or for the sake of profit, by letting them
+out for subsidies, to great powers: In that case, you will inform
+yourself what number of troops they could raise, either for their own
+defense, or furnish to other powers for subsidies.
+
+There is very little trouble, and an infinite use, in acquiring of this
+knowledge. It seems to me even to be a more entertaining subject to talk
+upon, than 'la pluie et le beau tens'.
+
+Though I am sensible that these things cannot be known with the utmost
+exactness, at least by you yet, you may, however, get so near the truth,
+that the difference will be very immaterial.
+
+Pray let me know if the Roman Catholic worship is tolerated in Saxony,
+anywhere but at Court; and if public mass-houses are allowed anywhere
+else in the electorate. Are the regular Romish clergy allowed; and have
+they any convents?
+
+Are there any military orders in Saxony, and what? Is the White Eagle a
+Saxon or a Polish order? Upon what occasion, and when was it founded?
+What number of knights?
+
+Adieu! God bless you; and may you turn out what I wish!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXII
+
+BATH, March 9, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I must from time to time, remind you of what I have often
+recommended to you, and of what you cannot attend to too much; SACRIFICE
+TO THE GRACES. The different effects of the same things, said or done,
+when accompanied or abandoned by them, is almost inconceivable. They
+prepare the way to the heart; and the heart has such an influence over
+the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
+It is the whole of women, who are guided by nothing else: and it has so
+much to say, even with men, and the ablest men too, that it commonly
+triumphs in every struggle with the understanding. Monsieur de
+Rochefoucault, in his "Maxims," says, that 'l'esprit est souvent la dupe
+du coeur.' If he had said, instead of 'souvent, tresque toujours', I fear
+he would have been nearer the truth. This being the case, aim at the
+heart. Intrinsic merit alone will not do; it will gain you the general
+esteem of all; but not the particular affection, that is, the heart of
+any. To engage the affections of any particular person, you must, over
+and above your general merit, have some particular merit to that person
+by services done, or offered; by expressions of regard and esteem; by
+complaisance, attentions, etc., for him. And the graceful manner of doing
+all these things opens the way to the heart, and facilitates, or rather
+insures, their effects. From your own observation, reflect what a
+disagreeable impression an awkward address, a slovenly figure, an
+ungraceful manner of speaking, whether stuttering, muttering, monotony,
+or drawling, an unattentive behavior, etc., make upon you, at first
+sight, in a stranger, and how they prejudice you against him, though for
+aught you know, he may have great intrinsic sense and merit. And reflect,
+on the other hand, how much the opposites of all these things prepossess
+you, at first sight, in favor of those who enjoy them. You wish to find
+all good qualities in them, and are in some degree disappointed if you do
+not. A thousand little things, not separately to be defined, conspire to
+form these graces, this je ne sais quoi, that always please. A pretty
+person, genteel motions, a proper degree of dress, an harmonious voice,
+something open and cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing; a
+distinct and properly varied manner of speaking: All these things, and
+many others, are necessary ingredients in the composition of the pleasing
+je ne sais quoi, which everybody feels, though nobody can describe.
+Observe carefully, then, what displeases or pleases you in others, and be
+persuaded, that in general; the same things will please or displease them
+in you. Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn you against
+it: and I could heartily wish, that you may often be seen to smile, but
+never heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the
+characteristic of folly and in manners; it is the manner in which the mob
+express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry. In
+my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible
+laughter. True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody laugh; they are
+above it: They please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the
+countenance. But it is low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always
+excite laughter; and that is what people of sense and breeding should
+show themselves above. A man's going to sit down, in the supposition that
+he has a chair behind him, and falling down upon his breech for want of
+one, sets a whole company a laughing, when all the wit in the world would
+not do it; a plain proof, in my mind, how low and unbecoming a thing
+laughter is: not to mention the disagreeable noise that it makes, and the
+shocking distortion of the face that it occasions. Laughter is easily
+restrained, by a very little reflection; but as it is generally connected
+with the idea of gaiety, people do not enough attend to its absurdity. I
+am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing
+and as apt to be pleased as anybody; but I am sure that, since I have had
+the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh. Many people,
+at first, from awkwardness and 'mauvaise honte', have got a very
+disagreeable and silly trick of laughing whenever they speak; and I know
+a man of very good parts, Mr. Waller, who cannot say the commonest thing
+without laughing; which makes those, who do not know him, take him at
+first for a natural fool. This, and many other very disagreeable habits,
+are owing to mauvaise honte at their first setting out in the world. They
+are ashamed in company, and so disconcerted, that they do not know what
+they do, and try a thousand tricks to keep themselves in countenance;
+which tricks afterward grow habitual to them. Some put their fingers in
+their nose, others scratch their heads, others twirl their hats; in
+short, every awkward, ill-bred body has his trick. But the frequency does
+not justify the thing, and all these vulgar habits and awkwardnesses,
+though not criminal indeed, are most carefully to be guarded against, as
+they are great bars in the way of the art of pleasing. Remember, that to
+please is almost to prevail, or at least a necessary previous step to it.
+You, who have your fortune to make, should more particularly study this
+art. You had not, I must tell you, when you left England, 'les manieres
+prevenantes'; and I must confess they are not very common in England; but
+I hope that your good sense will make you acquire them abroad. If you
+desire to make yourself considerable in the world (as, if you have any
+spirit, you do), it must be entirely your own doing; for I may very
+possibly be out of the world at the time you come into it. Your own rank
+and fortune will not assist you; your merit and your manners can alone
+raise you to figure and fortune. I have laid the foundations of them, by
+the education which I have given you; but you must build the
+superstructure yourself.
+
+I must now apply to you for some informations, which I dare say you can,
+and which I desire you will give me.
+
+Can the Elector of Saxony put any of his subjects to death for high
+treason, without bringing them first to their trial in some public court
+of justice?
+
+Can he, by his own authority, confine any subject in prison as long as he
+pleases, without trial?
+
+Can he banish any subject out of his dominions by his own authority?
+
+Can he lay any tax whatsoever upon his subjects, without the consent of
+the states of Saxony? and what are those states? how are they elected?
+what orders do they consist of? Do the clergy make part of them? and
+when, and how often do they meet?
+
+If two subjects of the elector's are at law, for an estate situated in
+the electorate, in what court must this suit be tried? and will the
+decision of that court be final, or does there lie an appeal to the
+imperial chamber at Wetzlaer?
+
+What do you call the two chief courts, or two chief magistrates, of civil
+and criminal justice?
+
+What is the common revenue of the electorate, one year with another?
+
+What number of troops does the elector now maintain? and what is the
+greatest number that the electorate is able to maintain?
+
+I do not expect to have all these questions answered at once; but you
+will answer them, in proportion as you get the necessary and authentic
+informations.
+
+You are, you see, my German oracle; and I consult you with so much faith,
+that you need not, like the oracles of old, return ambiguous answers;
+especially as you have this advantage over them, too, that I only consult
+you about past end present, but not about what is to come.
+
+I wish you a good Easter-fair at Leipsig. See, with attention all the
+shops, drolls, tumblers, rope-dancers, and 'hoc genus omne': but inform
+yourself more particularly of the several parts of trade there. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIII
+
+LONDON, March 25, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I am in great joy at the written and the verbal accounts which
+I have received lately of you.
+
+The former, from Mr. Harte; the latter, from Mr. Trevanion, who is
+arrived here: they conspire to convince me that you employ your time well
+at Leipsig. I am glad to find you consult your own interest and your own
+pleasure so much; for the knowledge which you will acquire in these two
+years is equally necessary for both. I am likewise particularly pleased
+to find that you turn yourself to that sort of knowledge which is more
+peculiarly necessary for your destination: for Mr. Harte tells me you
+have read, with attention, Caillieres, Pequet, and Richelieu's "Letters."
+The "Memoirs" of the Cardinal de Retz will both entertain and instruct
+you; they relate to a very interesting period of the French history, the
+ministry of Cardinal Mazarin, during the minority of Lewis XIV. The
+characters of all the considerable people of that time are drawn, in a
+short, strong, and masterly manner; and the political reflections, which
+are most of them printed in italics, are the justest that ever I met
+with: they are not the labored reflections of a systematical closet
+politician, who, without the least experience of business, sits at home
+and writes maxims; but they are the reflections which a great and able
+man formed from long experience and practice in great business. They are
+true conclusions, drawn from facts, not from speculations.
+
+As modern history is particularly your business, I will give you some
+rules to direct your study of it. It begins, properly with Charlemagne,
+in the year 800. But as, in those times of ignorance, the priests and
+monks were almost the only people that could or did write, we have
+scarcely any histories of those times but such as they have been pleased
+to give us, which are compounds of ignorance, superstition, and party
+zeal. So that a general notion of what is rather supposed, than really
+known to be, the history of the five or six following centuries, seems to
+be sufficient; and much time would be but ill employed in a minute
+attention to those legends. But reserve your utmost care, and most
+diligent inquiries, from the fifteenth century, and downward. Then
+learning began to revive, and credible histories to be written; Europe
+began to take the form, which, to some degree, it still retains: at least
+the foundations of the present great powers of Europe were then laid.
+Lewis the Eleventh made France, in truth, a monarchy, or, as he used to
+say himself, 'la mit hors de Page'. Before his time, there were
+independent provinces in France, as the Duchy of Brittany, etc., whose
+princes tore it to pieces, and kept it in constant domestic confusion.
+Lewis the Eleventh reduced all these petty states, by fraud, force, or
+marriage; for he scrupled no means to obtain his ends.
+
+About that time, Ferdinand King of Aragon, and Isabella his wife, Queen
+of Castile, united the whole Spanish monarchy, and drove the Moors out of
+Spain, who had till then kept position of Granada. About that time, too,
+the house of Austria laid the great foundations of its subsequent power;
+first, by the marriage of Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy; and
+then, by the marriage of his son Philip, Archduke of Austria, with Jane,
+the daughter of Isabella, Queen of Spain, and heiress of that whole
+kingdom, and of the West Indies. By the first of these marriages, the
+house of Austria acquired the seventeen provinces, and by the latter,
+Spain and America; all which centered in the person of Charles the Fifth,
+son of the above-mentioned Archduke Philip, the son of Maximilian. It was
+upon account of these two marriages, that the following Latin distich was
+made:
+
+        Bella gerant alii, Tu felix Austria nube;
+        Nam qua, Mars aliis; dat tibi regna Venus.
+
+This immense power, which the Emperor Charles the Fifth found himself
+possessed of, gave him a desire for universal power (for people never
+desire all till they have gotten a great deal), and alarmed France; this
+sowed the seeds of that jealousy and enmity, which have flourished ever
+since between those two great powers. Afterward the House of Austria was
+weakened by the division made by Charles the Fifth of his dominions,
+between his son, Philip the Second of Spain, and his brother Ferdinand;
+and has ever since been dwindling to the weak condition in which it now
+is. This is a most interesting part of the history of Europe, of which it
+is absolutely necessary that you should be exactly and minutely informed.
+
+There are in the history of most countries, certain very remarkable eras,
+which deserve more particular inquiry and attention than the common run
+of history. Such is the revolt of the Seventeen Provinces, in the reign
+of Philip the Second of Spain, which ended in forming the present
+republic of the Seven United Provinces, whose independency was first
+allowed by Spain at the treaty of Munster. Such was the extraordinary
+revolution of Portugal, in the year 1640, in favor of the present House
+of Braganza. Such is the famous revolution of Sweden, when Christian the
+Second of Denmark, who was also king of Sweden, was driven out by
+Gustavus Vasa. And such also is that memorable era in Denmark, of 1660;
+when the states of that kingdom made a voluntary surrender of all their
+rights and liberties to the Crown, and changed that free state into the
+most absolute monarchy now in Europe. The Acta Regis, upon that occasion,
+are worth your perusing. These remarkable periods of modern history
+deserve your particular attention, and most of them have been treated
+singly by good historians, which are worth your reading. The revolutions
+of Sweden, and of Portugal, are most admirably well written by L'Abbe de
+Vertot; they are short, and will not take twelve hours' reading. There is
+another book which very well deserves your looking into, but not worth
+your buying at present, because it is not portable; if you can borrow or
+hire it, you should; and that is, 'L' Histoire des Traits de Paix, in two
+volumes, folio, which make part of the 'Corps Diplomatique'. You will
+there find a short and clear history, and the substance of every treaty
+made in Europe, during the last century, from the treaty of Vervins.
+Three parts in four of this book are not worth your reading, as they
+relate to treaties of very little importance; but if you select the most
+considerable ones, read them with attention, and take some notes, it will
+be of great use to you. Attend chiefly to those in which the great powers
+of Europe are the parties; such as the treaty of the Pyrenees, between
+France and Spain; the treaties of Nimeguen and Ryswick; but, above all,
+the treaty of Munster should be most circumstantially and minutely known
+to you, as almost every treaty made since has some reference to it. For
+this, Pere Bougeant is the best book you can read, as it takes in the
+thirty years' war, which preceded that treaty. The treaty itself, which
+is made a perpetual law of the empire, comes in the course of your
+lectures upon the 'Jus Publicum Imperii'.
+
+In order to furnish you with materials for a letter, and at the same time
+to inform both you and myself of what it is right that we should know,
+pray answer me the following questions:
+
+How many companies are there in the Saxon regiments of foot? How many men
+in each company?
+
+How many troops in the regiments of horse and dragoons; and how many men
+in each?
+
+What number of commissioned and non-commissioned officers in a company of
+foot, or in a troop of horse or dragoons? N. B. Noncommissioned officers
+are all those below ensigns and cornets.
+
+What is the daily pay of a Saxon foot soldier, dragoon, and trooper?
+
+What are the several ranks of the 'Etat Major-general'? N. B. The Etat
+Major-general is everything above colonel. The Austrians have no
+brigadiers, and the French have no major-generals in their Etat Major.
+What have the Saxons? Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIV
+
+LONDON, March 27, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: This little packet will be delivered to you by one Monsieur
+Duval, who is going to the fair at Leipsig. He is a jeweler, originally
+of Geneva, but who has been settled here these eight or ten years, and a
+very sensible fellow: pray do be very civil to him.
+
+As I advised you, some time ago, to inform yourself of the civil and
+military establishments of as many of the kingdoms and states of Europe,
+as you should either be in yourself, or be able to get authentic accounts
+of, I send you here a little book, in which, upon the article of Hanover,
+I have pointed out the short method of putting down these informations,
+by way of helping your memory. The book being lettered, you can
+immediately turn to whatever article you want; and, by adding interleaves
+to each letter, may extend your minutes to what particulars you please.
+You may get such books made anywhere; and appropriate each, if you
+please, to a particular object. I have myself found great utility in this
+method. If I had known what to have sent you by this opportunity I would
+have done it. The French say, 'Que les petits presens entretiennent
+l'amite et que les grande l'augmentent'; but I could not recollect that
+you wanted anything, or at least anything that you cannot get as well at
+Leipsig as here. Do but continue to deserve, and, I assure you, that you
+shall never want anything I can give.
+
+Do not apprehend that my being out of employment may be any prejudice to
+you. Many things will happen before you can be fit for business; and when
+you are fit, whatever my situation may be, it will always be in my power
+to help you in your first steps; afterward you must help yourself by your
+own abilities. Make yourself necessary, and, instead of soliciting, you
+will be solicited. The thorough knowledge of foreign affairs, the
+interests, the views, and the manners of the several courts in Europe,
+are not the common growth of this country. It is in your power to acquire
+them; you have all the means. Adieu!  Yours.
+
+
+
+LETTERS TO HIS SON
+
+LETTER XXXV
+
+LONDON, April 1, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I have not received any letter, either from you or from Mr.
+Harte, these three posts, which I impute wholly to accidents between this
+place and Leipsig; and they are distant enough to admit of many. I always
+take it for granted that you are well, when I do not hear to the
+contrary; besides, as I have often told you, I am much more anxious about
+your doing well, than about your being well; and, when you do not write,
+I will suppose that you are doing something more useful. Your health will
+continue, while your temperance continues; and at your age nature takes
+sufficient care of the body, provided she is left to herself, and that
+intemperance on one hand, or medicines on the other, do not break in upon
+her. But it is by no means so with the mind, which, at your age
+particularly, requires great and constant care, and some physic. Every
+quarter of an hour, well or ill employed, will do it essential and
+lasting good or harm. It requires also a great deal of exercise, to bring
+it to a state of health and vigor. Observe the difference there is
+between minds cultivated, and minds uncultivated, and you will, I am
+sure, think that you cannot take too much pains, nor employ too much of
+your time in the culture of your own. A drayman is probably born with as
+good organs as Milton, Locke, or Newton; but, by culture, they are as
+much more above him as he is above his horse. Sometimes, indeed,
+extraordinary geniuses have broken out by the force of nature, without
+the assistance of education; but those instances are too rare for anybody
+to trust to; and even they would make a much greater figure, if they had
+the advantage of education into the bargain. If Shakespeare's genius had
+been cultivated, those beauties, which we so justly admire in him, would
+have been undisgraced by those extravagancies, and that nonsense, with
+which they are frequently accompanied. People are, in general, what they
+are made, by education and company, from fifteen to five-and-twenty;
+consider well, therefore, the importance of your next eight or nine
+years; your whole depends upon them. I will tell you sincerely, my hopes
+and my fears concerning you. I think you will be a good scholar; and that
+you will acquire a considerable stock of knowledge of various kinds; but
+I fear that you neglect what are called little, though, in truth, they
+are very material things; I mean, a gentleness of manners, an engaging
+address, and an insinuating behavior; they are real and solid advantages,
+and none but those who do not know the world, treat them as trifles. I am
+told that you speak very quick, and not distinctly; this is a most
+ungraceful and disagreeable trick, which you know I have told you of a
+thousand times; pray attend carefully to the correction of it. An
+agreeable and, distinct manner of speaking adds greatly to the matter;
+and I have known many a very good speech unregarded, upon account of the
+disagreeable manner in which it has been delivered, and many an
+indifferent one applauded, from the contrary reason. Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVI
+
+LONDON, April 15, O. S. 1748
+
+DEAR BOY: Though I have no letters from you to acknowledge since my last
+to you, I will not let three posts go from hence without a letter from
+me. My affection always prompts me to write to you; and I am encouraged
+to do it, by the hopes that my letters are not quite useless. You will
+probably receive this in the midst of the diversions of Leipsig fair; at
+which, Mr. Harte tells me, that you are to shine in fine clothes, among
+fine folks. I am very glad of it, as it is time that you should begin to
+be formed to the manners of the world in higher life. Courts are the best
+schools for that sort of learning. You are beginning now with the outside
+of a court; and there is not a more gaudy one than that of Saxony. Attend
+to it, and make your observations upon the turn and manners of it, that
+you may hereafter compare it with other courts which you will see; And,
+though you are not yet able to be informed, or to judge of the political
+conduct and maxims of that court, yet you may remark the forms, the
+ceremonies, and the exterior state of it. At least see everything that
+you can see, and know everything that you can know of it, by asking
+questions. See likewise everything at the fair, from operas and plays,
+down to the Savoyard's raree-shows.
+
+Everything is worth seeing once; and the more one sees, the less one
+either wonders or admires.
+
+Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and tell him that I have just now
+received his letter, for which I thank him. I am called away, and my
+letter is therefore very much shortened. Adieu.
+
+I am impatient to receive your answers to the many questions that I have
+asked you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVII
+
+LONDON, April 26, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I am extremely pleased with your continuation of the history of
+the Reformation; which is one of those important eras that deserves your
+utmost attention, and of which you cannot be too minutely informed. You
+have, doubtless, considered the causes of that great event, and observed
+that disappointment and resentment had a much greater share in it, than a
+religious zeal or an abhorrence of the errors and abuses of popery.
+
+Luther, an Augustine monk, enraged that his order, and consequently
+himself, had not the exclusive privilege of selling indulgences, but that
+the Dominicans were let into a share of that profitable but infamous
+trade, turns reformer, and exclaims against the abuses, the corruption,
+and the idolatry, of the church of Rome; which were certainly gross
+enough for him to have seen long before, but which he had at least
+acquiesced in, till what he called the rights, that is, the profit, of
+his order came to be touched. It is true, the church of Rome furnished
+him ample matter for complaint and reformation, and he laid hold of it
+ably.
+
+This seems to me the true cause of that great and necessary, work; but
+whatever the cause was, the effect was good; and the Reformation spread
+itself by its own truth and fitness; was conscientiously received by
+great numbers in Germany, and other countries; and was soon afterward
+mixed up with the politics of princes; and, as it always happens in
+religious disputes, became the specious covering of injustice and
+ambition.
+
+Under the pretense of crushing heresy, as it was called, the House of
+Austria meant to extend and establish its power in the empire; as, on the
+other hand, many Protestant princes, under the pretense of extirpating
+idolatry, or at least of securing toleration, meant only to enlarge their
+own dominions or privileges. These views respectively, among the chiefs
+on both sides, much more than true religious motives, continued what were
+called the religious wars in Germany, almost uninterruptedly, till the
+affairs of the two religions were finally settled by the treaty of
+Munster.
+
+Were most historical events traced up to their true causes, I fear we
+should not find them much more noble or disinterested than Luther's
+disappointed avarice; and therefore I look with some contempt upon those
+refining and sagacious historians, who ascribe all, even the most common
+events, to some deep political cause; whereas mankind is made up of
+inconsistencies, and no man acts invariably up to his predominant
+character. The wisest man sometimes acts weakly, and the weakest
+sometimes wisely. Our jarring passions, our variable humors, nay, our
+greater or lesser degree of health and spirits, produce such
+contradictions in our conduct, that, I believe, those are the oftenest
+mistaken, who ascribe our actions to the most seemingly obvious motives;
+and I am convinced, that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine
+morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an
+indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would, have proved a
+coward. Our best conjectures, therefore, as to the true springs of
+actions, are but very uncertain; and the actions themselves are all that
+we must pretend to know from history. That Caesar was murdered by
+twenty-three conspirators, I make no doubt: but I very much doubt that
+their love of liberty, and of their country, was their sole, or even
+principal motive; and I dare say that, if the truth were known, we should
+find that many other motives at least concurred, even in the great Brutus
+himself; such as pride, envy, personal pique, and disappointment. Nay, I
+cannot help carrying my Pyrrhonism still further, and extending it often
+to historical facts themselves, at least to most of the circumstances
+with which they are related; and every day's experience confirms me in
+this historical incredulity. Do we ever hear the most recent fact related
+exactly in the same way, by the several people who were at the same time
+eyewitnesses of it? No. One mistakes, another misrepresents, and others
+warp it a little to their own, turn of mind, or private views. A man who
+has been concerned in a transaction will not write it fairly; and a man
+who has not, cannot. But notwithstanding all this uncertainty, history is
+not the less necessary to be known, as the best histories are taken for
+granted, and are the frequent subjects both of conversation and writing.
