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+Project Gutenberg's Letters to His Son, 1750, 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, 1750
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2004 [EBook #3354]
+[Last updated on February 14, 2007]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1750 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+              LETTERS TO HIS SON
+
+                     1750
+
+          By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+         on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                    and a
+
+                  GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+LETTER C
+
+LONDON, January 8, O. S. 1750
+
+DEAR BOY: I have seldom or never written to you upon the subject of
+religion and morality; your own reason, I am persuaded, has given you
+true notions of both; they speak best for themselves; but if they wanted
+assistance, you have Mr. Harte at hand, both for precept and example; to
+your own reason, therefore, and to Mr. Harte, shall I refer you for the
+reality of both, and confine myself in this letter to the decency, the
+utility, and the necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances of
+both. When I say the appearances of religion, I do not mean that you
+should talk or act like a missionary or an enthusiast, nor that you
+should take up a controversial cudgel against whoever attacks the sect
+you are of; this would be both useless and unbecoming your age; but I
+mean that you should by no means seem to approve, encourage, or applaud,
+those libertine notions, which strike at religions equally, and which are
+the poor threadbare topics of halfwits and minute philosophers. Even
+those who are silly enough to laugh at their jokes, are still wise enough
+to distrust and detest their characters; for putting moral virtues at the
+highest, and religion at the lowest, religion must still be allowed to be
+a collateral security, at least, to virtue, and every prudent man will
+sooner trust to two securities than to one. Whenever, therefore, you
+happen to be in company with those pretended 'Esprits forts', or with
+thoughtless libertines, who laugh at all religion to show their wit, or
+disclaim it, to complete their riot, let no word or look of yours
+intimate the least approbation; on the contrary, let a silent gravity
+express your dislike: but enter not into the subject and decline such
+unprofitable and indecent controversies. Depend upon this truth, that
+every man is the worse looked upon, and the less trusted for being
+thought to have no religion; in spite of all the pompous and specious
+epithets he may assume, of 'Esprit fort', freethinker, or moral
+philosopher; and a wise atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his
+own interest and character in this world, pretend to some religion.
+
+Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife,
+unsuspected. The least speck or blemish upon it is fatal. Nothing
+degrades and vilifies more, for it excites and unites detestation and
+contempt. There are, however, wretches in the world profligate enough to
+explode all notions of moral good and evil; to maintain that they are
+merely local, and depend entirely upon the customs and fashions of
+different countries; nay, there are still, if possible, more
+unaccountable wretches; I mean those who affect to preach and propagate
+such absurd and infamous notions without believing them themselves. These
+are the devil's hypocrites. Avoid, as much as possible, the company of
+such people; who reflect a degree of discredit and infamy upon all who
+converse with them. But as you may, sometimes, by accident, fall into
+such company, take great care that no complaisance, no good-humor, no
+warmth of festal mirth, ever make you seem even to acquiesce, much less
+to approve or applaud, such infamous doctrines. On the other hand, do not
+debate nor enter into serious argument upon a subject so much below it:
+but content yourself with telling these APOSTLES that you know they are
+not, serious; that you have a much better opinion of them than they would
+have you have; and that, you are very sure, they would not practice the
+doctrine they preach. But put your private mark upon them, and shun them
+forever afterward.
+
+There is nothing so delicate as your moral character, and nothing which
+it is your interest so much to preserve pure. Should you be suspected of
+injustice, malignity, perfidy, lying, etc., all the parts and knowledge
+in the world will never procure you esteem, friendship, or respect. A
+strange concurrence of circumstances has sometimes raised very bad men to
+high stations, but they have been raised like criminals to a pillory,
+where their persons and their crimes, by being more conspicuous, are only
+the more known, the more detested, and the more pelted and insulted. If,
+in any case whatsoever, affectation and ostentation are pardonable, it is
+in the case of morality; though even there, I would not advise you to a
+pharisaical pomp of virtue. But I will recommend to you a most scrupulous
+tenderness for your moral character, and the utmost care not to say or do
+the least thing that may ever so slightly taint it. Show yourself, upon
+all occasions, the advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue.