+Though I am convinced that Caesar's ghost never appeared to Brutus, yet I
+should be much ashamed to be ignorant of that fact, as related by the
+historians of those times. Thus the Pagan theology is universally
+received as matter for writing and conversation, though believed now by
+nobody; and we talk of Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, etc., as gods, though we
+know, that if they ever existed at all, it was only as mere mortal men.
+This historical Pyrrhonism, then, proves nothing against the study and
+knowledge of history; which, of all other studies, is the most necessary
+for a man who is to live in the world. It only points out to us, not to
+be too decisive and peremptory; and to be cautious how we draw inferences
+for our own practice from remote facts, partially or ignorantly related;
+of which we can, at best, but imperfectly guess, and certainly not know
+the real motives. The testimonies of ancient history must necessarily be
+weaker than those of modern, as all testimony grows weaker and weaker, as
+it is more and more remote from us. I would therefore advise you to study
+ancient history, in general, as other people, do; that is, not to be
+ignorant of any or those facts which are universally received, upon the
+faith of the best historians; and whether true or false, you have them as
+other people have them. But modern history, I mean particularly that of
+the last three centuries, is what I would have you apply to with the
+greatest attention and exactness. There the probability of coming at the
+truth is much greater, as the testimonies are much more recent; besides,
+anecdotes, memoirs, and original letters, often come to the aid of modern
+history. The best memoirs that I know of are those of Cardinal de Retz,
+which I have once before recommended to you; and which I advise you to
+read more than once, with attention. There are many political maxims in
+these memoirs, most of which are printed in italics; pray attend to, and
+remember them. I never read them but my own experience confirms the truth
+of them. Many of them seem trifling to people who are not used to
+business; but those who are, feel the truth of them.
+
+It is time to put an end to this long rambling letter; in which if any
+one thing can be of use to you, it will more than pay the trouble I have
+taken to write it. Adieu! Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVIII
+
+LONDON, May 10, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I reckon that this letter will find you just returned from
+Dresden, where you have made your first court caravanne. What inclination
+for courts this taste of them may have given you, I cannot tell; but this
+I think myself sure of, from your good sense, that in leaving Dresden,
+you have left dissipation too; and have resumed at Leipsig that
+application which, if you like courts, can alone enable you to make a
+good figure at them. A mere courtier, without parts or knowledge, is the
+most frivolous and contemptible of all beings; as, on the other hand, a
+man of parts and knowledge, who acquires the easy and noble manners of a
+court, is the most perfect. It is a trite, commonplace observation, that
+courts are the seats of falsehood and dissimulation. That, like many, I
+might say most, commonplace observations, is false. Falsehood and
+dissimulation are certainly to be found at courts; but where are they not
+to be found? Cottages have them, as well as courts; only with worse
+manners. A couple of neighboring farmers in a village will contrive and
+practice as many tricks, to over-reach each other at the next market, or
+to supplant each other in the favor, of the squire, as any two courtiers
+can do to supplant each other in the favor of their prince.
+
+Whatever poets may write, or fools believe, of rural innocence and truth,
+and of the perfidy of courts, this is most undoubtedly true that
+shepherds and ministers are both men; their nature and passions the same,
+the modes of them only different.
+
+Having mentioned commonplace observations, I will particularly caution
+you against either using, believing, or approving them. They are the
+common topics of witlings and coxcombs; those, who really have wit, have
+the utmost contempt for them, and scorn even to laugh at the pert things
+that those would-be wits say upon such subjects.
+
+Religion is one of their favorite topics; it is all priest-craft; and an
+invention contrived and carried on by priests of all religions, for their
+own power and profit; from this absurd and false principle flow the
+commonplace, insipid jokes, and insults upon the clergy. With these
+people, every priest, of every religion, is either a public or a
+concealed unbeliever, drunkard, and whoremaster; whereas, I conceive,
+that priests are extremely like other men, and neither the better nor the
+worse for wearing a gown or a surplice: but if they are different from
+other people, probably it is rather on the side of religion and morality,
+or, at least, decency, from their education and manner of life.
+
+Another common topic for false wit, and cool raillery, is matrimony.
+Every man and his wife hate each other cordially, whatever they may
+pretend, in public, to the contrary. The husband certainly wishes his
+wife at the devil, and the wife certainly cuckolds her husband. Whereas,
+I presume, that men and their wives neither love nor hate each other the
+more, upon account of the form of matrimony which has been said over
+them. The cohabitation, indeed, which is the consequence of matrimony,
+makes them either love or hate more, accordingly as they respectively
+deserve it; but that would be exactly the same between any man and woman
+who lived together without being married.
+
+These and many other commonplace reflections upon nations or professions
+in general (which are at least as often false as true), are the poor
+refuge of people who have neither wit nor invention of their own, but
+endeavor to shine in company by second-hand finery. I always put these
+pert jackanapes out of countenance, by looking extremely grave, when they
+expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries; and by saying WELL, AND
+SO, as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This
+disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but
+one set of jokes to live upon. Men of parts are not reduced to these
+shifts, and have the utmost contempt for them, they find proper subjects
+enough for either useful or lively conversations; they can be witty
+without satire or commonplace, and serious without being dull. The
+frequentation of courts checks this petulancy of manners; the
+good-breeding and circumspection which are necessary, and only to be
+learned there, correct those pertnesses. I do not doubt but that you are
+improved in your manners by the short visit which you have made at
+Dresden; and the other courts, which I intend that you shall be better
+acquainted with, will gradually smooth you up to the highest polish. In
+courts, a versatility of genius and softness of manners are absolutely
+necessary; which some people mistake for abject flattery, and having no
+opinion of one's own; whereas it is only the decent and genteel manner of
+maintaining your own opinion, and possibly of bringing other people to
+it. The manner of doing things is often more important than the things
+themselves; and the very same thing may become either pleasing or
+offensive, by the manner of saying or doing it. 'Materiam superabat
+opus', is often said of works of sculpture; where though the materials
+were valuable, as silver, gold, etc., the workmanship was still more so.
+This holds true, applied to manners; which adorn whatever knowledge or
+parts people may have; and even make a greater impression upon nine in
+ten of mankind, than the intrinsic value of the materials. On the other
+hand, remember, that what Horace says of good writing is justly
+applicable to those who would make a good figure in courts, and
+distinguish themselves in the shining parts of life; 'Sapere est
+principium et fons'. A man who, without a good fund of knowledge and
+parts, adopts a court life, makes the most ridiculous figure imaginable.
+He is a machine, little superior to the court clock; and, as this points
+out the hours, he points out the frivolous employment of them. He is, at
+most, a comment upon the clock; and according to the hours that it
+strikes, tells you now it is levee, now dinner, now supper time, etc. The
+end which I propose by your education, and which (IF YOU PLEASE) I shall
+certainly attain, is to unite in you all the knowledge of a scholar with
+the manners of a courtier; and to join, what is seldom joined by any of
+my countrymen, books and the world. They are commonly twenty years old
+before they have spoken to anybody above their schoolmaster, and the
+fellows of their college. If they happen to have learning, it is only
+Greek and Latin, but not one word of modern history, or modern languages.
+Thus prepared, they go abroad, as they call it; but, in truth, they stay
+at home all that while; for being very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and
+not speaking the languages, they go into no foreign company, at least
+none good; but dine and sup with one another only at the tavern. Such
+examples, I am sure, you will not imitate, but even carefully avoid. You
+will always take care to keep the best company in the place where you
+are, which is the only use of traveling: and (by the way) the pleasures
+of a gentleman are only to be found in the best company; for that not
+which low company, most falsely and impudently, call pleasure, is only
+the sensuality of a swine.
+
+I ask hard and uninterrupted study from you but one year more; after
+that, you shall have every day more and more time for your amusements. A
+few hours each day will then be sufficient for application, and the
+others cannot be better employed than in the pleasures of good company.
+Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIX
+
+LONDON, May 31, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I received yesterday your letter of the 16th, N. S., and have,
+in consequence of it, written this day to Sir Charles Williams, to thank
+him for all the civilities he has shown you. Your first setting out at
+court has, I find, been very favorable; and his Polish Majesty has
+distinguished you. I hope you received that mark of distinction with
+respect and with steadiness, which is the proper behavior of a man of
+fashion. People of a low, obscure education cannot stand the rays of
+greatness; they are frightened out of their wits when kings and great men
+speak to them; they are awkward, ashamed, and do not know what nor how to
+answer; whereas, 'les honnetes gens' are not dazzled by superior rank:
+they know, and pay all the respect that is due to it; but they do it
+without being disconcerted; and can converse just as easily with a king
+as with any one of his subjects. That is the great advantage of being
+introduced young into good company, and being used early to converse with
+one's superiors. How many men have I seen here, who, after having had the
+full benefit of an English education, first at school, and then at the
+university, when they have been presented to the king, did not know
+whether they stood upon their heads or their heels! If the king spoke to
+them, they were annihilated; they trembled, endeavored to put their hands
+in their pockets, and missed them; let their hats fall, and were ashamed
+to take them up; and in short, put themselves in every attitude but the
+right, that is, the easy and natural one. The characteristic of a
+well-bred man, is to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and
+with his superiors with respect and ease. He talks to kings without
+concern; he trifles with women of the first condition with familiarity,
+gayety, but respect; and converses with his equals, whether he is
+acquainted with them or not, upon general common topics, that are not,
+however, quite frivolous, without the least concern of mind or
+awkwardness of body: neither of which can appear to advantage, but when
+they are perfectly easy.
+
+The tea-things, which Sir Charles Williams has given you, I would have
+you make a present of to your Mamma, and send them to her by Duval when
+he returns. You owe her not only duty, but likewise great obligations for
+her care and tenderness; and, consequently, cannot take too many
+opportunities of showing your gratitude.
+
+I am impatient to receive your account of Dresden, and likewise your
+answers to the many questions that I asked you.
+
+Adieu for this time, and God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XL
+
+LONDON, May 27, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: This and the two next years make so important a period of your
+life, that I cannot help repeating to you my exhortations, my commands,
+and (what I hope will be still more prevailing with you than either) my
+earnest entreaties, to employ them well. Every moment that you now lose,
+is so much character and advantage lost; as, on the other hand, every
+moment that you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at
+most prodigious interest. These two years must lay the foundations of all
+the knowledge that you will ever have; you may build upon them afterward
+as much as you please, but it will be too late to lay any new ones. Let
+me beg of you, therefore, to grudge no labor nor pains to acquire, in
+time, that stock of knowledge, without which you never can rise, but must
+make a very insignificant figure in the world. Consider your own
+situation; you have not the advantage of rank or fortune to bear you up;
+I shall, very probably, be out of the world before you can properly be
+said to be in it. What then will you have to rely on but your own merit?
+That alone must raise you, and that alone will raise you, if you have but
+enough of it. I have often heard and read of oppressed and unrewarded
+merit, but I have oftener (I might say always) seen great merit make its
+way, and meet with its reward, to a certain degree at least, in spite of
+all difficulties. By merit, I mean the moral virtues, knowledge, and
+manners; as to the moral virtues, I say nothing to you; they speak best
+for themselves, nor can I suspect that they want any recommendation with
+you; I will therefore only assure you, that without them you will be most
+unhappy.
+
+As to knowledge, I have often told you, and I am persuaded you are
+thoroughly convinced, how absolutely necessary it is to you, whatever
+your destination may be. But as knowledge has a most extensive meaning,
+and as the life of man is not long enough to acquire, nor his mind
+capable of entertaining and digesting, all parts of knowledge, I will
+point out those to which you should particularly apply, and which, by
+application, you may make yourself perfect master of. Classical
+knowledge, that is, Greek and Latin, is absolutely necessary for
+everybody; because everybody has agreed to think and to call it so. And
+the word ILLITERATE, in its common acceptation, means a man who is
+ignorant of those two languages. You are by this time, I hope, pretty
+near master of both, so that a small part of the day dedicated to them,
+for two years more, will make you perfect in that study. Rhetoric, logic,
+a little geometry, and a general notion of astronomy, must, in their
+turns, have their hours too; not that I desire you should be deep in any
+one of these; but it is fit you should know something of them all. The
+knowledge more particularly useful and necessary for you, considering
+your destination, consists of modern languages, modern history,
+chronology, and geography, the laws of nations, and the 'jus publicum
+Imperii'. You must absolutely speak all the modern Languages, as purely
+and correctly as the natives of the respective countries: for whoever
+does not speak a language perfectly and easily, will never appear to
+advantage in conversation, nor treat with others in it upon equal terms.
+As for French, you have it very well already; and must necessarily, from
+the universal usage of that language, know it better and better every
+day: so that I am in no pain about that: German, I suppose, you know
+pretty well by this time, and will be quite master of it before you leave
+Leipsig: at least, I am sure you may. Italian and Spanish will come in
+their turns, and, indeed, they are both so easy, to one who knows Latin
+and French, that neither of them will cost you much time or trouble.
+Modern history, by which I mean particularly the history of the last
+three centuries, should be the object of your greatest and constant
+attention, especially those parts of it which relate more immediately to
+the great powers of Europe. This study you will carefully connect with
+chronology and geography; that is, you will remark and retain the dates
+of every important event; and always read with the map by you, in which
+you will constantly look for every place mentioned: this is the only way
+of retaining geography; for, though it is soon learned by the lump, yet,
+when only so learned, it is still sooner forgot.
+
+Manners, though the last, and it may be the least ingredient of real
+merit, are, however, very far from being useless in its composition; they
+adorn, and give an additional force and luster to both virtue and
+knowledge. They prepare and smooth the way for the progress of both; and
+are, I fear, with the bulk of mankind, more engaging than either.
+Remember, then, the infinite advantage of manners; cultivate and improve
+your own to the utmost good sense will suggest the great rules to you,
+good company will do the rest. Thus you see how much you have to do; and
+how little time to do it in: for when you are thrown out into the world,
+as in a couple of years you must be, the unavoidable dissipation of
+company, and the necessary avocations of some kind of business or other,
+will leave you no time to undertake new branches of knowledge: you may,
+indeed, by a prudent allotment of your time, reserve some to complete and
+finish the building; but you will never find enough to lay new
+foundations. I have such an opinion of your understanding, that I am
+convinced you are sensible of these truths; and that, however hard and
+laborious your present uninterrupted application may seem to you, you
+will rather increase than lessen it. For God's sake, my dear boy, do not
+squander away one moment of your time, for every moment may be now most
+usefully employed. Your future fortune, character, and figure in the
+world, entirely depend upon your use or abuse of the two next years. If
+you do but employ them well, what may you not reasonably expect to be, in
+time? And if you do not, what may I not reasonably fear you will be? You
+are the only one I ever knew, of this country, whose education was, from
+the beginning, calculated for the department of foreign affairs; in
+consequence of which, if you will invariably pursue, and diligently
+qualify yourself for that object, you may make yourself absolutely
+necessary to the government, and, after having received orders as a
+minister abroad, send orders, in your turn, as Secretary of State at
+home. Most of our ministers abroad have taken up that department
+occasionally, without having ever thought of foreign affairs before; many
+of them, without speaking any one foreign language; and all of them
+without manners which are absolutely necessary toward being well
+received, and making a figure at foreign courts. They do the business
+accordingly, that is, very ill: they never get into the secrets of these
+courts, for want of insinuation and address: they do not guess at their
+views, for want of knowing their interests: and, at last, finding
+themselves very unfit for, soon grow weary of their commissions, and are
+impatient to return home, where they are but too justly laid aside and
+neglected. Every moment's conversation may, if you please, be of use to
+you; in this view, every public event, which is the common topic of
+conversation, gives you an opportunity of getting some information. For
+example, the preliminaries of peace, lately concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle,
+will be the common subject of most conversations; in which you will take
+care to ask the proper questions: as, what is the meaning of the Assiento
+contract for negroes, between England and Spain; what the annual ship;
+when stipulated; upon what account suspended, etc. You will likewise
+inform yourself about Guastalla, now given to Don Philip, together with
+Parma and Placentia; who they belonged to before; what claim or
+pretensions Don Philip had to them; what they are worth; in short,
+everything concerning them. The cessions made by the Queen of Hungary to
+the King of Sardinia, are, by these preliminaries, confirmed and secured
+to him: you will inquire, therefore, what they are, and what they are
+worth. This is the kind of knowledge which you should be most thoroughly
+master of, and in which conversation will help you almost as much as
+books: but both are best. There are histories of every considerable
+treaty, from that of Westphalia to that of Utrecht, inclusively; all
+which I would advise you to read. Pore Bougeant's, of the treaty of
+Westphalia, is an excellent one; those of Nimeguen, Ryswick, and Utrecht,
+are not so well written; but are, however, very useful. 'L'Histoire des
+Traites de Paix', in two volumes, folio, which I recommended to you some
+time ago, is a book that you should often consult, when you hear mention
+made of any treaty concluded in the seventeenth century.
+
+Upon the whole, if you have a mind to be considerable, and to shine
+hereafter, you must labor hard now. No quickness of parts, no vivacity,
+will do long, or go far, without a solid fund of knowledge; and that fund
+of knowledge will amply repay all the pains that you can take in
+acquiring it. Reflect seriously, within yourself, upon all this, and ask
+yourself whether I can have any view, but your interest, in all that I
+recommend to you. It is the result of my experience, and flows from that
+tenderness and affection with which, while you deserve them, I shall be,
+Yours.
+
+Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and tell him that I have received his
+letter of the 24th, N. S.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLI
+
+LONDON, May 31, O. S. 1748
+
+DEAR BOY: I have received, with great satisfaction, your letter of the
+28th N. S., from Dresden: it finishes your short but clear account of the
+Reformation which is one of those interesting periods of modern history,
+that can not be too much studied nor too minutely known by you. There are
+many great events in history, which, when once they are over, leave
+things in the situation in which they found them. As, for instance, the
+late war; which, excepting the establishment in Italy for Don Philip,
+leave things pretty much in state quo; a mutual restitution of all
+acquisitions being stipulated by the preliminaries of the peace. Such
+events undoubtedly deserve your notice, but yet not so minutely as those,
+which are not only important in themselves, but equally (or it may be
+more) important by their consequences too: of this latter sort were the
+progress of the Christian religion in Europe; the Invasion of the Goths;
+the division of the Roman empire into Western and Eastern; the
+establishment and rapid progress of Mahometanism; and, lastly, the
+Reformation; all which events produced the greatest changes in the
+affairs of Europe, and to one or other of which, the present situation of
+all the parts of it is to be traced up.
+
+Next to these, are those events which more immediately effect particular
+states and kingdoms, and which are reckoned entirely local, though their
+influence may, and indeed very often does, indirectly, extend itself
+further, such as civil wars and revolutions, from which a total change in
+the form of government frequently flows. The civil wars in England, in
+the reign of King Charles I., produced an entire change of the government
+here, from a limited monarchy to a commonwealth, at first, and afterward
+to absolute power, usurped by Cromwell, under the pretense of protection,
+and the title of Protector.
+
+The Revolution in 1688, instead of changing, preserved one form of
+government; which King James II. intended to subvert, and establish
+absolute power in the Crown.
+
+These are the two great epochs in our English history, which I recommend
+to your particular attention.
+
+The league formed by the House of Guise, and fomented by the artifices of
+Spain, is a most material part of the history of France. The foundation
+of it was laid in the reign of Henry II., but the superstructure was
+carried on through the successive reigns of Francis II., Charles IX. and
+Henry III., till at last it was crushed, partly, by the arms, but more by
+the apostasy of Henry IV.
+
+In Germany, great events have been frequent, by which the imperial
+dignity has always either gotten or lost; and so it they have affected
+the constitution of the empire. The House of Austria kept that dignity to
+itself for near two hundred years, during which time it was always
+attempting extend its power, by encroaching upon the rights and
+privileges of the other states of the empire; till at the end of the
+bellum tricennale, the treaty of Munster, of which France is guarantee,
+fixed the respective claims.
+
+Italy has been constantly torn to pieces, from the time of the Goths, by
+the Popes and the Anti-popes, severally supported by other great powers
+of Europe, more as their interests than as their religion led them; by
+the pretensions also of France, and the House of Austria, upon Naples,
+Sicily, and the Milanese; not to mention the various lesser causes of
+squabbles there, for the little states, such as Ferrara, Parma,
+Montserrat, etc.
+
+The Popes, till lately, have always taken a considerable part, and had
+great influence in the affairs of Europe; their excommunications, bulls,
+and indulgences, stood instead of armies in the time of ignorance and
+bigotry; but now that mankind is better informed, the spiritual authority
+of the Pope is not only less regarded, but even despised by the Catholic
+princes themselves; and his Holiness is actually little more than Bishop
+of Rome, with large temporalities, which he is not likely to keep longer
+than till the other greater powers in Italy shall find their conveniency
+in taking them from him. Among the modern Popes, Leo the Tenth, Alexander
+the Sixth, and Sextus Quintus, deserve your particular notice; the first,
+among other things, for his own learning and taste, and for his
+encouragement of the reviving arts and sciences in Italy. Under his
+protection, the Greek and Latin classics were most excellently translated
+into Italian; painting flourished and arrived at its perfection; and
+sculpture came so near the ancients, that the works of his time, both in
+marble and bronze, are now called Antico-Moderno.
+
+Alexander the Sixth, together with his natural son Caesar Borgia, was
+famous for his wickedness, in which he, and his son too, surpassed all
+imagination. Their lives are well worth your reading. They were poisoned
+themselves by the poisoned wine which they had prepared for others; the
+father died of it, but Caesar recovered.
+
+Sixtus the Fifth was the son of a swineherd, and raised himself to the
+popedom by his abilities: he was a great knave, but an able and singular
+one.
+
+Here is history enough for to-day: you shall have some more soon. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLII
+
+LONDON, June 21, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: Your very bad enunciation runs so much in my head, and gives me
+such real concern, that it will be the subject of this, and, I believe,
+of many more letters. I congratulate both you and myself, that, was
+informed of it (as I hope) in time to prevent it: and shall ever think
+myself, as hereafter you will, I am sure think yourself, infinitely
+obliged to Sir Charles Williams for informing me of it. Good God! if this
+ungraceful and disagreeable manner of speaking had, either by your
+negligence or mine, become habitual to you, as in a couple of years more
+it would have been, what a figure would you have made in company, or in a
+public assembly? Who would have liked you in the one or attended you; in
+the other? Read what Cicero and Quintilian say of enunciation, and see
+what a stress they lay upon the gracefulness of it; nay, Cicero goes
+further, and even maintains, that a good figure is necessary for an
+orator; and particularly that he must not be vastus, that is, overgrown
+and clumsy. He shows by it that he knew mankind well, and knew the powers
+of an agreeable figure and a graceful, manner. Men, as well as women, are
+much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings. The way to
+the heart is through the senses; please their eyes and their ears and the
+work is half done. I have frequently known a man's fortune decided for
+ever by his first address. If it is pleasing, people are hurried
+involuntarily into a persuasion that he has a merit, which possibly he
+has not; as, on the other hand, if it is ungraceful, they are immediately
+prejudiced against him, and unwilling to allow him the merit which it may
+be he has. Nor is this sentiment so unjust and unreasonable as at first
+it may seem; for if a man has parts, he must know of what infinite
+consequence it is to him to have a graceful manner of speaking, and a
+genteel and pleasing address; he will cultivate and improve them to the
+utmost. Your figure is a good one; you have no natural defect in the
+organs of speech; your address may be engaging, and your manner of
+speaking graceful, if you will; so that if you are not so, neither I nor
+the world can ascribe it to anything but your want of parts. What is the
+constant and just observation as to all actors upon the stage? Is it not,
+that those who have the best sense, always speak the best, though they
+may happen not to have the best voices? They will speak plainly,
+distinctly, and with the proper emphasis, be their voices ever so bad.
+Had Roscius spoken QUICK, THICK, and UNGRACEFULLY, I will answer for it,
+that Cicero would not have thought him worth the oration which he made in
+his favor. Words were given us to communicate our ideas by: and there
+must be something inconceivably absurd in uttering them in such a manner
+as that either people cannot understand them, or will not desire to
+understand them. I tell you, truly and sincerely, that I shall judge of
+your parts by your speaking gracefully or ungracefully. If you have
+parts, you will never be at rest till you have brought yourself to a
+habit of speaking most gracefully; for I aver, that it is in your power
+--You will desire Mr. Harte, that you may read aloud to him every day;
+and that he will interrupt and correct you every time that you read too
+fast, do not observe the proper stops, or lay a wrong emphasis. You will
+take care to open your teeth when you speak; to articulate every word
+distinctly; and to beg of Mr. Harte, Mr. Eliot, or whomsoever you speak
+to, to remind and stop you, if you ever fall into the rapid and
+unintelligible mutter. You will even read aloud to yourself, and time
+your utterance to your own ear; and read at first much slower than you
+need to do, in order to correct yourself of that shameful trick of
+speaking faster than you ought. In short, if you think right, you will
+make it your business; your study, and your pleasure to speak well.
+Therefore, what I have said in this, and in my last, is more than
+sufficient, if you have sense; and ten times more would not be
+sufficient, if you have not; so here I rest it.
+
+Next to graceful speaking, a genteel carriage, and a graceful manner of
+presenting yourself, are extremely necessary, for they are extremely
+engaging: and carelessness in these points is much more unpardonable in a
+young fellow than affectation. It shows an offensive indifference about
+pleasing. I am told by one here, who has seen you lately, that you are
+awkward in your motions, and negligent of your person: I am sorry for
+both; and so will you be, when it will be too late, if you continue so
+some time longer. Awkwardness of carriage is very alienating; and a total
+negligence of dress and air is an impertinent insult upon custom and
+fashion. You remember Mr.------very well, I am sure, and you must
+consequently remember his, extreme awkwardness: which, I can assure you,
+has been a great clog to his parts and merit, that have, with much
+difficulty, but barely counterbalanced it at last. Many, to whom I have
+formerly commended him, have answered me, that they were sure he could
+not have parts, because he was so awkward: so much are people, as I
+observed to you before, taken by the eye. Women have great influence as
+to a man's fashionable character; and an awkward man will never have
+their votes; which, by the way, are very numerous, and much oftener
+counted than weighed. You should therefore give some attention to your
+dress, and the gracefulness of your motions. I believe, indeed, that you
+have no perfect model for either at Leipsig, to form yourself upon; but,
+however, do not get a habit of neglecting either; and attend properly to
+both, when you go to courts, where they are very necessary, and where you
+will have good masters and good models for both. Your exercises of
+riding, fencing, and dancing, will civilize and fashion your body and
+your limbs, and give you, if you will but take it, 'l'air d'un honnete
+homme'.
+
+I will now conclude with suggesting one reflection to you; which is, that
+you should be sensible of your good fortune, in having one who interests
+himself enough in you, to inquire into your faults, in order to inform
+you of them. Nobody but myself would be so solicitous, either to know or
+correct them; so that you might consequently be ignorant of them
+yourself; for our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our
+faults. But when you hear yours from me, you may be sure that you hear
+them from one who for your sake only desires to correct them; from one
+whom you cannot suspect of any, partiality but in your favor; and from
+one who heartily wishes that his care of you, as a father, may, in a
+little time, render every care unnecessary but that of a friend. Adieu.
+
+P. S. I condole with you for the untimely and violent death of the
+tuneful Matzel.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIII
+
+LONDON, July 1, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR Boy: I am extremely well pleased with the course of studies which
+Mr. Harte informs me you are now in, and with the degree of application
+which he assures me you have to them. It is your interest to do so, as
+the advantage will be all your own. My affection for you makes me both
+wish and endeavor that you may turn out well; and, according as you do
+turn out, I shall either be proud or ashamed of you. But as to mere
+interest, in the common acceptation of that word, it would be mine that
+you should turn out ill; for you may depend upon it, that whatever you
+have from me shall be most exactly proportioned to your desert. Deserve a
+great deal, and you shall have a great deal; deserve a little, and you
+shall have but a little; and be good for nothing at all, and, I assure
+you, you shall have nothing at all.
+
+Solid knowledge, as I have often told you, is the first and great
+foundation of your future fortune and character; for I never mention to
+you the two much greater points of Religion and Morality, because I
+cannot possibly suspect you as to either of them. This solid knowledge
+you are in a fair way of acquiring; you may, if you please; and I will
+add, that nobody ever had the means of acquiring it more in their power
+than you have. But remember, that manners must adorn knowledge, and
+smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do
+very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic
+value; but it will never be worn or shine if it is not polished. It is
+upon this article, I confess, that I suspect you the most, which makes me
+recur to it so often; for I fear that you are apt to show too little
+attention to everybody, and too much contempt to many. Be convinced, that
+there are no persons so insignificant and inconsiderable, but may, some
+time or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which they
+certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. Wrongs are
+often forgiven; but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever. It
+implies a discovery of weaknesses, which we are much more careful to
+conceal than crimes. Many a man will confess his crimes to a common
+friend, but I never knew a man who would tell his silly weaknesses to his
+most intimate one--as many a friend will tell us our faults without
+reserve, who will not so much as hint at our follies; that discovery is
+too mortifying to our self-love, either to tell another, or to be told of
+one's self. You must, therefore, never expect to hear of your weaknesses,
+or your follies, from anybody but me; those I will take pains to
+discover, and whenever I do, shall tell you of them.
+
+Next to manners are exterior graces of person and address, which adorn
+manners, as manners adorn knowledge. To say that they please, engage, and
+charm, as they most indisputably do, is saying that one should do
+everything possible to acquire them. The graceful manner of speaking is,
+particularly, what I shall always holloa in your ears, as Hotspur
+holloaed MORTIMER to Henry IV., and, like him too, I have aimed to have a
+starling taught to say, SPEAK DISTINCTLY AND GRACEFULLY, and send him
+you, to replace your loss of the unfortunate Matzel, who, by the way, I
+am told, spoke his language very distinctly and gracefully.
+
+As by this time you must be able to write German tolerably well, I desire
+that you will not fail to write a German letter, in the German character,
+once every fortnight, to Mr. Grevenkop: which will make it more familiar
+to you, and enable me to judge how you improve in it.
+
+Do not forget to answer me the questions, which I asked you a great while
+ago, in relation to the constitution of Saxony; and also the meaning of
+the words 'Landsassii and Amptsassii'.
+
+I hope you do not forget to inquire into the affairs of trade and
+commerce, nor to get the best accounts you can of the commodities and
+manufactures, exports and imports of the several countries where you may
+be, and their gross value.
+
+I would likewise have you attend to the respective coins, gold, silver,
+copper, etc., and their value, compared with our coin's; for which
+purpose I would advise you to put up, in a separate piece of paper, one
+piece of every kind, wherever you shall be, writing upon it the name and
+the value. Such a collection will be curious enough in itself; and that
+sort of knowledge will be very useful to you in your way of business,
+where the different value of money often comes in question.
+
+I am doing to Cheltenham to-morrow, less for my health; which is pretty
+good, than for the dissipation and amusement of the journey. I shall stay
+about a fortnight.
+
+L'Abbe Mably's 'Droit de l'Europe', which Mr. Harte is so kind as to send
+me, is worth your reading. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIV.
+
+CHELTENHAM, July 6, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: Your school-fellow, Lord Pulteney,--[Only child of the Right
+Hon. William Pulteney, Earl of Bath. He died before his father.]--set out
+last week for Holland, and will, I believe, be at Leipsig soon after this
+letter: you will take care to be extremely civil to him, and to do him
+any service that you can while you stay there; let him know that I wrote
+to you to do so. As being older, he should know more than you; in that
+case, take pains to get up to him; but if he does not, take care not to
+let him feel his inferiority. He will find it out of himself without your
+endeavors; and that cannot be helped: but nothing is more insulting, more
+mortifying and less forgiven, than avowedly to take pains to make a man
+feel a mortifying inferiority in knowledge, rank, fortune, etc. In the
+two last articles, it is unjust, they not being in his power: and in the
+first it is both ill-bred and ill-natured. Good-breeding, and
+good-nature, do incline us rather to raise and help people up to
+ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own
+private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many
+friends, instead of so many enemies. The constant practice of what the
+French call 'les Attentions', is a most necessary ingredient in the art
+of pleasing; they flatter the self-love of those to whom they are shown;
+they engage, they captivate, more than things of much greater importance.
+The duties of social life every man is obliged to discharge; but these
+attentions are voluntary acts, the free-will offerings of good-breeding
+and good nature; they are received, remembered, and returned as such.
+Women, particularly, have a right to them; and any omission in that
+respect is downright ill-breeding.
+
+Do you employ your whole time in the most useful manner? I do not mean,
+do you study all day long? nor do I require it. But I mean, do you make
+the most of the respective allotments of your time? While you study, is
+it with attention? When you divert yourself, is it with spirit? Your
+diversions may, if you please, employ some part of your time very
+usefully. It depends entirely upon the nature of them. If they are futile
+and frivolous it is time worse than lost, for they will give you an habit
+of futility. All gaming, field-sports, and such sort of amusements, where
+neither the understanding nor the senses have the least share, I look
+upon as frivolous, and as the resources of little minds, who either do
+not think, or do not love to think. But the pleasures of a man of parts
+either flatter the senses or improve the mind; I hope at least, that
+there is not one minute of the day in which you do nothing at all.
+Inaction at your age is unpardonable.
+
+Tell me what Greek and Latin books you can now read with ease. Can you
+open Demosthenes at a venture, and understand him? Can you get through an
+"Oration" of Cicero, or a "Satire" of Horace, without difficulty? What
+German books do you read, to make yourself master of that language? And
+what French books do you read for your amusement? Pray give me a
+particular and true account of all this; for I am not indifferent as to
+any one thing that relates to you. As, for example, I hope you take great
+care to keep your whole person, particularly your mouth, very clean;
+common decency requires it, besides that great cleanliness is very
+conducive to health. But if you do not keep your mouth excessively clean,
+by washing it carefully every morning, and after every meal, it will not
+only be apt to smell, which is very disgusting and indecent, but your
+teeth will decay and ache, which is both a great loss and a great pain. A
+spruceness of dress is also very proper and becoming at your age; as the
+negligence of it implies an indifference about pleasing, which does not
+become a young fellow. To do whatever you do at all to the utmost
+perfection, ought to be your aim at this time of your life; if you can
+reach perfection, so much the better; but at least, by attempting it, you
+will get much nearer than if you never attempted it at all.
+
+Adieu! SPEAK GRACEFULLY AND DISTINCTLY if you intend to converse ever
+with, Yours.
+
+P. S. As I was making up my letter, I received yours of the 6th, O. S. I
+like your dissertation upon Preliminary Articles and Truces. Your
+definitions of both are true. Those are matters which I would have you be
+master of; they belong to your future department, But remember too, that
+they are matters upon which you will much oftener have occasion to speak
+than to write; and that, consequently, it is full as necessary to speak
+gracefully and distinctly upon them as to write clearly and elegantly. I
+find no authority among the ancients, nor indeed among the moderns, for
+indistinct and unintelligible utterance. The Oracles indeed meant to be
+obscure; but then it was by the ambiguity of the expression, and not by
+the inarticulation of the words. For if people had not thought, at least,
+they understood them, they would neither have frequented nor presented
+them as they did. There was likewise among the ancients, and is still
+among the moderns, a sort of people called Ventriloqui, who speak from
+their bellies, on make the voice seem to come from some other part of the
+room than that where they are. But these Ventriloqui speak very
+distinctly and intelligibly. The only thing, then, that I can find like a
+precedent for your way of speaking (and I would willingly help you to one
+if I could) is the modern art 'de persifler', practiced with great
+success by the 'Petits maitres' at Paris. This noble art consists in
+picking out some grave, serious man, who neither understands nor expects,
+raillery, and talking to him very quick, and inarticulate sounds; while
+the man, who thinks that he did not hear well; or attend sufficiently,
+says, 'Monsieur? or 'Plait-il'? a hundred times; which affords matter of
+much mirth to those ingenious gentlemen. Whether you would follow, this
+precedent, I submit to you.
+
+Have you carried no English or French comedies of tragedies with you to
+Leipsig? If you have, I insist upon your reciting some passages of them
+every day to Mr. Harte in the most distinct and graceful manner, as if
+you were acting them upon a stage.
+
+The first part of my letter is more than an answer to your questions
+concerning Lord Pulteney.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLV
+
+LONDON, July, 20, O. S. 1748
+
+DEAR BOY: There are two sorts of understandings; one of which hinders a
+man from ever being considerable, and the other commonly makes him
+ridiculous; I mean the lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind:
+Yours, I hope, is neither. The lazy mind will not take the trouble of
+going to the bottom of anything; but, discouraged by the first
+difficulties (and everything worth knowing or having is attained with
+some), stops short, contents, itself with easy, and consequently
+superficial knowledge, and prefers a great degree of ignorance to a small
+degree of trouble. These people either think, or represent most things as
+impossible; whereas, few things are so to industry and activity. But
+difficulties seem to them, impossibilities, or at least they pretend to
+think them so--by way of excuse for their laziness. An hour's attention
+to the same subject is too laborious for them; they take everything in
+the light in which it first presents itself; never consider, it in all
+its different views; and, in short, never think it through. The
+consequence of this is that when they come to speak upon these subjects,
+before people who have considered them with attention; they only discover
+their own ignorance and laziness, and lay themselves open to answers that
+put them in confusion. Do not then be discouraged by the first
+difficulties, but 'contra audentior ito'; and resolve to go to the bottom
+of all those things which every gentleman ought to know well. Those arts
+or sciences which are peculiar to certain professions, need not be deeply
+known by those who are not intended for those professions. As, for
+instance; fortification and navigation; of both which, a superficial and
+general knowledge, such as the common course of conversation, with a very
+little inquiry on your part, will give you, is sufficient. Though, by the
+way, a little more knowledge of fortification may be of some use to you;
+as the events of war, in sieges, make many of the terms, of that science
+occur frequently in common conversation; and one would be sorry to say,
+like the Marquis de Mascarille in Moliere's 'Precieuses Ridicules', when
+he hears of 'une demie lune, Ma foi! c'etoit bien une lune toute
+entiere'. But those things which every gentleman, independently of
+profession, should know, he ought to know well, and dive into all the
+depth of them. Such are languages, history, and geography ancient and
+modern, philosophy, rational logic; rhetoric; and, for you particularly,
+the constitutions and the civil and military state of every country in
+Europe: This, I confess; is a pretty large circle of knowledge, attended
+with some difficulties, and requiring some trouble; which, however; an
+active and industrious mind will overcome; and be amply repaid. The
+trifling and frivolous mind is always busied, but to little purpose; it
+takes little objects for great ones, and throws away upon trifles that
+time and attention which only important things deserve. Knick-knacks;
+butterflies; shells, insects, etc., are the subjects of their most
+serious researches. They contemplate the dress, not the characters of the
+company they keep. They attend more to the decorations of a play than the
+sense of it; and to the ceremonies of a court more than to its politics.
+Such an employment of time is an absolute loss of it. You have now, at
+most, three years to employ either well or ill; for, as I have often told
+you, you will be all your life what you shall be three years hence. For
+God's sake then reflect. Will you throw this time away either in
+laziness, or in trifles? Or will you not rather employ every moment of it
+in a manner that must so soon reward you with so much pleasure, figure,
+and character? I cannot, I will not doubt of your choice. Read only
+useful books; and never quit a subject till you are thoroughly master of
+it, but read and inquire on till then. When you are in company, bring the
+conversation to some useful subject, but 'a portee' of that company.
+Points of history, matters of literature, the customs of particular
+countries, the several orders of knighthood, as Teutonic, Maltese, etc.,
+are surely better subjects of conversation, than the weather, dress, or
+fiddle-faddle stories, that carry no information along with them. The
+characters of kings and great men are only to be learned in conversation;
+for they are never fairly written during their lives. This, therefore, is
+an entertaining and instructive subject of conversation, and will
+likewise give you an opportunity of observing how very differently
+characters are given, from the different passions and views of those who
+give them. Never be ashamed nor afraid of asking questions: for if they
+lead to information, and if you accompany them with some excuse, you will
+never be reckoned an impertinent or rude questioner. All those things, in
+the common course of life, depend entirely upon the manner; and, in that
+respect, the vulgar saying is true, 'That one man can better steal a
+horse, than another look over the hedge.' There are few things that may
+not be said, in some manner or other; either in a seeming confidence, or
+a genteel irony, or introduced with wit; and one great part of the
+knowledge of the world consists in knowing when and where to make use of
+these different manners. The graces of the person, the countenance, and
+the way of speaking, contribute so much to this, that I am convinced, the
+very same thing, said by a genteel person in an engaging way, and
+GRACEFULLY and distinctly spoken, would please, which would shock, if
+MUTTERED out by an awkward figure, with a sullen, serious countenance.
+The poets always represent Venus as attended by the three Graces, to
+intimate that even beauty will not do without: I think they should have
+given Minerva three also; for without them, I am sure learning is very
+unattractive. Invoke them, then, DISTINCTLY, to accompany all your words
+and motions. Adieu.
+
+P. S. Since I wrote what goes before, I have received your letter, OF NO
+DATE, with the inclosed state of the Prussian forces: of which, I hope,
+you have kept a copy; this you should lay in a 'portefeuille', and add to
+it all the military establishments that you can get of other states and
+kingdoms: the Saxon establishment you may, doubtless, easily find. By the
+way, do not forget to send me answers to the questions which I sent you
+some time ago, concerning both the civil and the ecclesiastical affairs
+of Saxony.
+
+Do not mistake me, and think I only mean that you should speak elegantly
+with regard to style, and the purity of language; but I mean, that you
+should deliver and pronounce what you say gracefully and distinctly; for
+which purpose I will have you frequently read very loud, to Mr. Harte,
+recite parts of orations, and speak passages of plays; for, without a
+graceful and pleasing enunciation, all your elegancy of style, in
+speaking, is not worth one farthing.
+
+I am very glad that Mr. Lyttelton approves of my new house, and
+particularly of my CANONICAL--[James Brydges, duke of Chandos, built a
+most magnificent and elegant house at CANNONS, about eight miles from
+London. It was superbly furnished with fine pictures, statues, etc.,
+which, after his death, were sold, by auction. Lord Chesterfield
+purchased the hall-pillars, the floor; and staircase with double flights;
+which are now in Chesterfield House, London.]--pillars. My bust of Cicero
+is a very fine one, and well preserved; it will have the best place in my
+library, unless at your return you bring me over as good a modern head of
+your own, which I should like still better. I can tell you, that I shall
+examine it as attentively as ever antiquary did an old one.