+Colonel Chartres, whom you have certainly heard of (who was, I believe,
+the most notorious blasted rascal in the world, and who had, by all sorts
+of crimes, amassed immense wealth), was so sensible of the disadvantage
+of a bad character, that I heard him once say, in his impudent,
+profligate manner, that though he would not give one farthing for virtue,
+he would give ten thousand pounds for a character; because he should get
+a hundred thousand pounds by it; whereas, he was so blasted, that he had
+no longer an opportunity of cheating people. Is it possible, then, that
+an honest man can neglect what a wise rogue would purchase so dear?
+
+There is one of the vices above mentioned, into which people of good
+education, and, in the main, of good principles, sometimes fall, from
+mistaken notions of skill, dexterity, and self-defense, I mean lying;
+though it is inseparably attended with more infamy and loss than any
+other. The prudence and necessity of often concealing the truth,
+insensibly seduces people to violate it. It is the only art of mean
+capacities, and the only refuge of mean spirits. Whereas, concealing the
+truth, upon proper occasions, is as prudent and as innocent, as telling a
+lie, upon any occasion, is infamous and foolish. I will state you a case
+in your own department. Suppose you are employed at a foreign court, and
+that the minister of that court is absurd or impertinent enough to ask
+you what your instructions are? will you tell him a lie, which as soon as
+found out (and found out it certainly will be) must destroy your credit,
+blast your character, and render you useless there? No. Will you tell him
+the truth then, and betray your trust? As certainly, No. But you will
+answer with firmness, That you are surprised at such a question, that you
+are persuaded he does not expect an answer to it; but that, at all
+events, he certainly will not have one. Such an answer will give him
+confidence in you; he will conceive an opinion of your veracity, of which
+opinion you may afterward make very honest and fair advantages. But if,
+in negotiations, you are looked upon as a liar and a trickster, no
+confidence will be placed in you, nothing will be communicated to you,
+and you will be in the situation of a man who has been burned in the
+cheek; and who, from that mark, cannot afterward get an honest livelihood
+if he would, but must continue a thief.
+
+Lord Bacon, very justly, makes a distinction between simulation and
+dissimulation; and allows the latter rather than the former; but still
+observes, that they are the weaker sort of politicians who have recourse
+to either. A man who has strength of mind and strength of parts, wants
+neither of them. Certainly (says he) the ablest men that ever were, have
+all had an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and
+veracity; but then, they were like horses well managed; for they could
+tell, passing well, when to stop or turn; and at such times, when they
+thought the case indeed required some dissimulation, if then they used
+it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good
+faith and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible.
+
+There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they
+reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurts nobody but
+themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity,
+begotten upon folly: these people deal in the marvelous; they have seen
+some things that never existed; they have seen other things which they
+never really saw, though they did exist, only because they were thought
+worth seeing. Has anything remarkable been said or done in any place, or
+in any company? they immediately present and declare themselves eye or
+ear witnesses of it. They have done feats themselves, unattempted, or at
+least unperformed by others. They are always the heroes of their own
+fables; and think that they gain consideration, or at least present
+attention, by it. Whereas, in truth, all that they get is ridicule and
+contempt, not without a good degree of distrust; for one must naturally
+conclude, that he who will tell any lie from idle vanity, will not
+scruple telling a greater for interest. Had I really seen anything so
+very extraordinary as to be almost incredible I would keep it to myself,
+rather than by telling it give anybody room to doubt, for one minute, of
+my veracity. It is most certain, that the reputation of chastity is not
+so necessary for a women, as that of veracity is for a man; and with
+reason; for it is possible for a woman to be virtuous, though not
+strictly chaste, but it is not possible for a man to be virtuous without
+strict veracity. The slips of the poor women are sometimes mere bodily
+frailties; but a lie in a man is a vice of the mind and of the heart. For
+God's sake be scrupulously jealous of the purity of your moral character;
+keep it immaculate, unblemished, unsullied; and it will be unsuspected.