+
+Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, at whose recovery I rejoice.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVI
+
+LONDON, August 2, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: Duval the jeweler, is arrived, and was with me three or four
+days ago. You will easily imagine that I asked him a few questions
+concerning you; and I will give you the satisfaction of knowing that,
+upon the whole, I was very well pleased with the account he gave me. But,
+though he seemed to be much in your interest, yet he fairly owned to me
+that your utterance was rapid, thick, and ungraceful. I can add nothing
+to what I have already said upon this subject; but I can and do repeat
+the absolute necessity of speaking distinctly and gracefully, or else of
+not speaking at all, and having recourse to signs. He tells me that you
+are pretty fat for one of your age: this you should attend to in a proper
+way; for if, while very young; you should grow fat, it would be
+troublesome, unwholesome, and ungraceful; you should therefore, when you
+have time, take very strong exercise, and in your diet avoid fattening
+things. All malt liquors fatten, or at least bloat; and I hope you do not
+deal much in them.  I look upon wine and water to be, in every respect;
+much wholesomer.
+
+Duval says there is a great deal of very good company at Madame
+Valentin's and at another lady's, I think one Madame Ponce's, at Leipsig.
+Do you ever go to either of those houses, at leisure times? It would not,
+in my mind, be amiss if you did, and would give you a habit of
+ATTENTIONS; they are a tribute which all women expect; and which all men,
+who would be well received by them; must pay. And, whatever the mind may
+be, manners at least are certainly improved by the company of women of
+fashion.
+
+I have formerly told you, that you should inform yourself of the several
+orders, whether military or religious, of the respective countries where
+you may be. The Teutonic Order is the great Order of Germany, of which I
+send you inclosed a short account. It may serve to suggest questions to
+you for more particular inquiries as to the present state of it, of which
+you ought to be minutely informed. The knights, at present, make vows, of
+which they observe none, except it be that of not marrying; and their
+only object now is, to arrive, by seniority, at the Commanderies in their
+respective provinces; which are, many of them, very lucrative. The Order
+of Malta is, by a very few years, prior to the Teutonic, and owes its
+foundation to the same causes. These' knights were first called Knights
+Hospitaliers of St. John of Jerusalem, then Knights of Rhodes; and in
+the year 1530, Knights of Malta, the Emperor Charles V. having granted
+them that island, upon condition of their defending his island of Sicily
+against the Turks, which they effectually did. L'Abbe de Vertot has
+written the history of Malta, but it is the least valuable of all his
+works; and moreover, too long for you to read. But there is a short
+history, of all the military orders whatsoever, which I would advise you
+to get, as there is also of all the religious orders; both which are
+worth your having and consulting, whenever you meet with any of them in
+your way; as, you will very frequently in Catholic countries. For my own
+part, I find that I remember things much better, when I recur, to my
+books for them, upon some particular occasion, than by reading them 'tout
+de suite'. As, for example, if I were to read the history of all the
+military or religious orders, regularly one after another, the latter
+puts the former out of my head; but when I read the history of any one,
+upon account, of its having been the object of conversation or dispute, I
+remember it much better. It is the same in geography, where, looking for
+any particular place in the map, upon some particular account, fixes it
+in one's memory forever. I hope you have worn out your maps by frequent,
+use of that sort. Adieu.
+
+         A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER
+
+In the ages of ignorance, which is always the mother of superstition, it
+was thought not only just, but meritorious, to propagate religion by fire
+and sword, and to take away the lives and properties of unbelievers.
+This enthusiasm produced the several crusades, in the 11th, 12th, and
+following centuries, the object of which was, to recover the Holy Land
+out of, the hands of the Infidels, who, by the way, were the lawful
+possessors. Many honest enthusiasts engaged in those crusades, from a
+mistaken principle of religion, and from the pardons granted by the Popes
+for all the sins of those pious adventurers; but many more knaves adopted
+these holy wars, in hopes of conquest and plunder. After Godfrey of
+Bouillon, at the head of these knaves and fools, had taken Jerusalem, in
+the year 1099, Christians of various nations remained in that city; among
+the rest, one good honest German, that took particular care of his
+countrymen who came thither in pilgrimages. He built a house for their
+reception, and an hospital dedicated to the Virgin. This little
+establishment soon became a great one, by the enthusiasm of many
+considerable people who engaged in it, in order to drive the Saracens out
+of the Holy Land. This society then began to take its first form; and its
+members were called Marian Teutonic Knights. Marian, from their chapel
+sacred to the Virgin Mary; Teutonic, from the German, or Teuton, who was
+the author of it, and Knights from the wars which they were to carry on
+against the Infidels.
+
+These knights behaved themselves so bravely, at first; that Duke
+Frederick of Swabia, who was general of the German army in the Holy Land,
+sent, in the year 1191, to the Emperor Henry VI. and Pope Celestine III.
+to desire that this brave and charitable fraternity might be incorporated
+into a regular order of knighthood; which was accordingly done, and rules
+and a particular habit were given them. Forty knights, all of noble
+families, were at first created by the King of Jerusalem and other
+princes then in the army. The first grand master of this order was Henry
+Wallpot, of a noble family upon the Rhine. This order soon began to
+operate in Europe; drove all the Pagans out of Prussia, and took
+possession of it. Soon after, they got Livonia and Courland, and invaded
+even Russia, where they introduced the Christian religion. In 1510, they
+elected Albert, Marquis of Bradenburg, for their grand master, who,
+turning Protestant, soon afterward took Prussia from the order, and kept
+it for himself, with the consent of Sigismund, King of Poland, of whom it
+was to hold. He then quitted his grand mastership and made himself
+hereditary Duke of that country, which is thence called Ducal Prussia.
+This order now consists of twelve provinces; viz., Alsatia, Austria,
+Coblentz, and Etsch, which are the four under the Prussian jurisdiction;
+Franconia, Hesse, Biessen, Westphalia, Lorraine, Thuringia, Saxony, and
+Utrecht, which eight are of the German jurisdiction. The Dutch now
+possess all that the order had in Utrecht. Every one of the provinces
+have their particular Commanderies; and the most ancient of these
+Commandeurs is called the Commandeur Provincial. These twelve Commandeurs
+are all subordinate to the Grand Master of Germany as their chief, and
+have the right of electing the grand master. The elector of Cologne is at
+present 'Grand Maitre'.
+
+This order, founded by mistaken Christian zeal, upon the anti-Christian
+principles of violence and persecution, soon grew strong by the weakness
+and ignorance of the time; acquired unjustly great possessions, of which
+they justly lost the greatest part by their ambition and cruelty, which
+made them feared and hated by all their neighbors.
+
+I have this moment received your letter of the 4th, N. S., and have only
+time to tell you that I can by no means agree to your cutting off your
+hair. I am very sure that your headaches cannot proceed from thence. And
+as for the pimples upon your head, they are only owing to the heat of the
+season, and consequently will not last long. But your own hair is, at
+your age, such an ornament, and a wig, however well made, such a
+disguise, that I will upon no account whatsoever have you cut off your
+hair. Nature did not give it to you for nothing, still less to cause you
+the headache. Mr. Eliot's hair grew so ill and bushy, that he was in the
+right to cut it off. But you have not the same reason.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVII
+
+LONDON, August 23, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: Your friend, Mr. Eliot, has dined with me twice since I
+returned here, and I can say with truth that while I had the seals, I
+never examined or sifted a state prisoner with so much care and curiosity
+as I did him. Nay, I did more; for, contrary to the laws of this country,
+I gave him in some manner, the QUESTION ordinary and extraordinary; and I
+have infinite pleasure in telling you that the rack which I put him to,
+did not extort from him one single word that was not such as I wished to
+hear of you. I heartily congratulate you upon such an advantageous
+testimony, from so creditable a witness. 'Laudati a laudato viro', is one
+of the greatest pleasures and honors a rational being can have; may you
+long continue to deserve it! Your aversion to drinking and your dislike
+to gaming, which Mr. Eliot assures me are both very strong, give me, the
+greatest joy imaginable, for your sake: as the former would ruin both
+your constitution and understanding, and the latter your fortune and
+character. Mr. Harte wrote me word some time ago, and Mr. Eliot confirms
+it now, that you employ your pin money in a very different manner, from
+that in which pin money is commonly lavished: not in gew-gaws and
+baubles, but in buying good and useful books. This is an excellent
+symptom, and gives me very good hopes. Go on thus, my dear boy, but for
+these next two years, and I ask no more. You must then make such a figure
+and such a fortune in the world as I wish you, and as I have taken all
+these pains to enable you to do. After that time I allow you to be as
+idle as ever you please; because I am sure that you will not then please
+to be so at all. The ignorant and the weak are only idle; but those who
+have once acquired a good stock of knowledge, always desire to increase
+it. Knowledge is like power in this respect, that those who have the
+most, are most desirous of having more. It does not clog, by possession,
+but increases desire; which is the case of very few pleasures.
+
+Upon receiving this congratulatory letter, and reading your own praises,
+I am sure that it must naturally occur to you, how great a share of them
+you owe to Mr. Harte's care and attention; and, consequently, that your
+regard and affection for him must increase, if there be room for it, in
+proportion as you reap, which you do daily, the fruits of his labors.
+
+I must not, however, conceal from you that there was one article in which
+your own witness, Mr. Eliot, faltered; for, upon my questioning him home
+as to your manner of speaking, he could not say that your utterance was
+either distinct or graceful. I have already said so much to you upon this
+point that I can add nothing. I will therefore only repeat this truth,
+which is, that if you will not speak distinctly and graceful, nobody will
+desire to hear you. I am glad to learn that Abbe Mably's 'Droit Public de
+l'Europe' makes a part of your evening amusements. It is a very useful
+book, and gives a clear deduction of the affairs of Europe, from the
+treaty of Munster to this time.  Pray read it with attention, and with
+the proper maps; always recurring to them for the several countries or
+towns yielded, taken, or restored. Pyre Bougeant's third volume will give
+you the best idea of the treaty of Munster, and open to you the several
+views of the belligerent' and contracting parties, and there never were
+greater than at that time. The House of Austria, in the war immediately
+preceding that treaty, intended to make itself absolute in the empire,
+and to overthrow the rights of the respective states of it. The view of
+France was to weaken and dismember the House of Austria to such a degree,
+as that it should no longer be a counterbalance to that of Bourbon.
+Sweden wanted possessions on the continent of Germany, not only to supply
+the necessities of its own poor and barren country, but likewise to hold
+the balance in the empire between the House of Austria and the States.
+The House of Brandenburg wanted to aggrandize itself by pilfering in the
+fire; changed sides occasionally, and made a good bargain at last; for I
+think it got, at the peace, nine or ten bishoprics secularized. So that
+we may date, from the treaty of Munster, the decline of the House of
+Austria, the great power of the House of Bourbon, and the aggrandizement
+of that of Bradenburg: which, I am much mistaken, if it stops where it is
+now.
+
+Make my compliments to Lord Pulteney, to whom I would have you be not
+only attentive, but useful, by setting him (in case he wants it) a good
+example of application and temperance. I begin to believe that, as I
+shall be proud of you, others will be proud too of imitating you: Those
+expectations of mine seem now so well grounded, that my disappointment,
+and consequently my anger, will be so much the greater if they fail; but
+as things stand now, I am most affectionately and tenderly, Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVIII
+
+LONDON, August 30, O. S. 1748
+
+DEAR BOY: Your reflections upon the conduct of France, from the treaty of
+Munster to this time, are very just; and I am very glad to find, by them,
+that you not only read, but that you think and reflect upon what you
+read. Many great readers load their memories, without exercising their
+judgments; and make lumber-rooms of their heads instead of furnishing
+them usefully; facts are heaped upon facts without order or distinction,
+and may justly be said to compose that
+
+        '-----Rudis indigestaque moles
+        Quem dixere chaos'.
+
+Go on, then, in the way of reading that you are in; take nothing for
+granted, upon the bare authority of the author; but weigh and consider,
+in your own mind, the probability of the facts and the justness of the
+reflections. Consult different authors upon the same facts, and form your
+opinion upon the greater or lesser degree of probability arising from the
+whole, which, in my mind, is the utmost stretch of historical faith;
+certainty (I fear) not being to be found. When a historian pretends to
+give you the causes and motives of events, compare those causes and
+motives with the characters and interests of the parties concerned, and
+judge for yourself whether they correspond or not. Consider whether you
+cannot assign others more probable; and in that examination, do not
+despise some very mean and trifling causes of the actions of great men;
+for so various and inconsistent is human nature, so strong and changeable
+are our passions, so fluctuating are our wills, and so much are our minds
+influenced by the accidents of our bodies that every man is more the man
+of the day, than a regular consequential character. The best have
+something bad, and something little; the worst have something good, and
+sometimes something great; for I do not believe what Velleius Paterculus
+(for the sake of saying a pretty thing) says of Scipio, 'Qui nihil non
+laudandum aut fecit, aut dixit, aut sensit'. As for the reflections of
+historians, with which they think it necessary to interlard their
+histories, or at least to conclude their chapters (and which, in the
+French histories, are always introduced with a 'tant il est vrai', and in
+the English, SO TRUE IT IS), do not adopt them implicitly upon the credit
+of the author, but analyze them yourself, and judge whether they are true
+or not.
+
+But to return to the politics of France, from which I have digressed. You
+have certainly made one further reflection, of an advantage which France
+has, over and above its abilities in the cabinet and the skill of its
+negotiators, which is (if I may use the expression) its SOLENESS,
+continuity of riches and power within itself, and the nature of its
+government. Near twenty millions of people, and the ordinary revenue of
+above thirteen millions sterling a year, are at the absolute disposal of
+the Crown. This is what no other power in Europe can say; so that
+different powers must now unite to make a balance against France; which
+union, though formed upon the principle of their common interest, can
+never be so intimate as to compose a machine so compact and simple as
+that of one great kingdom, directed by one will, and moved by one
+interest. The Allied Powers (as we have constantly seen) have, besides
+the common and declared object of their alliance, some separate and
+concealed view to which they often sacrifice the general one; which makes
+them, either directly or indirectly, pull different ways. Thus, the
+design upon Toulon failed in the year 1706, only from the secret view of
+the House of Austria upon Naples: which made the Court of Vienna,
+notwithstanding the representations of the other allies to the contrary,
+send to Naples the 12,000 men that would have done the business at
+Toulon. In this last war too, the same causes had the same effects: the
+Queen of Hungary in secret thought of nothing but recovering of Silesia,
+and what she had lost in Italy; and, therefore, never sent half that
+quota which she promised, and we paid for, into Flanders; but left that
+country to the maritime powers to defend as they could. The King of
+Sardinia's real object was Savona and all the Riviera di Ponente; for
+which reason he concurred so lamely in the invasion of Provence, where
+the Queen of Hungary, likewise, did not send one-third of the force
+stipulated, engrossed as she was by her oblique views upon the plunder of
+Genoa, and the recovery of Naples. Insomuch that the expedition into
+Provence, which would have distressed France to the greatest degree, and
+have caused a great detachment from their army in Flanders, failed
+shamefully, for want of every one thing necessary for its success.
+Suppose, therefore, any four or five powers who, all together, shall be
+equal, or even a little superior, in riches and strength to that one
+power against which they are united; the advantage will still be greatly
+on the side of that single power, because it is but one. The power and
+riches of Charles V. were, in themselves, certainly superior to those of
+Frances I., and yet, upon the whole, he was not an overmatch for him.
+Charles V.'s dominions, great as they were, were scattered and remote
+from each other; their constitutions different; wherever he did not
+reside, disturbances arose; whereas the compactness of France made up the
+difference in the strength. This obvious reflection convinced me of the
+absurdity of the treaty of Hanover, in 1725, between France and England,
+to which the Dutch afterward acceded; for it was made upon the
+apprehensions, either real or pretended, that the marriage of Don Carlos
+with the eldest archduchess, now Queen of Hungary, was settled in the
+treaty of Vienna, of the same year, between Spain and the late Emperor
+Charles VI., which marriage, those consummate politicians said would
+revive in Europe the exorbitant power of Charles V. I am sure, I heartily
+wish it had; as, in that case, there had been, what there certainly is
+not now, one power in Europe to counterbalance that of France; and then
+the maritime powers would, in reality, have held the balance of Europe in
+their hands. Even supposing that the Austrian power would then have been
+an overmatch for that of France (which, by the way, is not clear), the
+weight of the maritime powers, then thrown into the scale of France,
+would infallibly have made the balance at least even. In which case too,
+the moderate efforts of the maritime powers on the side of France would
+have been sufficient; whereas now, they are obliged to exhaust and beggar
+themselves; and that too ineffectually, in hopes to support the
+shattered; beggared, and insufficient House of Austria.
+
+This has been a long political dissertation; but I am informed that
+political subjects are your favorite ones; which I am glad of,
+considering your destination. You do well to get your materials all
+ready, before you begin your work. As you buy and (I am told) read books
+of this kind, I will point out two or three for your purchase and
+perusal; I am not sure that I have not mentioned them before, but that is
+no matter, if you have not got them. 'Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire
+du 17ieme Siecle', is a most useful book for you to recur to for all the
+facts and chronology of that country: it is in four volumes octavo, and
+very correct and exact. If I do not mistake, I have formerly recommended
+to you, 'Les Memoires du Cardinal de Retz'; however, if you have not yet
+read them, pray do, and with the attention which they deserve. You will
+there find the best account of a very interesting period of the minority
+of Lewis XIV. The characters are drawn short, but in a strong and
+masterly manner; and the political reflections are the only just and
+practical ones that I ever saw in print: they are well worth your
+transcribing. 'Le Commerce des Anciens, par Monsieur Huet. Eveque
+d'Avranche', in one little volume octavo, is worth your perusal, as
+commerce is a very considerable part of political knowledge. I need not,
+I am sure, suggest to you, when you read the course of commerce, either
+of the ancients or of the moderns, to follow it upon your map; for there
+is no other way of remembering geography correctly, but by looking
+perpetually in the map for the places one reads of, even though one knows
+before, pretty near, where they are.
+
+Adieu! As all the accounts which I receive of you grow better and better,
+so I grow more and more affectionately, Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIX
+
+LONDON, September 5, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I have received yours, with the inclosed German letter to Mr.
+Gravenkop, which he assures me is extremely well written, considering the
+little time that you have applied yourself to that language. As you have
+now got over the most difficult part, pray go on diligently, and make
+yourself absolutely master of the rest. Whoever does not entirely possess
+a language, will never appear to advantage, or even equal to himself,
+either in speaking or writing it. His ideas are fettered, and seem
+imperfect or confused, if he is not master of all the words and phrases
+necessary to express them. I therefore desire, that you will not fail
+writing a German letter once every fortnight to Mr. Gravenkop; which will
+make the writing of that language familiar to you; and moreover, when you
+shall have left Germany and be arrived at Turin, I shall require you to
+write even to me in German; that you may not forget with ease what you
+have with difficulty learned. I likewise desire, that while you are in
+Germany, you will take all opportunities of conversing in German, which
+is the only way of knowing that, or any other language, accurately. You
+will also desire your German master to teach you the proper titles and
+superscriptions to be used to people of all ranks; which is a point so
+material, in Germany, that I have known many a letter returned unopened,
+because one title in twenty has been omitted in the direction.
+
+St. Thomas's day now draws near, when you are to leave Saxony and go to
+Berlin; and I take it for granted, that if anything is yet wanting to
+complete your knowledge of the state of that electorate, you will not
+fail to procure it before you go away. I do not mean, as you will easily
+believe, the number of churches, parishes, or towns; but I mean the
+constitution, the revenues, the troops, and the trade of that electorate.
+A few questions, sensibly asked, of sensible people, will produce you the
+necessary informations; which I desire you will enter in your little
+book, Berlin will be entirely a new scene to you, and I look upon it, in
+a manner, as your first step into the great world; take care that step be
+not a false one, and that you do not stumble at the threshold. You will
+there be in more company than you have yet been; manners and attentions
+will therefore be more necessary. Pleasing in company is the only way of
+being pleased in it yourself. Sense and knowledge are the first and
+necessary foundations for pleasing in company; but they will by no means
+do alone, and they will never be perfectly welcome if they are not
+accompanied with manners and attentions. You will best acquire these by
+frequenting the companies of people of fashion; but then you must resolve
+to acquire them, in those companies, by proper care and observation; for
+I have known people, who, though they have frequented good company all
+their lifetime, have done it in so inattentive and unobserving a manner,
+as to be never the better for it, and to remain as disagreeable, as
+awkward, and as vulgar, as if they had never seen any person of fashion.
+When you go into good company (by good company is meant the people of the
+first fashion of the place) observe carefully their turn, their manners,
+their address; and conform your own to them. But this is not all neither;
+go deeper still; observe their characters, and pray, as far as you can,
+into both their hearts and their heads. Seek for their particular merit,
+their predominant passion, or their prevailing weakness; and you will
+then know what to bait your hook with to catch them. Man is a composition
+of so many, and such various ingredients, that it requires both time and
+care to analyze him: for though we have all the same ingredients in our
+general composition, as reason, will, passions, and appetites; yet the
+different proportions and combinations of them in each individual,
+produce that infinite variety of characters, which, in some particular or
+other, distinguishes every individual from another. Reason ought to
+direct the whole, but seldom does. And he who addresses himself singly to
+another man's reason, without endeavoring to engage his heart in his
+interest also, is no more likely to succeed, than a man who should apply
+only to a king's nominal minister, and neglect his favorite. I will
+recommend to your attentive perusal, now that you are going into the
+world, two books, which will let you as much into the characters of men,
+as books can do. I mean, 'Les Reflections Morales de Monsieur de la
+Rochefoucault, and Les Caracteres de la Bruyere': but remember, at the
+same time, that I only recommend them to you as the best general maps to
+assist you in your journey, and not as marking out every particular
+turning and winding that you will meet with. There your own sagacity and
+observation must come to their aid. La Rochefoucault, is, I know, blamed,
+but I think without reason, for deriving all our actions from the source
+of self-love. For my own part, I see a great deal of truth, and no harm
+at all, in that opinion. It is certain that we seek our own happiness in
+everything we do; and it is as certain, that we can only find it in doing
+well, and in conforming all our actions to the rule of right reason,
+which is the great law of nature. It is only a mistaken self-love that is
+a blamable motive, when we take the immediate and indiscriminate
+gratification of a passion, or appetite, for real happiness. But am I
+blamable if I do a good action, upon account of the happiness which that
+honest consciousness will give me? Surely not. On the contrary, that
+pleasing consciousness is a proof of my virtue. The reflection which is
+the most censured in Monsieur de la Rochefoucault's book as a very
+ill-natured one, is this, 'On trouve dans le malheur de son meilleur ami,
+quelque chose qui ne des plait pas'. And why not? Why may I not feel a
+very tender and real concern for the misfortune of my friend, and yet at
+the same time feel a pleasing consciousness at having discharged my duty
+to him, by comforting and assisting him to the utmost of my power in that
+misfortune? Give me but virtuous actions, and I will not quibble and
+chicane about the motives. And I will give anybody their choice of these
+two truths, which amount to the same thing: He who loves himself best is
+the honestest man; or, The honestest man loves himself best.
+
+The characters of La Bruyere are pictures from the life; most of them
+finely drawn, and highly colored. Furnish your mind with them first, and
+when you meet with their likeness, as you will every day, they will
+strike you the more. You will compare every feature with the original;
+and both will reciprocally help you to discover the beauties and the
+blemishes.
+
+As women are a considerable, or, at least a pretty numerous part of
+company; and as their suffrages go a great way toward establishing a
+man's character in the fashionable part of the world (which is of great
+importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it), it is
+necessary to please them. I will therefore, upon this subject, let you
+into certain Arcana that will be very useful for you to know, but which
+you must, with the utmost care, conceal and never seem to know. Women,
+then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining
+tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid reasoning, good sense, I never
+knew in my life one that had it, or who reasoned or acted consequentially
+for four-and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humor always
+breaks upon their best resolutions. Their beauty neglected or
+controverted, their age increased, or their supposed understandings
+depreciated, instantly kindles their little passions, and overturns any
+system of consequential conduct, that in their most reasonable moments
+they might have been capable of forming. A man of sense only trifles with
+them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a
+sprightly forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts
+them with serious matters; though he often makes them believe that he
+does both; which is the thing in the world that they are proud of; for
+they love mightily to be dabbling in business (which by the way they
+always spoil); and being justly distrustful that men in general look upon
+them in a trifling light, they almost adore that man who talks more
+seriously to them, and who seems to consult and trust them; I say, who
+seems; for weak men really do, but wise ones only seem to do it. No
+flattery is either too high or too low for them. They will greedily
+swallow the highest, and gratefully accept of the lowest; and you may
+safely flatter any woman from her understanding down to the exquisite
+taste of her fan. Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or
+indisputably ugly, are best flattered, upon the score of their
+understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity, are best
+flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman
+who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome; but not hearing often
+that she is so, is the more grateful and the more obliged to the few who
+tell her so; whereas a decided and conscious beauty looks upon every
+tribute paid to her beauty only as her due; but wants to shine, and to be
+considered on the side of her understanding; and a woman who is ugly
+enough to know that she is so, knows that she has nothing left for it but
+her understanding, which is consequently and probably (in more senses
+than one) her weak side. But these are secrets which you must keep
+inviolably, if you would not, like Orpheus, be torn to pieces by the
+whole sex; on the contrary, a man who thinks of living in the great
+world, must be gallant, polite, and attentive to please the women. They
+have, from the weakness of men, more or less influence in all courts;
+they absolutely stamp every man's character in the beau monde, and make
+it either current, or cry it down, and stop it in payments. It is,
+therefore; absolutely necessary to manage, please, and flatter them and
+never to discover the least marks of contempt, which is what they never
+forgive; but in this they are not singular, for it is the same with men;
+who will much sooner forgive an injustice than an insult. Every man is
+not ambitious, or courteous, or passionate; but every man has pride
+enough in his composition to feel and resent the least slight and
+contempt. Remember, therefore, most carefully to conceal your contempt,
+however just, wherever you would not make an implacable enemy. Men are
+much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections
+known than their crimes; and if you hint to a man that you think him
+silly, ignorant, or even ill-bred, or awkward, he will hate you more and
+longer, than if you tell him plainly, that you think him a rogue. Never
+yield to that temptation, which to most young men is very strong; of
+exposing other people's weaknesses and infirmities, for the sake either
+of diverting the company, or showing your own superiority. You may get
+the laugh on your side by it for the present; but you will make enemies
+by it forever; and even those who laugh with you then, will, upon
+reflection, fear; and consequently hate you; besides that it is
+ill-natured, and a good heart desires rather to conceal than expose other
+people's weaknesses or misfortunes. If you have wit, use it to please,
+and not to hurt: you may shine, like the sun in the temperate zones,
+without scorching. Here it is wished for; under the Line it is dreaded.
+
+These are some of the hints which my long experience in the great world
+enables me to give you; and which, if you attend to them, may prove
+useful to you in your journey through it. I wish it may be a prosperous
+one; at least, I am sure that it must be your own fault if it is not.
+
+Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, who, I am very sorry to hear, is not
+well. I hope by this time he is recovered. Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER L
+
+LONDON, September 13, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I have more than once recommended to you the "Memoirs" of the
+Cardinal de Retz, and to attend particularly to the political reflections
+interspersed in that excellent work. I will now preach a little upon two
+or three of those texts.
+
+In the disturbances at Paris, Monsieur de Beaufort, who was a very
+popular, though a very weak man, was the Cardinal's tool with the
+populace.
+
+Proud of his popularity, he was always for assembling the people of Paris
+together, thinking that he made a great figure at the head of them. The
+Cardinal, who was factious enough, was wise enough at the same time to
+avoid gathering the people together, except when there was occasion, and
+when he had something particular for them to do. However, he could not
+always check Monsieur de Beaufort; who having assembled them once very
+unnecessarily, and without any determined object, they ran riot, would
+not be kept within bounds by their leaders, and did their cause a great
+deal of harm: upon which the Cardinal observes most judiciously, 'Que
+Monsieur de Beaufort me savoit pas, que qui assemble le peuple, l'emeut'.
+It is certain, that great numbers of people met together, animate each
+other, and will do something, either good or bad, but oftener bad; and
+the respective individuals, who were separately very quiet, when met
+together in numbers, grow tumultuous as a body, and ripe for any mischief
+that may be pointed out to them by the leaders; and, if their leaders
+have no business for them, they will find some for themselves. The
+demagogues, or leaders of popular factions, should therefore be very
+careful not to assemble the people unnecessarily, and without a settled
+and well-considered object. Besides that, by making those popular
+assemblies too frequent, they make them likewise too familiar, and
+consequently less respected by their enemies. Observe any meetings of
+people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or
+fall in proportion to their numbers: when the numbers are very great, all
+sense and reason seem to subside, and one sudden frenzy to seize on all,
+even the coolest of them.
+
+Another very just observation of the Cardinal's is, That, the things
+which happen in our own times, and which we see ourselves, do not
+surprise us near so much as the things which we read of in times past,
+though not in the least more extraordinary; and adds, that he is
+persuaded that when Caligula made his horse a Consul, the people of Rome,
+at that time, were not greatly surprised at it, having necessarily been
+in some degree prepared for it, by an insensible gradation of
+extravagances from the same quarter. This is so true that we read every
+day, with astonishment, things which we see every day without surprise.
+We wonder at the intrepidity of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and
+are not the least surprised to hear of a sea-captain, who has blown up
+his ship, his crew, and himself, that they might not fall into the hands
+of the enemies of his country. I cannot help reading of Porsenna and
+Regulus, with surprise and reverence, and yet I remember that I saw,
+without either, the execution of Shepherd,--[James Shepherd, a
+coach-painter's apprentice, was executed at Tyburn for high treason,
+March 17, 1718, in the reign of George I.]--a boy of eighteen years old,
+who intended to shoot the late king, and who would have been pardoned, if
+he would have expressed the least sorrow for his intended crime; but, on
+the contrary, he declared that if he was pardoned he would attempt it
+again; that he thought it a duty which he owed to his country, and that
+he died with pleasure for having endeavored to perform it. Reason equals
+Shepherd to Regulus; but prejudice, and the recency of the fact, make
+Shepherd a common malefactor and Regulus a hero.
+
+Examine carefully, and reconsider all your notions of things; analyze
+them, and discover their component parts, and see if habit and prejudice
+are not the principal ones; weigh the matter upon which you are to form
+your opinion, in the equal and impartial scales of reason. It is not to
+be conceived how many people, capable of reasoning, if they would, live
+and die in a thousand errors, from laziness; they will rather adopt the
+prejudices of others, than give themselves the trouble of forming
+opinions of their own. They say things, at first, because other people
+have said them, and then they persist in them, because they have said
+them themselves.
+
+The last observation that I shall now mention of the Cardinal's is, "That
+a secret is more easily kept by a good many people, than one commonly
+imagines." By this he means a secret of importance, among people
+interested in the keeping of it. And it is certain that people of
+business know the importance of secrecy, and will observe it, where they
+are concerned in the event. To go and tell any friend, wife, or mistress,
+any secret with which they have nothing to do, is discovering to them
+such an unretentive weakness, as must convince them that you will tell it
+to twenty others, and consequently that they may reveal it without the
+risk of being discovered. But a secret properly communicated only to
+those who are to be concerned in the thing in question, will probably be
+kept by them though they should be a good many. Little secrets are
+commonly told again, but great ones are generally kept. Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LI
+
+LONDON, September 20, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I wait with impatience for your accurate history of the
+'Chevaliers Forte Epees', which you promised me in your last, and which I
+take to be the forerunner of a larger work that you intend to give the
+public, containing a general account of all the religious and military
+orders of Europe. Seriously, you will do well to have a general notion of
+all those orders, ancient and modern; both as they are frequently the
+subjects of conversation, and as they are more or less interwoven with
+the histories of those times. Witness the Teutonic Order, which, as soon
+as it gained strength, began its unjust depredations in Germany, and
+acquired such considerable possessions there; and the Order of Malta
+also, which continues to this day its piracies upon the Infidels. Besides
+one can go into no company in Germany, without running against Monsieur
+le Chevalier, or Monsieur le Commandeur de l' Ordre Teutonique. It is the
+same in all the other parts of Europe with regard to the Order of Malta,
+where you never go into company without meeting two or three Chevaliers
+or Commandeurs, who talk of their 'Preuves', their 'Langues', their
+'Caravanes', etc., of all which things I am sure you would not willingly
+be ignorant. On the other hand, I do not mean that you should have a
+profound and minute knowledge of these matters, which are of a nature
+that a general knowledge of them is fully sufficient. I would not
+recommend you to read Abbe Vertot's "History of the Order of Malta," in
+four quarto volumes; that would be employing a great deal of good time
+very ill. But I would have you know the foundations, the objects, the
+INSIGNIA, and the short general history of them all.
+
+As for the ancient religious military orders, which were chiefly founded
+in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, such as Malta, the Teutonic, the
+Knights Templars, etc., the injustice and the wickedness of those
+establishments cannot, I am sure, have escaped your observation. Their
+pious object was, to take away by force other people's property, and to
+massacre the proprietors themselves if they refused to give up that
+property, and adopt the opinions of these invaders. What right or
+pretense had these confederated Christians of Europe to the Holy Land?
+Let them produce their grant of it in the Bible. Will they say, that the
+Saracens had possessed themselves of it by force, and that, consequently,
+they had the same right? Is it lawful then to steal goods because they
+were stolen before? Surely not. The truth is, that the wickedness of
+many, and the weakness of more, in those ages of ignorance and
+superstition, concurred to form those flagitious conspiracies against the
+lives and properties of unoffending people. The Pope sanctified the
+villany, and annexed the pardon of sins to the perpetration of it. This
+gave rise to the Crusaders, and carried such swarms of people from Europe
+to the conquests of the Holy Land. Peter the Hermit, an active and
+ambitious priest, by his indefatigable pains, was the immediate author of
+the first crusade; kings, princes, all professions and characters united,
+from different motives, in this great undertaking, as every sentiment,
+except true religion and morality, invited to it. The ambitious hoped for
+kingdoms; the greedy and the necessitous for plunder; and some were
+enthusiasts enough to hope for salvation, by the destruction of a
+considerable number of their fellow creatures, who had done them no
+injury. I cannot omit, upon this occasion, telling you that the Eastern
+emperors at Constantinople (who, as Christians, were obliged at least to
+seem to favor these expeditions), seeing the immense numbers of the
+'Croisez', and fearing that the Western Empire might have some mind to
+the Eastern Empire too, if it succeeded against the Infidels, as
+'l'appetit vient en mangeant'; these Eastern emperors, very honestly,
+poisoned the waters where the 'Croisez' were to pass, and so destroyed
+infinite numbers of them.
+
+The later orders of knighthood, such as the Garter in England; the
+Elephant in Denmark; the Golden Fleece in Burgundy; the St. Esprit, St.
+Michel, St. Louis, and St. Lazare, in France etc., are of a very
+different nature and were either the invitations to, or the rewards of;
+brave actions in fair war; and are now rather the decorations of the
+favor of the prince, than the proofs of the merit of the subject.
+However, they are worth your inquiries to a certain degree, and
+conversation will give you frequent opportunities for them. Wherever you
+are, I would advise you to inquire into the respective orders of that
+country, and to write down a short account of them. For example, while
+you are in Saxony, get an account of l'Aigle Blanc and of what other
+orders there may be, either Polish or Saxon; and, when you shall be at
+Berlin, inform yourself of three orders, l'Aigle Noir, la Generosite et
+le Vrai Merite, which are the only ones that I know of there. But
+whenever you meet with straggling ribands and stars, as you will with a
+thousand in Germany, do not fail to inquire what they are, and to take a
+minute of them in your memorandum book; for it is a sort of knowledge
+that costs little to acquire, and yet it is of some use. Young people
+have frequently an incuriousness about them, arising either from
+laziness, or a contempt of the object, which deprives them of several
+such little parts of knowledge, that they afterward wish they had
+acquired. If you will put conversation to profit, great knowledge may be
+gained by it; and is it not better (since it is full as easy) to turn it
+upon useful than upon useless subjects? People always talk best upon what
+they know most, and it is both pleasing them and improving one's self, to
+put them upon that subject. With people of a particular profession, or of
+a distinguished eminency in any branch of learning, one is not at a loss;
+but with those, whether men or women, who properly constitute what is
+called the beau monde, one must not choose deep subjects, nor hope to get
+any knowledge above that of orders, ranks, families, and court anecdotes;
+which are therefore the proper (and not altogether useless) subjects of
+that kind of conversation. Women, especially, are to be talked to as
+below men and above children. If you talk to them too deep, you only
+confound them, and lose your own labor; if you talk to them too
+frivolously, they perceive and resent the contempt. The proper tone for
+them is, what the French call the 'Entregent', and is, in truth, the
+polite jargon of good company. Thus, if you are a good chemist, you may
+extract something out of everything.
+
+A propos of the beau monde, I must again and again recommend the Graces
+to you: There is no doing without them in that world; and, to make a good
+figure in that world, is a great step toward making one in the world of
+business, particularly that part of it for which you are destined. An
+ungraceful manner of speaking, awkward motions, and a disagreeable
+address, are great clogs to the ablest man of business, as the opposite
+qualifications are of infinite advantage to him. I am told there is a
+very good dancing-master at Leipsig. I would have you dance a minuet very
+well, not so much for the sake of the minuet itself (though that, if
+danced at all, ought to be danced, well), as that it will give you a
+habitual genteel carriage and manner of presenting yourself.
+
+Since I am upon little things, I must mention another, which, though
+little enough in itself, yet as it occurs at, least once in every day,
+deserves some attention; I mean Carving. Do you use yourself to carve
+ADROITLY and genteelly, without hacking half an hour across a bone;
+without bespattering the company with the sauce; and without overturning
+the glasses into your neighbor's pockets? These awkwardnesses are
+extremely disagreeable; and, if often repeated, bring ridicule. They are
+very easily avoided by a little attention and use.
+
+How trifling soever these things may seem, or really be in themselves,
+they are no longer so when above half the world thinks them otherwise.
+And, as I would have you 'omnibus ornatum--excellere rebus', I think
+nothing above or below my pointing out to you, or your excelling in. You
+have the means of doing it, and time before you to make use of them. Take
+my word for it, I ask nothing now but what you will, twenty years hence,
+most heartily wish that you had done. Attention to all these things, for
+the next two or three years, will save you infinite trouble and endless
+regrets hereafter. May you, in the whole course of your life, have no
+reason for any one just regret! Adieu.
+
+Your Dresden china is arrived, and I have sent it to your Mamma.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LII
+
+LONDON, September 27, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I have received your Latin "Lecture upon War," which though it
+is not exactly the same Latin that Caesar, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and
+Ovid spoke, is, however, as good Latin as the erudite Germans speak or
+write. I have always observed that the most learned people, that is,
+those who have read the most Latin, write the worst; and that
+distinguishes the Latin of gentleman scholar from that of a pedant. A
+gentleman has, probably, read no other Latin than that of the Augustan
+age; and therefore can write no other, whereas the pedant has read much
+more bad Latin than good, and consequently writes so too. He looks upon
+the best classical books, as books for school-boys, and consequently
+below him; but pores over fragments of obscure authors, treasures up the
+obsolete words which he meets with there, and uses them upon all
+occasions to show his reading at the expense of his judgment. Plautus is
+his favorite author, not for the sake of the wit and the vis comica of
+his comedies, but upon account of the many obsolete words, and the cant
+of low characters, which are to be met with nowhere else. He will rather
+use 'olli' than 'illi', 'optume' than 'optima', and any bad word rather
+than any good one, provided he can but prove, that strictly speaking, it
+is Latin; that is, that it was written by a Roman. By this rule, I might
+now write to you in the language of Chaucer or Spenser, and assert that I
+wrote English, because it was English in their days; but I should be a
+most affected puppy if I did so, and you would not understand three words
+of my letter. All these, and such like affected peculiarities, are the
+characteristics of learned coxcombs and pedants, and are carefully
+avoided by all men of sense.
+
+I dipped accidentally, the other day, into Pitiscus's preface to his
+"Lexicon," where I found a word that puzzled me, and which I did not
+remember ever to have met with before. It is the adverb 'praefiscine',
+which means, IN A GOOD HOUR; an expression which, by the superstition of
+it, appears to be low and vulgar. I looked for it: and at last I found
+that it is once or twice made use of in Plautus, upon the strength of
+which this learned pedant thrusts it into his preface. Whenever you write
+Latin, remember that every word or phrase which you make use of, but
+cannot find in Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Horace, Virgil; and Ovid, is bad,
+illiberal Latin, though it may have been written by a Roman.
+
+I must now say something as to the matter of the "Lecture," in which I
+confess there is one doctrine laid down that surprises me: It is this,
+'Quum vero hostis sit lenta citave morte omnia dira nobis minitans
+quocunque bellantibus negotium est; parum sane interfuerit quo modo eum
+obruere et interficere satagamus, si ferociam exuere cunctetur. Ergo
+veneno quoque uti fas est', etc., whereas I cannot conceive that the use
+of poison can, upon any account, come within the lawful means of
+self-defense. Force may, without doubt, be justly repelled by force, but
+not by treachery and fraud; for I do not call the stratagems of war, such
+as ambuscades, masked batteries, false attacks, etc., frauds or
+treachery: They are mutually to be expected and guarded against; but
+poisoned arrows, poisoned waters, or poison administered to your enemy
+(which can only be done by treachery), I have always heard, read, and
+thought, to be unlawful and infamous means of defense, be your danger
+ever so great: But 'si ferociam exuere cunctetur'; must I rather die than
+poison this enemy? Yes, certainly, much rather die than do a base or
+criminal action; nor can I be sure, beforehand, that this enemy may not,
+in the last moment, 'ferociam exuere'. But the public lawyers, now, seem
+to me rather to warp the law, in order to authorize, than to check, those
+unlawful proceedings of princes and states; which, by being become
+common, appear less criminal, though custom can never alter the nature of
+good and ill.
+
+Pray let no quibbles of lawyers, no refinements of casuists, break into
+the plain notions of right and wrong, which every man's right reason and
+plain common sense suggest to him. To do as you would be done by, is the
+plain, sure, and undisputed rule of morality and justice. Stick to that;
+and be convinced that whatever breaks into it, in any degree, however
+speciously it may be turned, and however puzzling it may be to answer it,
+is, notwithstanding, false in itself, unjust, and criminal. I do not know
+a crime in the world, which is not by the casuists among the Jesuits
+(especially the twenty-four collected, I think, by Escobar) allowed, in
+some, or many cases, not to be criminal. The principles first laid down
+by them are often specious, the reasonings plausible, but the conclusion
+always a lie: for it is contrary, to that evident and undeniable rule of
+justice which I have mentioned above, of not doing to anyone what you
+would not have him do to you. But, however, these refined pieces of
+casuistry and sophistry, being very convenient and welcome to people's
+passions and appetites, they gladly accept the indulgence, without
+desiring to detect the fallacy or the reasoning: and indeed many, I might
+say most people, are not able to do it; which makes the publication of
+such quibblings and refinements the more pernicious. I am no skillful
+casuist nor subtle disputant; and yet I would undertake to justify and
+qualify the profession of a highwayman, step by step, and so plausibly,
+as to make many ignorant people embrace the profession, as an innocent,
+if not even a laudable one; and puzzle people of some degree of
+knowledge, to answer me point by point. I have seen a book, entitled
+'Quidlibet ex Quolibet', or the art of making anything out of anything;
+which is not so difficult as it would seem, if once one quits certain
+plain truths, obvious in gross to every understanding, in order to run
+after the ingenious refinements of warm imaginations and speculative
+reasonings. Doctor Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, a very worthy, ingenious,
+and learned man, has written a book, to prove that there is no such thing
+as matter, and that nothing exists but in idea: that you and I only fancy
+ourselves eating, drinking, and sleeping; you at Leipsig, and I at
+London: that we think we have flesh and blood, legs, arms, etc., but that
+we are only spirit. His arguments are, strictly speaking, unanswerable;
+but yet I am so far from being convinced by them, that I am determined to
+go on to eat and drink, and walk and ride, in order to keep that MATTER,
+which I so mistakenly imagine my body at present to consist of, in as
+good plight as possible. Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon) is
+the best sense I know of: abide by it, it will counsel you best. Read and
+hear, for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions subtilly
+agitated, with all the refinements that warm imaginations suggest; but
+consider them only as exercitations for the mind, and turn always to
+settle with common sense.