+Defamation and calumny never attack, where there is no weak place; they
+magnify, but they do not create.
+
+There is a very great difference between the purity of character, which I
+so earnestly recommend to you, and the stoical gravity and austerity of
+character, which I do by no means recommend to you. At your age, I would
+no more wish you to be a Cato than a Clodius. Be, and be reckoned, a man
+of pleasure as well as a man of business. Enjoy this happy and giddy time
+of your life; shine in the pleasures, and in the company of people of
+your own age. This is all to be done, and indeed only can be done,
+without the least taint to the purity of your moral character; for those
+mistaken young fellows, who think to shine by an impious or immoral
+licentiousness, shine only from their stinking, like corrupted flesh, in
+the dark. Without this purity, you can have no dignity of character; and
+without dignity of character it is impossible to rise in the world. You
+must be respectable, if you will be respected. I have known people
+slattern away their character, without really polluting it; the
+consequence of which has been, that they have become innocently
+contemptible; their merit has been dimmed, their pretensions unregarded,
+and all their views defeated. Character must be kept bright, as well as
+clean. Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing. In purity of
+character and in politeness of manners labor to excel all, if you wish to
+equal many. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CI
+
+LONDON, January 11, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Harte, of the 31st
+December, N. S., which I will answer soon; and for which I desire you to
+return him my thanks now. He tells me two things that give me great
+satisfaction: one is that there are very few English at Rome; the other
+is, that you frequent the best foreign companies. This last is a very
+good symptom; for a man of sense is never desirous to frequent those
+companies, where he is not desirous to please, or where he finds that he
+displeases; it will not be expected in those companies, that, at your
+age, you should have the 'Garbo', the 'Disinvoltura', and the
+'Leggiadria' of a man of five-and-twenty, who has been long used to keep
+the best companies; and therefore do not be discouraged, and think
+yourself either slighted or laughed at, because you see others, older and
+more used to the world, easier, more familiar, and consequently rather
+better received in those companies than yourself. In time your turn will
+come; and if you do but show an inclination, a desire to please, though
+you should be embarrassed or even err in the means, which must
+necessarily happen to you at first, yet the will (to use a vulgar
+expression) will be taken for the deed; and people, instead of laughing
+at you, will be glad to instruct you. Good sense can only give you the
+great outlines of good-breeding; but observation and usage can alone give
+you the delicate touches, and the fine coloring. You will naturally
+endeavor to show the utmost respect to people of certain ranks and
+characters, and consequently you will show it; but the proper, the
+delicate manner of showing that respect, nothing but observation and time
+can give.
+
+I remember that when, with all the awkwardness and rust of Cambridge
+about me, I was first introduced into good company, I was frightened out
+of my wits. I was determined to be, what I thought, civil; I made fine
+low bows, and placed myself below everybody; but when I was spoken to, or
+attempted to speak myself, 'obstupui, steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus
+haesit'. If I saw people whisper, I was sure it was at me; and I thought
+myself the sole object of either the ridicule or the censure of the whole
+company, who, God knows, did not trouble their heads about me. In this
+way I suffered, for some time, like a criminal at the bar; and should
+certainly have renounced all polite company forever, if I had not been so
+convinced of the absolute necessity of forming my manners upon those of
+the best companies, that I determined to persevere and suffer anything,
+or everything, rather than not compass that point. Insensibly it grew
+easier to me; and I began not to bow so ridiculously low, and to answer
+questions without great hesitation or stammering: if, now and then, some
+charitable people, seeing my embarrassment, and being 'desoevre'
+themselves, came and spoke to me, I considered them as angels sent to
+comfort me, and that gave me a little courage. I got more soon afterward,
+and was intrepid enough to go up to a fine woman, and tell her that I
+thought it a warm day; she answered me, very civilly, that she thought so
+too; upon which the conversation ceased, on my part, for some time, till
+she, good-naturedly resuming it, spoke to me thus: "I see your
+embarrassment, and I am sure that the few words you said to me cost you a
+great deal; but do not be discouraged for that reason, and avoid good
+company. We see that you desire to please, and that is the main point;
+you want only the manner, and you think that you want it still more than
+you do. You must go through your noviciate before you can profess
+good-breeding: and, if you will be my novice, I will present you my
+acquaintance as such."