+
+I stumbled, the other day, at a bookseller's, upon "Comte Gabalis," in
+two very little volumes, which I had formerly read. I read it over again,
+and with fresh astonishment. Most of the extravagances are taken from the
+Jewish Rabbins, who broached those wild notions, and delivered them in
+the unintelligible jargon which the Caballists and Rosicrucians deal in
+to this day. Their number is, I believe, much lessened, but there are
+still some; and I myself have known two; who studied and firmly believed
+in that mystical nonsense. What extravagancy is not man capable of
+entertaining, when once his shackled reason is led in triumph by fancy
+and prejudice! The ancient alchemists give very much into this stuff, by
+which they thought they should discover the philosopher's stone; and some
+of the most celebrated empirics employed it in the pursuit of the
+universal medicine. Paracelsus, a bold empiric and wild Caballist,
+asserted that he had discovered it, and called it his 'Alkahest'. Why or
+wherefore, God knows; only that those madmen call nothing by an
+intelligible name. You may easily get this book from The Hague: read it,
+for it will both divert and astonish you, and at the same time teach you
+'nil admirari'; a very necessary lesson.
+
+Your letters, except when upon a given subject, are exceedingly laconic,
+and neither answer my desires nor the purpose of letters; which should be
+familiar conversations, between absent friends. As I desire to live with
+you upon the footing of an intimate friend, and not of a parent, I could
+wish that your letters gave me more particular accounts of yourself, and
+of your lesser transactions. When you write to me, suppose yourself
+conversing freely with me by the fireside. In that case, you would
+naturally mention the incidents of the day; as where you had been, who
+you had seen, what you thought of them, etc. Do this in your letters:
+acquaint me sometimes with your studies, sometimes with your diversions;
+tell me of any new persons and characters that you meet with in company,
+and add your own observations upon them: in short, let me see more of you
+in your letters. How do you go on with Lord Pulteney, and how does he go
+on at Leipsig? Has he learning, has he parts, has he application? Is he
+good or ill-natured? In short, What is he? at least, what do you think
+him? You may tell me without reserve, for I promise you secrecy. You are
+now of an age that I am desirous to begin a confidential correspondence
+with you; and as I shall, on my part, write you very freely my opinion
+upon men and things, which I should often be very unwilling that anybody
+but you and Mr. Harte should see, so, on your part, if you write me
+without reserve, you may depend upon my inviolable secrecy. If you have
+ever looked into the "Letters" of Madame de Sevigne to her daughter,
+Madame de Grignan, you must have observed the ease, freedom, and
+friendship of that correspondence; and yet, I hope and I believe, that
+they did not love one another better than we do. Tell me what books you
+are now reading, either by way of study or amusement; how you pass your
+evenings when at home, and where you pass them when abroad. I know that
+you go sometimes to Madame Valentin's assembly; What do you do there? Do
+you play, or sup, or is it only 'la belle conversation?' Do you mind your
+dancing while your dancing-master is with you? As you will be often under
+the necessity of dancing a minuet, I would have you dance it very well.
+Remember, that the graceful motion of the arms, the giving your hand, and
+the putting on and pulling off your hat genteelly, are the material parts
+of a gentleman's dancing. But the greatest advantage of dancing well is,
+that it necessarily teaches you to present yourself, to sit, stand, and
+walk, genteelly; all of which are of real importance to a man of fashion.
+
+I should wish that you were polished before you go to Berlin; where, as
+you will be in a great deal of good company, I would have you have the
+right manners for it. It is a very considerable article to have 'le ton
+de la bonne compagnie', in your destination particularly. The principal
+business of a foreign minister is, to get into the secrets, and to know
+all 'les allures' of the courts at which he resides; this he can never
+bring about but by such a pleasing address, such engaging manners, and
+such an insinuating behavior, as may make him sought for, and in some
+measure domestic, in the best company and the best families of the place.
+He will then, indeed, be well informed of all that passes, either by the
+confidences made him, or by the carelessness of people in his company,
+who are accustomed to look upon him as one of them, and consequently are
+not upon their guard before him. For a minister who only goes to the
+court he resides at, in form, to ask an audience of the prince or the
+minister upon his last instructions, puts them upon their guard, and will
+never know anything more than what they have a mind that he should know.
+Here women may be put to some use. A king's mistress, or a minister's
+wife or mistress, may give great and useful informations; and are very
+apt to do it, being proud to show that they have been trusted. But then,
+in this case, the height of that sort of address, which, strikes women,
+is requisite; I mean that easy politeness, genteel and graceful address,
+and that 'exterieur brilliant' which they cannot withstand. There is a
+sort of men so like women, that they are to be taken just in the same
+way; I mean those who are commonly called FINE MEN; who swarm at all
+courts; who have little reflection, and less knowledge; but, who by their
+good breeding, and 'train-tran' of the world, are admitted into all
+companies; and, by the imprudence or carelessness of their superiors,
+pick up secrets worth knowing, which are easily got out of them by proper
+address. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LIII
+
+BATH, October 12, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I came here three days ago upon account of a disorder in my
+stomach, which affected my head and gave me vertigo. I already find
+myself something better; and consequently do not doubt but that the
+course of these waters will set me quite right. But however and wherever
+I am, your welfare, your character, your knowledge, and your morals,
+employ my thoughts more than anything that can happen to me, or that I
+can fear or hope for myself. I am going off the stage, you are coming
+upon it; with me what has been, has been, and reflection now would come
+too late; with you everything is to come, even, in some manner,
+reflection itself; so that this is the very time when my reflections, the
+result of experience, may be of use to you, by supplying the want of
+yours. As soon as you leave Leipsig, you will gradually be going into the
+great world; where the first impressions that you shall give of yourself
+will be of great importance to you; but those which you shall receive
+will be decisive, for they always stick. To keep good company, especially
+at your first setting out, is the way to receive good impressions. If you
+ask me what I mean by good company, I will confess to you that it is
+pretty difficult to define; but I will endeavor to make you understand it
+as well as I can.
+
+Good company is not what respective sets of company are pleased either to
+call or think themselves, but it is that company which all the people of
+the place call, and acknowledge to be, good company, notwithstanding some
+objections which they may form to some of the individuals who compose it.
+It consists chiefly (but by no means without exception) of people of
+considerable birth, rank, and character; for people of neither birth nor
+rank are frequently, and very justly admitted into it, if distinguished
+by any peculiar merit, or eminency in any liberal art or science. Nay, so
+motly a thing is good company, that many people, without birth, rank, or
+merit, intrude into it by their own forwardness, and others slide into it
+by the protection of some considerable person; and some even of
+indifferent characters and morals make part of it. But in the main, the
+good part preponderates, and people of infamous and blasted characters
+are never admitted. In this fashionable good company, the best manners
+and the best language of the place are most unquestionably to be learned;
+for they establish and give the tone to both, which are therefore called
+the language and manners of good company: there being no legal tribunal
+to ascertain either.
+
+A company, consisting wholly of people of the first quality, cannot, for
+that reason, be called good company, in the common acceptation of the
+phrase, unless they are, into the bargain, the fashionable and accredited
+company of the place; for people of the very first quality can be as
+silly, as ill-bred, and as worthless, as people of the meanest degree. On
+the other hand, a company consisting entirely of people of very low
+condition, whatever their merit or parts may be, can never be called good
+company; and consequently should not be much frequented, though by no
+means despised.
+
+A company wholly composed of men of learning, though greatly to be valued
+and respected, is not meant by the words GOOD COMPANY; they cannot have
+the easy manners and, 'tournure' of the world, as they do not live in it.
+If you can bear your part well in such a company, it is extremely right
+to be in it sometimes, and you will be but more esteemed in other
+companies, for having a place in that. But then do not let it engross
+you; for if you do, you will be only considered as one of the 'literati'
+by profession; which is not the way either, to shine, or rise in the
+world.
+
+The company of professed wits and pests is extremely inviting to most
+young men; who if they have wit themselves, are pleased with it, and if
+they have none, are sillily proud of being one of it: but it should be
+frequented with moderation and judgment, and you should by no means give
+yourself up to it. A wit is a very unpopular denomination, as it carries
+terror along with it; and people in general are as much afraid of a live
+wit, in company, as a woman is of a gun, which she thinks may go off of
+itself, and do her a mischief. Their acquaintance is, however, worth
+seeking, and their company worth frequenting; but not exclusively of
+others, nor to such a degree as to be considered only as one of that
+particular set.
+
+But the company, which of all others you should most carefully avoid, is
+that low company, which, in every sense of the word, is low indeed; low
+in rank, low in parts, low in manners, and low in merit. You will,
+perhaps, be surprised that I should think it necessary to warn you
+against such company, but yet I do not think it wholly, unnecessary, from
+the many instances which I have seen of men of sense and rank,
+discredited, verified, and undone, by keeping such company.
+
+Vanity, that source of many of our follies, and of some of our crimes,
+has sunk many a man into company, in every light infinitely, below
+himself, for the sake of being the first man in it. There he dictates, is
+applauded, admired; and, for the sake of being the Coryphceus of that
+wretched chorus, disgraces and disqualifies himself soon for any better
+company. Depend upon it, you will sink or rise to the level of the
+company which you commonly keep: people will judge of you, and not
+unreasonably, by that. There is good sense in the Spanish saying, "Tell
+me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are." Make it
+therefore your business, wherever you are, to get into that company which
+everybody in the place allows to be the best company next to their own;
+which is the best definition that I can give you of good company. But
+here, too, one caution is very necessary, for want of which many young
+men have been ruined, even in good company.
+
+Good company (as I have before observed) is composed of a great variety
+of fashionable people, whose characters and morals are very different,
+though their manners are pretty much the same. When a young man, new in
+the world, first gets into that company, he very rightly determines to
+conform to, and imitate it. But then he too often, and fatally, mistakes
+the objects of his imitation. He has often heard that absurd term of
+genteel and fashionable vices. He there sees some people who shine, and
+who in general are admired and esteemed; and observes that these people
+are whoremasters, drunkards, or gamesters, upon which he adopts their
+vices, mistaking their defects for their perfections, and thinking that
+they owe their fashions and their luster to those genteel vices. Whereas
+it is exactly the reverse; for these people have acquired their
+reputation by their parts, their learning, their good-breeding, and other
+real accomplishments: and are only blemished and lowered, in the opinions
+of all reasonable people, and of their own, in time, by these genteel and
+fashionable vices. A whoremaster, in a flux, or without a nose, is a very
+genteel person, indeed, and well worthy of imitation. A drunkard,
+vomiting up at night the wine of the day, and stupefied by the headache
+all the next, is, doubtless, a fine model to copy from. And a gamester,
+tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for having lost more than he had in
+the world, is surely a most amiable character. No; these are alloys, and
+great ones too, which can never adorn any character, but will always
+debase the best. To prove this, suppose any man, without parts and some
+other good qualities, to be merely a whoremaster, a drunkard, or a
+gamester; how will he be looked upon by all sorts of people? Why, as a
+most contemptible and vicious animal. Therefore it is plain, that in
+these mixed characters, the good part only makes people forgive, but not
+approve, the bad.
+
+I will hope and believe that you will have no vices; but if,
+unfortunately, you should have any, at least I beg of you to be content
+with your own, and to adopt no other body's.
+
+The adoption of vice has, I am convinced, ruined ten times more young men
+than natural inclinations.
+
+As I make no difficulty of confessing my past errors, where I think the
+confession may be of use to you, I will own that when I first went to the
+university, I drank and smoked, notwithstanding the aversion I had to
+wine and tobacco, only because I thought it genteel, and that it made me
+look like a man. When I went abroad, I first went to The Hague, where
+gaming was much in fashion, and where I observed that many people of
+shining rank and character gamed too. I was then young enough, and silly
+enough, to believe that gaming was one of their accomplishments; and, as
+I aimed at perfection, I adopted gaming as a necessary step to it. Thus I
+acquired by error the habit of a vice which, far from adorning my
+character, has, I am conscious, been a great blemish in it.
+
+Imitate then, with discernment and judgment, the real perfections of the
+good company into which you may get; copy their politeness, their
+carriage, their address, and the easy and well-bred turn of their
+conversation; but remember that, let them shine ever so bright, their
+vices, if they have any, are so many spots which you would no more
+imitate, than you would make an artificial wart upon your face, because
+some very handsome man had the misfortune to have a natural one upon his:
+but, on the contrary, think how much handsomer he would have been without
+it.
+
+Having thus confessed some of my 'egaremens', I will now show you a
+little of my right side. I always endeavored to get into the best company
+wherever I was, and commonly succeeded. There I pleased to some degree by
+showing a desire to please. I took care never to be absent or 'distrait';
+but on the contrary, attended to everything that was said, done, or even
+looked, in company; I never failed in the minutest attentions and was
+never 'journalier'. These things, and not my 'egaremens', made me
+fashionable. Adieu! This letter is full long enough.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LIV
+
+BATH, October 19, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: Having in my last pointed out what sort of company you should
+keep, I will now give you some rules for your conduct in it; rules which
+my own experience and observation enable me to lay down, and communicate
+to you, with some degree of confidence. I have often given you hints of
+this kind before, but then it has been by snatches; I will now be more
+regular and methodical. I shall say nothing with regard to your bodily
+carriage and address, but leave them to the care of your dancing-master,
+and to your own attention to the best models; remember, however, that
+they are of consequence.
+
+Talk often, but never long: in that case, if you do not please, at least
+you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not
+treat the whole company; this being one of the very few cases in which
+people do not care to be treated, everyone being fully convinced that he
+has wherewithal to pay.
+
+Tell stories very seldom, and absolutely never but where they are very
+apt and very short. Omit every circumstance that is not material, and
+beware of digressions. To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays
+great want of imagination.
+
+Never hold anybody by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out;
+for, if people are not willing to hear you, you had much better hold your
+tongue than them.
+
+Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man in company
+(commonly him whom they observe to be the most silent, or their next
+neighbor) to whisper, or at least in a half voice, to convey a continuity
+of words to. This is excessively ill-bred, and in some degree a fraud;
+conversation-stock being a joint and common property. But, on the other
+hand, if one of these unmerciful talkers lays hold of you, hear him with
+patience (and at least seeming attention), if he is worth obliging; for
+nothing will oblige him more than a patient hearing, as nothing would
+hurt him more than either to leave him in the midst of his discourse, or
+to discover your impatience under your affliction.
+
+Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are in. If you have
+parts, you will show them, more or less, upon every subject; and if you
+have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's
+than of your own choosing.
+
+Avoid as much as you can, in mixed companies, argumentative, polemical
+conversations; which, though they should not, yet certainly do, indispose
+for a time the contending parties toward each other; and, if the
+controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavor to put an end to it by some
+genteel levity or joke. I quieted such a conversation-hubbub once, by
+representing to them that, though I was persuaded none there present
+would repeat, out of company, what passed in it, yet I could not answer
+for the discretion of the passengers in the street, who must necessarily
+hear all that was said.
+
+Above all things, and upon all occasions, avoid speaking of yourself, if
+it be possible. Such is the natural pride and vanity of our hearts, that
+it perpetually breaks out, even in people of the best parts, in all the
+various modes and figures of the egotism.
+
+Some, abruptly, speak advantageously of themselves, without either
+pretense or provocation. They are impudent. Others proceed more artfully,
+as they imagine; and forge accusations against themselves, complain of
+calumnies which they never heard, in order to justify themselves, by
+exhibiting a catalogue of their many virtues. They acknowledge it may,
+indeed, seem odd that they should talk in that manner of themselves; it
+is what they do not like, and what they never would have done; no; no
+tortures should ever have forced it from them, if they had, not been thus
+unjustly and monstrously accused. But, in these cases; justice is surely
+due to one's self, as well as to others; and when our character is
+attacked, we may say in our own justification, what otherwise we never
+would have said. This thin veil of Modesty drawn before Vanity, is much
+too transparent to conceal it, even from very moderate discernment.
+
+Others go more modestly and more slyly still (as they think) to work; but
+in my mind still more ridiculously. They confess themselves (not without
+some degree of shame and confusion) into all the Cardinal Virtues, by
+first degrading them into weaknesses and then owning their misfortune in
+being made up of those weaknesses. They cannot see people suffer without
+sympathizing with, and endeavoring to help them. They cannot see people
+want, without relieving them, though truly their own circumstances cannot
+very well afford it. They cannot help speaking truth, though they know
+all the imprudence of it. In short, they know that, with all these
+weaknesses, they are not fit to live in the world, much less to thrive in
+it. But they are now too old to change, and must rub on as well as they
+can. This sounds too ridiculous and 'outre', almost, for the stage; and
+yet, take my word for it, you will frequently meet with it upon the
+common stage of the world. And here I will observe, by the bye, that you
+will often meet with characters in nature so extravagant, that a discreet
+dramatist would not venture to set them upon the stage in their true and
+high coloring.
+
+This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature that it
+descends even to the lowest objects; and one often sees people angling
+for praise, where, admitting all they say to be true (which, by the way,
+it seldom is), no just praise is to be caught. One man affirms that he
+has rode post an hundred miles in six hours; probably it is a lie: but
+supposing it to be true, what then? Why he is a very good post-boy, that
+is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has
+drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity, I will
+believe him a liar; for, if I do not, I must think him a beast.
+
+Such, and a thousand more, are the follies and extravagances, which
+vanity draws people into, and which always defeat their own purpose; and
+as Waller says, upon another subject,--
+
+     "Make the wretch the most despised,
+     Where most he wishes to be prized."
+
+The only sure way of avoiding these evils, is never to speak of yourself
+at all. But when, historically, you are obliged to mention yourself, take
+care not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be
+construed as fishing for applause. Be your character what it will, it
+will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine
+that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add
+lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times
+in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you
+are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor
+ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which you may really
+deserve; but if you publish your own panegyric upon any occasion, or in
+any shape whatsoever, and however artfully dressed or disguised, they
+will all conspire against you, and you will be disappointed of the very
+end you aim at.
+
+Take care never to seem dark and mysterious; which is not only a very
+unamiable character, but a very suspicious one too; if you seem
+mysterious with others, they will be really so with you, and you will
+know nothing. The height of abilities is to have 'volto sciolto' and
+'pensieri stretti'; that is, a frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with
+a prudent interior; to be upon your own guard, and yet, by a seeming
+natural openness, to put people off theirs. Depend upon it nine in ten of
+every company you are in will avail themselves of every indiscreet and
+unguarded expression of yours, if they can turn it to their own
+advantage. A prudent reserve is therefore as necessary as a seeming
+openness is prudent. Always look people in the face when you speak to
+them: the not doing it is thought to imply conscious guilt; besides that
+you lose the advantage of serving by their countenances what impression
+your discourse makes upon them. In order to know people's real
+sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears: for they can
+say whatever they have a mind I should hear; but they can seldom help
+looking, what they have no intention that I should know.
+
+Neither retail nor receive scandal willingly; defamation of others may
+for the present gratify the malignity of the pride of our hearts; cool
+reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a
+disposition; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the
+receiver is always thought, as bad as the thief.
+
+Mimicry, which is the common and favorite amusement of little low minds,
+is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most
+illiberal of all buffoonery. Pray, neither practice it yourself, nor
+applaud it in others. Besides that the person mimicked is insulted; and,
+as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven.
+
+I need not (I believe) advise you to adapt your conversation to the
+people you are conversing with: for I suppose you would not, without this
+caution, have talked upon the same subject, and in the same manner, to a
+minister of state, a bishop, a philosopher, a captain, and a woman. A man
+of the world must, like the chameleon, be able to take every different
+hue; which is by no means a criminal or abject, but a necessary
+complaisance; for it relates only to manners and not to morals.
+
+One word only as to swearing, and that, I hope and believe, is more than
+is necessary. You may sometimes hear some people in good company
+interlard their discourse with oaths, by way of embellishment, as they
+think, but you must observe, too, that those who do so are never those
+who contribute, in any degree, to give that company the denomination of
+good company. They are always subalterns, or people of low education; for
+that practice, besides that it has no one temptation to plead, is as
+silly and as illiberal as it is wicked.
+
+Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly
+things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the
+creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore only seen
+to smile; but never heard to laugh.
+
+But to conclude this long letter; all the above-mentioned rules, however
+carefully you may observe them, will lose half their effect, if
+unaccompanied by the Graces. Whatever you say, if you say it with a
+supercilious, cynical face, or an embarrassed countenance, or a silly,
+disconcerted grin, will be ill received. If, into the bargain, YOU MUTTER
+IT, OR UTTER IT INDISTINCTLY AND UNGRACEFULLY, it will be still worse
+received. If your air and address are vulgar, awkward, and gauche, you
+may be esteemed indeed, if you have great intrinsic merit; but you will
+never, please; and without pleasing you will rise but heavily. Venus,
+among the ancients, was synonymous with the Graces, who were always
+supposed to accompany her; and Horace tells us that even Youth and
+Mercury, the god of Arts and Eloquence, would not do without her:
+
+     'Parum comis sine to Juventas Mercuriusque.'
+
+They are not inexorable Ladies, and may be had if properly, and
+diligently pursued. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LV
+
+BATH, October 29, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: My anxiety for your success increases in proportion as the time
+approaches of your taking your part upon the great stage of the world.
+The audience will form their opinion of you upon your first appearance
+(making the proper allowance for your inexperience), and so far it will
+be final, that, though it may vary as to the degrees, it will never
+totally change. This consideration excites that restless attention with
+which I am constantly examining how I can best contribute to the
+perfection of that character, in which the least spot or blemish would
+give me more real concern, than I am now capable of feeling upon any
+other account whatsoever.
+
+I have long since done mentioning your great religious and moral duties,
+because I could not make your understanding so bad a compliment as to
+suppose that you wanted, or could receive, any new instructions upon
+those two important points. Mr. Harte, I am sure, has not neglected them;
+and, besides, they are so obvious to common sense and reason, that
+commentators may (as they often do) perplex, but cannot make them
+clearer. My province, therefore, is to supply by my experience your
+hitherto inevitable inexperience in the ways of the world. People at your
+age are in a state of natural ebriety; and want rails, and 'gardefous',
+wherever they go, to hinder them from breaking their necks. This
+drunkenness of youth is not only tolerated, but even pleases, if kept
+within certain bounds of discretion and decency. These bounds are the
+point which it is difficult for the drunken man himself to find out; and
+there it is that the experience of a friend may not only serve, but save
+him.
+
+Carry with you, and welcome, into company all the gaiety and spirits, but
+as little of the giddiness, of youth as you can. The former will charm;
+but the latter will often, though innocently, implacably offend. Inform
+yourself of the characters and situations of the company, before you give
+way to what your imagination may prompt you to say. There are, in all
+companies, more wrong beads than right ones, and many more who deserve,
+than who like censure. Should you therefore expatiate in the praise of
+some virtue, which some in company notoriously want; or declaim against
+any vice, which others are notoriously infected with, your reflections,
+however general and unapplied, will, by being applicable, be thought
+personal and leveled at those people. This consideration points out to
+you, sufficiently, not to be suspicious and captious yourself, nor to
+suppose that things, because they may be, are therefore meant at you. The
+manners of well-bred people secure one from those indirect and mean
+attacks; but if, by chance, a flippant woman or a pert coxcomb lets off
+anything of that kind, it is much better not to seem to understand, than
+to reply to it.
+
+Cautiously avoid talking of either your own or other people's domestic
+affairs. Yours are nothing to them but tedious; theirs are nothing to
+you. The subject is a tender one: and it is odds but that you touch
+somebody or other's sore place: for, in this case, there is no trusting
+to specious appearances; which may be, and often are, so contrary to the
+real situations of things, between men and their wives, parents and their
+children, seeming friends, etc., that, with the best intentions in the
+world, one often blunders disagreeably.
+
+Remember that the wit, humor, and jokes, of most mixed companies are
+local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear
+transplanting. Every company is differently circumstanced, has its
+particular cant and jargon; which may give occasion to wit and mirth
+within that circle, but would seem flat and insipid in any other, and
+therefore will not bear repeating. Nothing makes a man look sillier than
+a pleasantry not relished or not understood; and if he meets with a
+profound silence when he expected a general applause, or, what is worse,
+if he is desired to explain the bon mot, his awkward and embarrassed
+situation is easier imagined' than described. 'A propos' of repeating;
+take great care never to repeat (I do not mean here the pleasantries) in
+one company what you hear in another. Things, seemingly indifferent, may,
+by circulation, have much graver consequences than you would imagine.
+Besides, there is a general tacit trust in conversation, by which a man
+is obliged not to report anything out of it, though he is not immediately
+enjoined to secrecy. A retailer of this kind is sure to draw himself into
+a thousand scrapes and discussions, and to be shyly and uncomfortably
+received wherever he goes.
+
+You will find, in most good company, some people who only keep their
+place there by a contemptible title enough; these are what we call VERY
+GOOD-NATURED FELLOWS, and the French, 'bons diables'. The truth is, they
+are people without any parts or fancy, and who, having no will of their
+own, readily assent to, concur in, and applaud, whatever is said or done
+in the company; and adopt, with the same alacrity, the most virtuous or
+the most criminal, the wisest or the silliest scheme, that happens to be
+entertained by the majority of the company. This foolish, and often
+criminal complaisance flows from a foolish cause,--the want of any other
+merit. I hope that you will hold your place in company by a nobler
+tenure, and that you will hold it (you can bear a quibble, I believe,
+yet) 'in capite'. Have a will and an opinion of your own, and adhere to
+them steadily; but then do it with good humor, good-breeding, and (if you
+have it) with urbanity; for you have not yet heard enough either to
+preach or censure.
+
+All other kinds of complaisance are not only blameless, but necessary in
+good company. Not to seem to perceive the little weaknesses, and the idle
+but innocent affectations of the company, but even to flatter them, in a
+certain manner, is not only very allowable, but, in truth, a sort of
+polite duty. They will be pleased with you, if you do; and will certainly
+not be reformed by you if you do not.
+
+For instance: you will find, in every group of company, two principal
+figures, viz., the fine lady and the fine gentleman who absolutely give
+the law of wit, language, fashion, and taste, to the rest of that
+society. There is always a strict, and often for the time being, a tender
+alliance between these two figures. The lady looks upon her empire as
+founded upon the divine right of beauty (and full as good a divine right
+it is as any king, emperor, or pope, can pretend to); she requires, and
+commonly meets with, unlimited passive obedience. And why should she not
+meet with it? Her demands go no higher than to have her unquestioned
+preeminence in beauty, wit, and fashion, firmly established. Few
+sovereigns (by the way) are so reasonable. The fine gentleman's claims of
+right are, 'mutatis mutandis', the same; and though, indeed, he is not
+always a wit 'de jure', yet, as he is the wit 'de facto' of that company,
+he is entitled to a share of your allegiance, and everybody expects at
+least as much as they are entitled to, if not something more. Prudence
+bids you make your court to these joint sovereigns; and no duty, that I
+know of, forbids it. Rebellion here is exceedingly dangerous, and
+inevitably punished by banishment, and immediate forfeiture of all your
+wit, manners, taste, and fashion; as, on the other hand, a cheerful
+submission, not without some flattery, is sure to procure you a strong
+recommendation and most effectual pass, throughout all their, and
+probably the neighboring, dominions. With a moderate share of sagacity,
+you will, before you have been half an hour in their company, easily
+discover those two principal figures: both by the deference which you
+will observe the whole company pay them, and by that easy, careless, and
+serene air, which their consciousness of power gives them. As in this
+case, so in all others, aim always at the highest; get always into the
+highest company, and address yourself particularly to the highest in it.
+The search after the unattainable philosopher's stone has occasioned a
+thousand useful discoveries, which otherwise would never have been made.
+
+What the French justly call 'les manieres nobles' are only to be acquired
+in the very best companies. They are the distinguishing characteristics
+of men of fashion: people of low education never wear them so close, but
+that some part or other of the original vulgarism appears. 'Les manieres
+nobles' equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy. Low
+people, in good circumstances, fine clothes, and equipages, will
+insolently show contempt for all those who cannot afford as fine clothes,
+as good an equipage, and who have not (as their term is) as much money in
+their pockets: on the other hand, they are gnawed with envy, and cannot
+help discovering it, of those who surpass them in any of these articles;
+which are far from being sure criterions of merit. They are likewise
+jealous of being slighted; and, consequently, suspicious and captious;
+they are eager and hot about trifles because trifles were, at first,
+their affairs of consequence. 'Les manieres nobles' imply exactly the
+reverse of all this. Study them early; you cannot make them too habitual
+and familiar to you.
+
+Just as I had written what goes before, I received your letter of the
+24th, N. S., but I have not received that which you mention for Mr.
+Harte. Yours is of the kind that I desire; for I want to see your private
+picture, drawn by yourself, at different sittings; for though, as it is
+drawn by yourself, I presume you will take the most advantageous
+likeness, yet I think that I have skill enough in that kind of painting
+to discover the true features, though ever so artfully colored, or thrown
+into skillful lights and shades.
+
+By your account of the German play, which I do not know whether I should
+call tragedy or comedy, the only shining part of it (since I am in a way
+of quibbling) seems to have been the fox's tail. I presume, too, that the
+play has had the same fate with the squib, and has gone off no more. I
+remember a squib much better applied, when it was made the device of the
+colors of a French regiment of grenadiers; it was represented bursting,
+with this motto under it: 'Peream dum luceam'.
+
+I like the description of your PIC-NIC; where I take it for granted, that
+your cards are only to break the formality of a circle, and your
+SYMPOSION intended more to promote conversation than drinking. Such an
+AMICABLE COLLISION, as Lord Shaftesbury very prettily calls it, rubs off
+and smooths those rough corners which mere nature has given to the
+smoothest of us. I hope some part, at least, of the conversation is in
+German. 'A propos': tell me do you speak that language correctly, and do
+you write it with ease? I have no doubt of your mastering the other
+modern languages, which are much easier, and occur much oftener; for
+which reason, I desire that you will apply most diligently to German,
+while you are in Germany, that you may speak and write that language most
+correctly.
+
+I expect to meet Mr. Eliot in London, in about three weeks, after which
+you will soon see him at Leipsig. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LVI
+
+LONDON, November 18, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: Whatever I see or whatever I hear, my first consideration is,
+whether it can in any way be useful to you. As a proof of this, I went
+accidentally the other day into a print-shop, where, among many others, I
+found one print from a famous design of Carlo Maratti, who died about
+thirty years ago, and was the last eminent painter in Europe: the subject
+is 'il Studio del Disegno'; or "The School of Drawing." An old man,
+supposed to be the master, points to his scholars, who are variously
+employed in perspective, geometry, and the observation of the statues of
+antiquity. With regard to perspective, of which there are some little
+specimens, he has wrote, 'Tanto che basti', that is, "As much as is
+sufficient"; with regard to geometry, 'Tanto che basti' again; with
+regard to the contemplation of the ancient statues, there is written,
+'Non mai a bastanza',--"There never can be enough." But in the clouds, at
+the top of the piece, are represented the three Graces, with this just
+sentence written over them, 'Senza di noi ogni fatica e vana', that is,
+"Without us, all labor is vain." This everybody allows to be true in
+painting; but all people do not seem to consider, as I hope you will,
+that this truth is full as applicable to every other art or science;
+indeed to everything that is to be said or done. I will send you the
+print itself by Mr. Eliot, when he returns; and I will advise you to make
+the same use of it that the Roman Catholics say they do of the pictures
+and images of their saints, which is, only to remind them of those; for
+the adoration they disclaim. Nay, I will go further, as the transition
+from Popery to Paganism is short and easy, I will classically end
+poetically advise you to invoke, and sacrifice to them every day, and all
+the day. It must be owned, that the Graces do not seem to be natives of
+Great Britain; and, I doubt, the best of us here have more of rough than
+polished diamond.
+
+Since barbarism drove them out of Greece and Rome, they seem to have
+taken refuge in France, where their temples are numerous, and their
+worship the established one. Examine yourself seriously, why such and
+such people please and engage you, more than such and such others, of
+equal merit; and you will always find that it is because the former have
+the Graces and the latter not. I have known many a woman with an exact
+shape, and a symmetrical assemblage of beautiful features, please nobody;
+while others, with very moderate shapes and features, have charmed
+everybody. Why? because Venus will not charm so much, without her
+attendant Graces, as they will without her. Among men, how often have I
+seen the most solid merit and knowledge neglected, unwelcome, or even
+rejected, for want of them! While flimsy parts, little knowledge, and
+less merit, introduced by the Graces, have been received, cherished, and
+admired. Even virtue, which is moral beauty, wants some of its charms if
+unaccompanied by them.
+
+If you ask me how you shall acquire what neither you nor I can define or
+ascertain, I can only answer, BY OBSERVATION. Form yourself, with regard
+to others, upon what you feel pleases you in them. I can tell you the
+importance, the advantage, of having the Graces; but I cannot give them
+you: I heartily wish I could, and I certainly would; for I do not know a
+better present that I could make you. To show you that a very wise,
+philosophical, and retired man thinks upon that subject as I do, who have
+always lived in the world, I send you, by Mr. Eliot, the famous Mr.
+Locke's book upon education; in which you will end the stress that he
+lays upon the Graces, which he calls (and very truly) good-breeding. I
+have marked all the parts of that book that are worth your attention; for
+as he begins with the child, almost from its birth, the parts relative to
+its infancy would be useless to you. Germany is, still less than England,
+the seat of the Graces; however, you had as good not say so while you are
+there. But the place which you are going to, in a great degree, is; for I
+have known as many well-bred, pretty men come from Turin, as from any
+part of Europe. The late King Victor Amedee took great pains to form such
+of his subjects as were of any consideration, both to business and
+manners; the present king, I am told, follows his example: this, however,
+is certain, that in all courts and congresses, where there are various
+foreign ministers, those of the King of Sardinia are generally the
+ablest, the politest, and 'les plus delies'. You will therefore, at
+Turin, have very good models to form yourself upon: and remember, that
+with regard to the best models, as well as to the antique Greek statues
+in the print, 'non mai a bastanza'. Observe every word, look, and motion
+of those who are allowed to be the most accomplished persons there.
+Observe their natural and careless, but genteel air; their unembarrassed
+good-breeding; their unassuming, but yet unprostituted dignity. Mind
+their decent mirth, their discreet frankness, and that 'entregent' which,
+as much above the frivolous as below the important and the secret, is the
+proper medium for conversation in mixed companies. I will observe, by the
+bye, that the talent of that light 'entregent' is often of great use to a
+foreign minister; not only as it helps him to domesticate himself in many
+families, but also as it enables him to put by and parry some subjects of
+conversation, which might possibly lay him under difficulties both what
+to say and how to look.
+
+Of all the men that ever I knew in my life (and I knew him extremely
+well), the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest
+degree, not to say engrossed them; and indeed he got the most by them;
+for I will venture (contrary to the custom of profound historians, who
+always assign deep causes for great events), to ascribe the better half
+of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness and riches to those graces. He was
+eminently illiterate; wrote bad English and spelled it still worse. He
+had no share of what is commonly called PARTS: that is, he had no
+brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had most undoubtedly, an
+excellent good plain understanding with sound judgment. But these alone,
+would probably have raised him but something higher than they found him;
+which was page to King James the Second's queen. There the Graces
+protected and promoted him; for while he was an ensign of the Guards, the
+Duchess of Cleveland, then favorite mistress to King Charles the Second,
+struck by those very Graces, gave him five thousand pounds, with which he
+immediately bought an annuity for his life of five hundred pounds a year,
+of my grandfather Halifax; which was the foundation of his subsequent
+fortune. His figure was beautiful; but his manner was irresistible, by
+either man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that he
+was enabled, during all his war, to connect the various and jarring
+powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of
+the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies,
+and wrongheadednesses. Whatever court he went to (and he was often
+obliged to go himself to some resty and refractory ones), he as
+constantly prevailed, and brought them into his measures. The Pensionary
+Heinsius, a venerable old minister, grown gray in business, and who had
+governed the republic of the United Provinces for more than forty years,
+was absolutely governed by the Duke of Marlborough, as that republic
+feels to this day. He was always cool; and nobody ever observed the least
+variation in his countenance; he could refuse more gracefully than other
+people could grant; and those who went away from him the most
+dissatisfied as to the substance of their business, were yet personally
+charmed with him and, in some degree, comforted by his manner. With all
+his gentleness and gracefulness, no man living was more conscious of his
+situation, nor maintained his dignity better.
+
+With the share of knowledge which you have already gotten, and with the
+much greater which I hope you will soon acquire, what may you not expect
+to arrive at, if you join all these graces to it? In your destination
+particularly, they are in truth half your business: for, if you once gain
+the affections as well as the esteem of the prince or minister of the
+court to which you are sent, I will answer for it, that will effectually
+do the business of the court that sent you; otherwise it is up-hill work.
+Do not mistake, and think that these graces which I so often and so
+earnestly recommend to you, should only accompany important transactions,
+and be worn only 'les jours de gala'; no, they should, if possible,
+accompany every, the least thing you do or say; for, if you neglect them
+in little things, they will leave you in great ones. I should, for
+instance, be extremely concerned to see you even drink a cup of coffee
+ungracefully, and slop yourself with it, by your awkward manner of
+holding it; nor should I like to see your coat buttoned, or your shoes
+buckled awry. But I should be outrageous, if I heard you mutter your
+words unintelligibly, stammer, in your speech, or hesitate, misplace, and
+mistake in your narrations; and I should run away from you with greater
+rapidity, if possible, than I should now run to embrace you, if I found
+you destitute of all those graces which I have set my heart upon their
+making you one day, 'omnibus ornatum excellere rebus'.
+
+This subject is inexhaustible, as it extends to everything that is to be
+said or done: but I will leave it for the present, as this letter is
+already pretty long. Such is my desire, my anxiety for your perfection,
+that I never think I have said enough, though you may possibly think that
+I have said too much; and though, in truth, if your own good sense is not
+sufficient to direct you, in many of these plain points, all that I or
+anybody else can say will be insufficient. But where you are concerned, I
+am the insatiable man in Horace, who covets still a little corner more to
+complete the figure of his field. I dread every little corner that may
+deform mine, in which I would have (if possible) no one defect.
+
+I this moment receive yours of the 17th, N. S., and cannot condole with
+you upon the secession of your German 'Commensaux'; who both by your and
+Mr. Harte's description, seem to be 'des gens d'une amiable absence';
+and, if you can replace them by any other German conversation, you will
+be a gainer by the bargain. I cannot conceive, if you understand German
+well enough to read any German book, how the writing of the German
+character can be so difficult and tedious to you, the twenty-four letters
+being very soon learned; and I do not expect that you should write yet
+with the utmost purity and correctness, as to the language: what I meant
+by your writing once a fortnight to Grevenkop, was only to make the
+written character familiar to you. However, I will be content with one in
+three weeks or so.
+
+I believe you are not likely to see Mr. Eliot again soon, he being still
+in Cornwall with his father; who, I hear, is not likely to recover.
+Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LVII
+
+LONDON, November 29, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I delayed writing to you till I could give you some account of
+the motions of your friend Mr. Eliot; for whom I know you have, and very
+justly, the most friendly concern. His father and he came to town
+together, in a post-chaise a fortnight ago, the rest of the family
+remaining in Cornwall. His father, with difficulty, survived the journey,
+and died last Saturday was seven-night. Both concern and decency confined
+your friend, till two days ago, when I saw him; he has determined, and I
+think very prudently, to go abroad again; but how soon, it is yet
+impossible for him to know, as he must necessarily put his own private
+affairs in some order first; but I conjecture that he may possibly join
+you at Turin; sooner, to be sure, not. I am very sorry that you are
+likely to be so long without the company and the example of so valuable a
+friend; and therefore I hope that you will make it up to yourself, as
+well as you can at this distance, by remembering and following his
+example. Imitate that application of his, which has made him know all
+thoroughly, and to the bottom. He does not content himself with the
+surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, knowing that it lies
+deep. Pope says, very truly, in his "Essay on Criticism":--
+
+     A little learning is a dangerous thing;
+     Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
+
+I shall send you by a ship that goes to Hamburg next week (and by which
+Hawkins sends Mr. Harte some things that he wrote for) all those which I
+propose sending you by Mr. Eliot, together with a very little box that I
+am desired to forward to Mr. Harte. There will be, likewise, two letters
+of recommendation for you to Monsieur Andrie and Comte Algarotti, at
+Berlin, which you will take care to deliver to them, as soon as you shall
+be rigged and fitted out to appear there. They will introduce you into
+the best company, and I depend upon your own good sense for your avoiding
+of bad. If you fall into bad and low company there, or anywhere else, you
+will be irrecoverably lost; whereas, if you keep good company, and
+company above yourself, your character and your fortune will be immovably
+fixed.
+
+I have not time to-day, upon account of the meeting of the parliament, to
+make this letter of the usual length; and indeed, after the volumes that
+I have written to you, all I can add must be unnecessary. However, I
+shall probably, 'ex abundanti', return soon to my former prolixity; and
+you will receive more and more last words from, Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LVIII
+
+LONDON, December 6, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I am at present under very great concern for the loss of a most
+affectionate brother, with whom I had always lived in the closest
+friendship. My brother John died last Friday night, of a fit of the gout,
+which he had had for about a month in his hands and feet, and which fell
+at last upon his stomach and head. As he grew, toward the last,
+lethargic, his end was not painful to himself. At the distance which you
+are at from hence, you need not go into mourning upon this occasion, as
+the time of your mourning would be near over, before you could put it on.
+
+By a ship which sails this week for Hamburg, I shall send you those
+things which I proposed to have sent you by Mr. Eliot, viz., a little box
+from your Mamma; a less box for Mr. Harte; Mr. Locke's book upon
+education; the print of Carlo Maratti, which I mentioned to you some time
+ago; and two letters of recommendation, one to Monsieur Andrie and the
+other to Comte Algarotti, at Berlin. Both those gentlemen will, I am
+sure, be as willing as they are able to introduce you into the best
+company; and I hope you will not (as many of your countrymen are apt to
+do) decline it. It is in the best companies only; that you can learn the
+best manners and that 'tournure', and those graces, which I have so often
+recommended to you, as the necessary means of making a figure in the
+world.
+
+I am most extremely pleased with the account which Mr. Harte gives me of
+your progress in Greek, and of your having read Hesiod almost critically.
+Upon this subject I suggest but one thing to you, of many that I might
+suggest; which is, that you have now got over the difficulties of that
+language, and therefore it would be unpardonable not to persevere to your
+journey's end, now that all the rest of your way is down hill.
+
+I am also very well pleased to hear that you have such a knowledge of,
+and taste for curious books and scarce and valuable tracts. This is a
+kind of knowledge which very well becomes a man of sound and solid
+learning, but which only exposes a man of slight and superficial reading;
+therefore, pray make the substance and matter of such books your first
+object, and their title-pages, indexes, letter, and binding, but your
+second. It is the characteristic of a man of parts and good judgment to
+know, and give that degree of attention that each object deserves.
+Whereas little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish
+away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter
+deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribes of
+insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies,
+etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the
+useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious. He applies
+himself intensely to the former; he only amuses himself with the latter.