+
+You will easily imagine how much this speech pleased me, and how
+awkwardly I answered it; I hemmed once or twice (for it gave me a bur in
+my throat) before I could tell her that I was very much obliged to her;
+that it was true, that I had a great deal of reason to distrust my own
+behavior, not being used to fine company; and that I should be proud of
+being her novice, and receiving her instructions.
+
+As soon as I had fumbled out this answer, she called up three or four
+people to her, and said: Savez-vous (for she was a foreigner, and I was
+abroad) que j'ai entrepris ce jeune homme, et qu'il le faut rassurer?
+Pour moi, je crois en avoir fait----[Do you know that I have undertaken
+this young man, and he must be encouraged? As for me, I think I have made
+a conquest of him; for he just now ventured to tell me, although
+tremblingly, that it is warm. You will assist me in polishing him. He
+must necessarily have a passion for somebody; if he does not think me
+worthy of being the object, he will seek out some other. However, my
+novice, do not disgrace yourself by frequenting opera girls and
+actresses; who will not require of you sentiments and politeness, but
+will be your ruin in every respect. I repeat it to you, my friend, if
+you should get into low, mean company, you will be undone. Those
+creatures will destroy your fortune and your health, corrupt your morals,
+and you will never acquire the style of good company.]
+
+The company laughed at this lecture, and I was stunned with it. I did not
+know whether she was serious or in jest. By turns I was pleased, ashamed,
+encouraged, and dejected. But when I found afterward, that both she, and
+those to whom she had presented me, countenanced and protected me in
+company, I gradually got more assurance, and began not to be ashamed of
+endeavoring to be civil. I copied the best masters, at first servilely,
+afterward more freely, and at last I joined habit and invention.
+
+All this will happen to you, if you persevere in the desire of pleasing
+and shining as a man of the world; that part of your character is the
+only one about which I have at present the least doubt. I cannot
+entertain the least suspicion of your moral character; your learned
+character is out of question. Your polite character is now the only
+remaining object that gives me the least anxiety; and you are now in the
+right way of finishing it. Your constant collision with good company
+will, of course, smooth and polish you. I could wish that you would say,
+to the five or six men or women with whom you are the most acquainted,
+that you are sensible that, from youth and inexperience, you must make
+many mistakes in good-breeding; that you beg of them to correct you,
+without reserve, wherever they see you fail; and that you shall take such
+admonition as the strongest proofs of their friendship. Such a confession
+and application will be very engaging to those to whom you make them.
+They will tell others of them, who will be pleased with that disposition,
+and, in a friendly manner, tell you of any little slip or error. The Duke
+de Nivernois--[At that time Ambassador from the Court of France to
+Rome.]--would, I am sure, be charmed, if you dropped such a thing to him;
+adding, that you loved to address yourself always to the best masters.
+Observe also the different modes of good-breeding of several nations, and
+conform yourself to them respectively. Use an easy civility with the
+French, more ceremony with the Italians, and still more with the Germans;
+but let it be without embarrassment and with ease. Bring it by use to be
+habitual to you; for, if it seems unwilling and forced; it will never
+please. 'Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et res'. Acquire an easiness and
+versatility of manners, as well as of mind; and, like the chameleon, take
+the hue of the company you are with.
+
+There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who having lived always in
+the 'grande monde', and having possibly had some gallantries, together
+with the experience of five-and-twenty, or thirty years, form a young
+fellow better than all the rules that can be given him. These women,
+being past their bloom, are extremely flattered by the least attention
+from a young fellow; and they will point out to him those manners and
+ATTENTIONS that pleased and engaged them, when they were in the pride of
+their youth and beauty. Wherever you go, make some of those women your
+friends; which a very little matter will do. Ask their advice, tell them
+your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not
+to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age; and the
+suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives. I long
+for your picture, which Mr. Harte tells me is now drawing. I want to see
+your countenance, your air, and even your dress; the better they all
+three are, the better I am not wise enough to despise any one of them.
+Your dress, at least, is in your own power, and I hope that you mind it
+to a proper degree. Yours, Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CII
+
+LONDON, January 18, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I consider the solid part of your little edifice as so
+near being finished and completed, that my only remaining care is about
+the embellishments; and that must now be your principal care too. Adorn
+yourself with all those graces and accomplishments, which, without
+solidity, are frivolous; but without which solidity is, to a great
+degree, useless. Take one man, with a very moderate degree of knowledge,
+but with a pleasing figure, a prepossessing address, graceful in all that
+he says and does, polite, 'liant', and, in short, adorned with all the
+lesser talents: and take another man, with sound sense and profound
+knowledge, but without the above-mentioned advantages; the former will
+not only get the better of the latter, in every pursuit of every KIND,
+but in truth there will be no sort of competition between them. But can
+every man acquire these advantages? I say, Yes, if he please, suppose he
+is in a situation and in circumstances to frequent good company.
+Attention, observation, and imitation, will most infallibly do it.
+
+When you see a man whose first 'abord' strikes you, prepossesses you in
+his favor, and makes you entertain a good opinion of him, you do not know
+why, analyze that 'abord', and examine, within yourself, the several
+parts that composed it; and you will generally find it to be the result,
+the happy assemblage of modesty unembarrassed, respect without timidity,
+a genteel, but unaffected attitude of body and limbs, an open, cheerful,
+but unsmirking countenance, and a dress, by no means negligent, and yet
+not foppish. Copy him, then, not servilely, but as some of the greatest
+masters of painting have copied others; insomuch that their copies have
+been equal to the originals, both as to beauty and freedom. When you see
+a man who is universally allowed to shine as an agreeable, well-bred man,
+and a fine gentleman (as, for example, the Duke de Nivernois), attend to
+him, watch him carefully; observe in what manner he addresses himself to
+his superiors, how he lives with his equals, and how he treats his
+inferiors. Mind his turn of conversation in the several situations of
+morning visits, the table, and the evening amusements. Imitate, without
+mimicking him; and be his duplicate, but not his ape. You will find that
+he takes care never to say or do any thing that can be construed into a
+slight, or a negligence; or that can, in any degree, mortify people's
+vanity and self-love; on the contrary, you will perceive that he makes
+people pleased with him, by making them first pleased with themselves: he
+shows respect, regard, esteem and attention, where they are severally
+proper: he sows them with care, and he reaps them in plenty.
+
+These amiable accomplishments are all to be acquired by use and
+imitation; for we are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation.
+The great point is, to choose good models and to study them with care.
+People insensibly contract, not only the air, the manners, and the vices,
+of those with whom they commonly converse, but their virtues too, and
+even their way of thinking. This is so true, that I have known very plain
+understandings catch a certain degree of wit, by constantly conversing
+with those who had a great deal. Persist, therefore, in keeping the best
+company, and you will insensibly become like them; but if you add
+attention and observation, you will very soon become one of them. The
+inevitable contagion of company shows you the necessity of keeping the
+best, and avoiding all other; for in everyone, something will stick. You
+have hitherto, I confess, had very few opportunities of keeping polite
+company. Westminster school is, undoubtedly, the seat of illiberal
+manners and brutal behavior. Leipsig, I suppose, is not the seat of
+refined and elegant manners. Venice, I believe, has done something; Rome,
+I hope, will do a great deal more; and Paris will, I dare say, do all
+that you want; always supposing that you frequent the best companies, and
+in the intention of improving and forming yourself; for without that
+intention nothing will do.