+Of this little sort of knowledge, which I have just hinted at, you will
+find at least as much as you need wish to know, in a superficial but
+pretty French book, entitled, 'Spectacle de la Nature'; which will amuse
+you while you read it, and give you a sufficient notion of the various
+parts of nature. I would advise you to read it, at leisure hours. But
+that part of nature, which Mr. Harte tells me you have begun to study
+with the Rector magnificus, is of much greater importance, and deserves
+much more attention; I mean astronomy. The vast and immense planetary
+system, the astonishing order and regularity of those innumerable worlds,
+will open a scene to you, which not only deserves your attention as a
+matter of curiosity, or rather astonishment; but still more, as it will
+give you greater, and consequently juster, ideas of that eternal and
+omnipotent Being, who contrived, made, and still preserves that universe,
+than all the contemplation of this, comparatively, very little orb, which
+we at present inhabit, could possibly give you. Upon this subject,
+Monsieur Fontenelle's 'Pluralite des Mondes', which you may read in two
+hours' time, will both inform and please you. God bless you! Yours.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LIX
+
+LONDON, December 13, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: The last four posts have brought me no letters, either from you
+or from Mr. Harte, at which I am uneasy; not as a mamma would be, but as
+a father should be: for I do not want your letters as bills of health;
+you are young, strong, and healthy, and I am, consequently, in no pain
+about that: moreover, were either you or Mr. Harte ill, the other would
+doubtless write me word of it. My impatience for yours or Mr. Harte's
+letters arises from a very different cause, which is my desire to hear
+frequently of the state and progress of your mind. You are now at that
+critical period of life when every week ought to produce fruit or flowers
+answerable to your culture, which I am sure has not been neglected; and
+it is by your letters, and Mr. Harte's accounts of you, that, at this
+distance, I can only judge at your gradations to maturity; I desire,
+therefore, that one of you two will not fail to write to me once a week.
+The sameness of your present way of life, I easily conceive, would not
+make out a very interesting letter to an indifferent bystander; but so
+deeply concerned as I am in the game you are playing, even the least move
+is to me of importance, and helps me to judge of the final event.
+
+As you will be leaving Leipsig pretty soon after you shall have received
+this letter, I here send you one inclosed to deliver to Mr. Mascow. It is
+to thank him for his attention and civility to you, during your stay with
+him: and I take it for granted, that you will not fail making him the
+proper compliments at parting; for the good name that we leave behind at
+one place often gets before us to another, and is of great use. As Mr.
+Mascow is much known and esteemed in the republic of letters, I think it
+would be of advantage to you, if you got letters of recommendation from
+him to some of the learned men at Berlin. Those testimonials give a
+lustre, which is not to be despised; for the most ignorant are forced to
+seem, at least, to pay a regard to learning, as the most wicked are to
+virtue. Such is their intrinsic worth.
+
+Your friend Duval dined with me the other day, and complained most
+grievously that he had not heard from you above a year; I bid him abuse
+you for it himself; and advised him to do it in verse, which, if he was
+really angry, his indignation would enable him to do. He accordingly
+brought me, yesterday, the inclosed reproaches and challenge, which he
+desired me to transmit to you. As this is his first essay in English
+poetry, the inaccuracies in the rhymes and the numbers are very
+excusable. He insists, as you will find, upon being answered in verse;
+which I should imagine that you and Mr. HARTE, together, could bring
+about; as the late Lady Dorchester used to say, that she and Dr.
+Radcliffe, together, could cure a fever. This is however sure, that it
+now rests upon you; and no man can say what methods Duval may take, if
+you decline his challenge. I am sensible that you are under some
+disadvantages in this proffered combat. Your climate, at this time of the
+year especially, delights more in the wood fire, than in the poetic fire;
+and I conceive the Muses, if there are any at Leipsig, to be rather
+shivering than singing; nay, I question whether Apollo is even known
+there as god of Verse, or as god of Light: perhaps a little as god of
+Physic. These will be fair excuses, if your performance should fall
+something short; though I do not apprehend that it will.
+
+While you have been at Leipsig, which is a place of study more than of
+pleasure or company, you have had all opportunities of pursuing your
+studies uninterruptedly; and have had, I believe, very few temptations to
+the contrary. But the case will be quite different at Berlin, where the
+splendor and dissipation of a court and the 'beau monde', will present
+themselves to you in gaudy shapes, attractive enough to all young people.
+Do not think, now, that like an old fellow, I am going to advise you to
+reject them, and shut yourself up in your closet: quite the contrary; I
+advise you to take your share, and enter into them with spirit and
+pleasure; but then I advise you, too, to allot your time so prudently, as
+that learning may keep pace with pleasures; there is full time, in the
+course of the day, for both, if you do but manage that time right and
+like a good economist. The whole morning, if diligently and attentively
+devoted to solid studies, will go a great way at the year's end; and the
+evenings spent in the pleasures of good company, will go as far in
+teaching you a knowledge, not much less necessary than the other, I mean
+the knowledge of the world. Between these two necessary studies, that of
+books in the morning, and that of the world in the evening, you see that
+you will not have one minute to squander or slattern away. Nobody ever
+lent themselves more than I did, when I was young, to the pleasures and
+dissipation of good company. I even did it too much. But then, I can
+assure you, that I always found time for serious studies; and, when I
+could find it no other way, I took it out of my sleep, for I resolved
+always to rise early in the morning, however late I went to bed at night;
+and this resolution I have kept so sacred, that, unless when I have been
+confined to my bed by illness, I have not, for more than forty years,
+ever been in bed at nine o'clock in the morning but commonly up before
+eight.
+
+When you are at Berlin, remember to speak German as often as you can, in
+company; for everybody there will speak French to you, unless you let
+them know that you can speak German, which then they will choose to
+speak. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LX
+
+LONDON, December 20, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I received last Saturday by three mails, which came in at once,
+two letters from Mr. Harte, and yours of the 8th, N. S.
+
+It was I who mistook your meaning, with regard to your German letters,
+and not you who expressed it ill. I thought it was the writing of the
+German character that took up so much of your time, and therefore I
+advised you, by the frequent writing of that character, to make it easy
+and familiar to you: But, since it is only the propriety and purity of
+the German language which make your writing it so tedious and laborious,
+I will tell you I shall not be nice upon that article; and did not expect
+that you should yet be master of all the idioms, delicacies, and
+peculiarities of that difficult language. That can only come by use,
+especially frequent speaking; therefore, when you shall be at Berlin, and
+afterward at Turin, where you will meet many Germans, pray take all
+opportunities of conversing in German, in order not only to keep what you
+have got of that language, but likewise to improve and perfect yourself
+in it. As to the characters, you form them very well, and as you yourself
+own, better than your English ones; but then let me ask you this
+question: Why do you not form your Roman characters better? for I
+maintain, that it is in every man's power to write what hand he pleases;
+and, consequently, that he ought to write a good one. You form,
+particularly, your 'ee' and your 'll' in zigzag, instead of making them
+straight, as thus, 'ee', 'll'; a fault very easily mended. You will not,
+I believe, be angry with this little criticism, when I tell you, that by
+all the accounts I have had of late from Mr. Harte and others, this is
+the only criticism that you give me occasion to make. Mr. Harte's last
+letter, of the 14th, N. S., particularly, makes me extremely happy, by
+assuring me that, in every respect, you do exceedingly well. I am not
+afraid, by what I now say, of making you too vain; because I do not think
+that a just consciousness and an honest pride of doing well, can be
+called vanity; for vanity is either the silly affectation of good
+qualities which one has not, or the sillier pride of what does not
+deserve commendation in itself. By Mr. Harte's account, you are got very
+near the goal of Greek and Latin; and therefore I cannot suppose that, as
+your sense increases, your endeavors and your speed will slacken in
+finishing the small remains of your course. Consider what lustre and
+'eclat' it will give you, when you return here, to be allowed to be the
+best scholar, for a gentleman, in England; not to mention the real
+pleasure and solid comfort which such knowledge will give you throughout
+your whole life. Mr. Harte tells me another thing, which, I own, I did
+not expect: it is, that when you read aloud, or repeat parts of plays,
+you speak very properly and distinctly. This relieves me from great
+uneasiness, which I was under upon account of your former bad
+enunciation. Go on, and attend most diligently to this important article.
+It is, of all Graces (and they are all necessary), the most necessary
+one.
+
+Comte Pertingue, who has been here about a fortnight, far from
+disavowing, confirms all that Mr. Harte has said to your advantage. He
+thinks that he shall be at Turin much about the time of your arrival
+there, and pleases himself with the hopes of being useful to you. Though,
+should you get there before him, he says that Comte du Perron, with whom
+you are a favorite, will take that care. You see, by this one instance,
+and in the course of your life you will see by a million of instances, of
+what use a good reputation is, and how swift and advantageous a harbinger
+it is, wherever one goes. Upon this point, too, Mr. Harte does you
+justice, and tells me that you are desirous of praise from the
+praiseworthy. This is a right and generous ambition; and without which, I
+fear, few people would deserve praise.
+
+But here let me, as an old stager upon the theatre of the world, suggest
+one consideration to you; which is, to extend your desire of praise a
+little beyond the strictly praiseworthy; or else you may be apt to
+discover too much contempt for at least three parts in five of the world,
+who will never forgive it you. In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is
+too great a majority of fools and, knaves; who, singly from their number,
+must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means
+respectable. And a man who will show every knave or fool that he thinks
+him such, will engage in a most ruinous war, against numbers much
+superior to those that he and his allies can bring into the field. Abhor
+a knave, and pity a fool in your heart; but let neither of them,
+unnecessarily, see that you do so. Some complaisance and attention to
+fools is prudent, and not mean; as a silent abhorrence of individual
+knaves is often necessary and not criminal.
+
+As you will now soon part with Lord Pulteney, with whom, during your stay
+together at Leipsig, I suppose you have formed a connection, I imagine
+that you will continue it by letters, which I would advise you to do.
+They tell me that he is good-natured, and does not want parts; which are
+of themselves two good reasons for keeping it up; but there is also a
+third reason, which, in the course of the world, is not to be despised:
+His father cannot live long, and will leave him an immense fortune;
+which, in all events will make him of some consequence; and, if he has
+parts into the bargain, of very great consequence; so that his
+friendship, may be extremely well worth your cultivating, especially as
+it will not cost you above one letter in one month.
+
+I do not know whether this letter will find you at Leipsig: at least, it
+is the last that I shall direct there. My next to either you or Mr.
+Harte will be directed to Berlin; but as I do not know to what house or
+street there, I suppose it will remain at the posthouse till you send for
+it. Upon your arrival at Berlin you will send me your particular
+direction; and also, pray be minute in your accounts of your reception
+there, by those whom I recommend you to, as well as by those to whom they
+present you. Remember, too, that you are going to a polite and literate
+court, where the Graces will best introduce you.
+
+Adieu. God bless you, and may you continue to deserve my love, as much as
+you now enjoy it!
+
+P. S. Lady Chesterfield bids me tell you, that she decides entirely in
+your favor against Mr. Grevenkop, and even against herself; for she does
+not think that she could, at this time, write either so good a character
+or so good German. Pray write her a German letter upon that subject, in
+which you may tell her, that, like the rest of the world, you approve of
+her judgment, because it is in your favor; and that you true Germans
+cannot allow Danes to be competent judges of your language, etc.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER LXI
+
+LONDON, December 30, O. S. 1748.
+
+DEAR BOY: I direct this letter to Berlin, where, I suppose, it will
+either find you, or at least wait but a very little time for you. I
+cannot help being anxious for your success, at this your first appearance
+upon the great stage of the world; for, though the spectators are always
+candid enough to give great allowances, and to show great indulgence to a
+new actor; yet, from the first impressions which he makes upon them, they
+are apt to decide, in their own minds, at least, whether he will ever be
+a good one, or not. If he seems to understand what he says, by speaking
+it properly; if he is attentive to his part, instead of staring
+negligently about him; and if, upon the whole, he seems ambitious to
+please, they willingly pass over little awkwardnesses and inaccuracies,
+which they ascribe to a commendable modesty in a young and inexperienced
+actor. They pronounce that he will be a good one in time; and, by the
+encouragement which they give him, make him so the sooner. This, I hope,
+will be your case: you have sense enough to understand your part; a
+constant attention, and ambition to excel in it, with a careful
+observation of the best actors, will inevitably qualify you, if not for
+the first, at least for considerable parts.
+
+Your dress (as insignificant a thing as dress is in itself) is now become
+an object worthy of some attention; for, I confess, I cannot help forming
+some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress; and I believe
+most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress
+implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding. Most of our young
+fellows here display some character or other by their dress; some affect
+the tremendous, and wear a great and fiercely cocked hat, an enormous
+sword, a short waistcoat and a black cravat; these I should be almost
+tempted to swear the peace against, in my own defense, if I were not
+convinced that they are but meek asses in lions' skins. Others go in
+brown frocks, leather breeches, great oaken cudgels in their hands, their
+hats uncocked, and their hair unpowdered; and imitate grooms,
+stage-coachmen, and country bumpkins so well in their outsides, that I do
+not make the least doubt of their resembling them equally in their
+insides. A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his
+dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for
+other people's. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people
+of sense and fashion of the place where he is. If he dresses better, as
+he thinks, that is, more than they, he is a fop; if he dresses worse, he
+is unpardonably negligent. But, of the two, I would rather have a young
+fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will
+wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at
+twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at fifty years old. Dress
+yourself fine, where others are fine; and plain where others are plain;
+but take care always that your clothes are well made, and fit you, for
+otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. When you are once well
+dressed for the day think no more of it afterward; and, without any
+stiffness for fear of discomposing that dress, let all your motions be as
+easy and natural as if you had no clothes on at all. So much for dress,
+which I maintain to be a thing of consequence in the polite world.
+
+As to manners, good-breeding, and the Graces, I have so often entertained
+you upon those important subjects, that I can add nothing to what I have
+formerly said. Your own good sense will suggest to you the substance of
+them; and observation, experience, and good company, the several modes of
+them. Your great vivacity, which I hear of from many people, will be no
+hindrance to your pleasing in good company: on the contrary, will be of
+use to you, if tempered by good-breeding and accompanied by the Graces.
+But then, I suppose your vivacity to be a vivacity of parts, and not a
+constitutional restlessness; for the most disagreeable composition that I
+know in the world, is that of strong animal spirits, with a cold genius.
+Such a fellow is troublesomely active, frivolously busy, foolishly
+lively; talks much with little meaning, and laughs more, with less reason
+whereas, in my opinion, a warm and lively genius with a cool
+constitution, is the perfection of human nature.
+
+Do what you will at Berlin, provided you do but do something all day
+long. All that I desire of you is, that you will never slattern away one
+minute in idleness and in doing of nothing. When you are (not) in company,
+learn what either books, masters, or Mr. Harte, can teach you; and when
+you are in company, learn (what company can only teach you) the
+characters and manners of mankind. I really ask your pardon for giving
+you this advice; because, if you are a rational creature and thinking
+being, as I suppose, and verily believe you are, it must be unnecessary,
+and to a certain degree injurious. If I did not know by experience, that
+some men pass their whole time in doing nothing, I should not think it
+possible for any being, superior to Monsieur Descartes' automatons, to
+squander away, in absolute idleness, one single minute of that small
+portion of time which is allotted us in this world.
+
+I have lately seen one Mr. Cranmer, a very sensible merchant, who told me
+that he had dined with you, and seen you often at Leipsig. And yesterday
+I saw an old footman of mine, whom I made a messenger, who told me that
+he had seen you last August. You will easily imagine, that I was not the
+less glad to see them because they had seen you; and I examined them both
+narrowly, in their respective departments; the former as to your mind,
+the latter, as to your body. Mr. Cranmer gave me great satisfaction, not
+only by what he told me of himself concerning you, but by what he was
+commissioned to tell me from Mr. Mascow. As he speaks German perfectly
+himself, I asked him how you spoke it; and he assured me very well for
+the time, and that a very little more practice would make you perfectly
+master of it. The messenger told me that you were much grown, and, to the
+best of his guess, within two inches as tall as I am; that you were
+plump, and looked healthy and strong; which was all that I could expect,
+or hope, from the sagacity of the person.
+
+I send you, my dear child (and you will not doubt it), very sincerely,
+the wishes of the season. May you deserve a great number of happy
+New-years; and, if you deserve, may you have them. Many New-years,
+indeed, you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving
+them. These, virtue, honor, and knowledge, alone can merit, alone can
+procure, 'Dii tibi dent annos, de te nam cetera sumes', was a pretty
+piece of poetical flattery, where it was said: I hope that, in time, it
+may be no flattery when said to you. But I assure you, that wherever I
+cannot apply the latter part of the line to you with truth, I shall
+neither say, think, or wish the former. Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A little learning is a dangerous thing;
+Above all things,  avoid speaking of yourself
+Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret
+Abroad but they stay at home all that while
+Absolute command of your temper
+Abstain from learned ostentation
+Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices
+Advice is seldom welcome
+Affectation whatsoever in dress
+Always look people in the face when you speak to them
+Ancients and Moderns
+Argumentative, polemical conversations
+As willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody
+Authority
+Better not to seem to understand, than to reply
+Bruyere
+Cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them
+Cardinal de Retz
+Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses
+Cautious how we draw inferences
+Chameleon, be able to take every different hue
+Cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing
+Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon)
+Commonplace observations
+Complaisance
+Consciousness and an honest pride of doing well
+Contempt
+Conversation will help you almost as much as books
+Conversation-stock being a joint and common property
+Converse with his inferiors without insolence
+Deriving all our actions from the source of self-love
+Deserve a little, and you shall have but a little
+Desirous of praise from the praiseworthy
+Dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie
+Difficulties seem to them, impossibilities
+Distinguish between the useful and the curious
+Do as you would be done by
+Do what you will but do something all day long
+Either do not think, or do not love to think
+Equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy
+Even where you are sure, seem rather doubtful
+Every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness
+Fiddle-faddle stories, that carry no information along with the
+Flattery of women
+Forge accusations against themselves
+Forgive, but not approve, the bad
+Frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with a prudent interior
+Gain the affections as well as the esteem
+Generosity often runs into profusion
+Go to the bottom of things
+Good company
+Graces: Without us, all labor is vain
+Great learning; which, if not accompanied with sound judgment
+Great numbers of people met together, animate each other
+Habit and prejudice
+Half done or half known
+Hardly any body good for every thing
+Have a will and an opinion of your own, and adhere
+Have but one set of jokes to live upon
+He will find it out of himself without your endeavors
+Heart has such an influence over the understanding
+Helps only, not as guides
+Historians
+Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed
+Honestest man loves himself best
+How much you have to do; and how little time to do it in
+I hope, I wish, I doubt, and fear alternately
+I shall always love you as you shall deserve
+If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself
+Impertinent insult upon custom and fashion
+Inaction at your age is unpardonable
+Jealous of being slighted
+Judge them all by their merits, but not by their ages
+Keep good company, and company above yourself
+Know their real value, and how much they are generally overrated
+Knowledge is like power in this respect
+Knowledge of a scholar with the manners of a courtier
+Laughing, I must particularly warn you against it
+Lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind
+Learning
+Let me see more of you in your letters
+Little minds mistake little objects for great ones
+Livery
+Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob
+Low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter
+Low company, most falsely and impudently, call pleasure
+Luther's disappointed avarice
+Make yourself necessary
+Manner of doing things is often more important
+Manners must adorn knowledge
+May not forget with ease what you have with difficulty learned
+Mimicry
+More one sees, the less one either wonders or admires
+More you know, the modester you should be
+Mortifying inferiority in knowledge, rank, fortune
+Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man in compan
+Much sooner forgive an injustice than an insult
+Mystical nonsense
+Name that we leave behind at one place often gets before us
+Neglect them in little things, they will leave you in great
+Negligence of it implies an indifference about pleasing
+Neither retail nor receive scandal willingly
+Never quit a subject till you are thoroughly master of it
+Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are wit
+Never slattern away one minute in idleness
+Never to speak of yourself at all
+Not one minute of the day in which you do nothing at all
+Not to admire anything too much
+Oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings
+Out of livery; which makes them both impertinent and useless
+Overvalue what we do not know
+Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company
+People angling for praise
+People never desire all till they have gotten a great deal
+Plain notions of right and wrong
+Planted while young, that degree of knowledge now my refuge
+Pleased to some degree by showing a desire to please
+Pleasing in company is the only way of being pleased in yourself
+Pleasure and business with equal inattention
+Prefer useful to frivolous conversations
+Pride remembers it forever
+Prudent reserve
+Pyrrhonism
+Reason ought to direct the whole, but seldom does
+Reformation
+Refuge of people who have neither wit nor invention of their ow
+Refuse more gracefully than other people could grant
+Repeating
+Represent, but do not pronounce
+Rochefoucault
+Rough corners which mere nature has given to the smoothest
+Scandal: receiver is always thought, as bad as the thief
+Scarcely any body who is absolutely good for nothing
+Scrupled no means to obtain his ends
+Secrets
+Seeming frankness with a real reserve
+Seeming openness is prudent
+Self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults
+Serious without being dull
+Shakespeare
+Shepherds and ministers are both men
+Some complaisance and attention to fools is prudent, and not me
+Some men pass their whole time in doing nothing
+Something or other is to be got out of everybody
+Swearing
+Take nothing for granted, upon the bare authority of the author
+Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are in
+Talk often, but never long
+Talk sillily upon a subject of other people's
+Talking of either your own or other people's domestic affairs
+Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are
+Tell stories very seldom
+Tenderness and affection with which, while you deserve them
+The best have something bad, and something little
+The worst have something good, and sometimes something great
+Thin veil of Modesty drawn before Vanity
+Thoroughly, not superficially
+To know people's real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes
+Unopened, because one title in twenty has been omitted
+Value of moments, when cast up, is immense
+Vanity, that source of many of our follies
+Weaknesses
+What displeases or pleases you in others
+What you feel pleases you in them
+When well dressed for the day think no more of it afterward
+Will not so much as hint at our follies
+Witty without satire or commonplace
+Women
+Wrongs are often forgiven; but contempt never is
+You had much better hold your tongue than them
+Your merit and your manners can alone raise you
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to His Son, 1748
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
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