+
+I here subjoin a list of all those necessary, ornamental accomplishments
+(without which, no man living can either please, or rise in the world)
+which hitherto I fear you want, and which only require your care and
+attention to possess.
+
+To speak elegantly, whatever language you speak in; without which nobody
+will hear you with pleasure, and consequently you will speak to very
+little purpose.
+
+An agreeable and distinct elocution; without which nobody will hear you
+with patience: this everybody may acquire, who is not born with some
+imperfection in the organs of speech. You are not; and therefore it is
+wholly in your power. You need take much less pains for it than
+Demosthenes did.
+
+A distinguished politeness of manners and address; which common sense,
+observation, good company, and imitation, will infallibly give you if you
+will accept it.
+
+A genteel carriage and graceful motions, with the air of a man of
+fashion: a good dancing-master, with some care on your part, and some
+imitation of those who excel, will soon bring this about.
+
+To be extremely clean in your person, and perfectly well dressed,
+according to the fashion, be that what it will: Your negligence of your
+dress while you were a schoolboy was pardonable, but would not be so now.
+
+Upon the whole, take it for granted, that without these accomplishments,
+all you know, and all you can do, will avail you very little. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIII
+
+LONDON, January 25, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have heard from you, that I suppose
+Rome engrosses every moment of your time; and if it engrosses it in the
+manner I could wish, I willingly give up my share of it. I would rather
+'prodesse quam conspici'. Put out your time, but to good interest; and I
+do not desire to borrow much of it. Your studies, the respectable remains
+of antiquity, and your evening amusements cannot, and indeed ought not,
+to leave you much time to write. You will, probably, never see Rome
+again; and therefore you ought to see it well now; by seeing it well, I
+do not mean only the buildings, statues, and paintings, though they
+undoubtedly deserve your attention: but I mean seeing into the
+constitution and government of it. But these things certainly occur to
+your own common sense.
+
+How go, your pleasures at Rome? Are you in fashion there? that is, do you
+live with the people who are?--the only way of being so yourself, in
+time. Are you domestic enough in any considerable house to be called 'le
+petit Stanhope'? Has any woman of fashion and good-breeding taken the
+trouble of abusing and laughing at you amicably to your face? Have you
+found a good 'decrotteuse'.  For those are the steps by which you must
+rise to politeness. I do not presume to ask if you have any attachment,
+because I believe you will not make me your confident; but this I will
+say, eventually, that if you have one, 'il faut bien payer d'attentions
+et de petits soin', if you would have your sacrifice propitiously
+received. Women are not so much taken by beauty as men are, but prefer
+those men who show them the most attention.
+
+        Would you engage the lovely fair?
+        With gentlest manners treat her;
+        With tender looks and graceful air,
+        In softest accents greet her.
+
+        Verse were but vain, the Muses fail,
+        Without the Graces' aid;
+        The God of Verse could not prevail
+        To stop the flying maid.
+
+        Attention by attentions gain,
+        And merit care by cares;
+        So shall the nymph reward your pain;
+        And Venus crown your prayers.
+                    Probatum est.
+
+A man's address and manner weigh much more with them than his beauty;
+and, without them, the Abbati and Monsignori will get the better of you.
+This address and manner should be exceedingly respectful, but at the same
+time easy and unembarrassed. Your chit-chat or 'entregent' with them
+neither can, nor ought to be very solid; but you should take care to turn
+and dress up your trifles prettily, and make them every now and then
+convey indirectly some little piece of flattery. A fan, a riband, or a
+head-dress, are great materials for gallant dissertations, to one who has
+got 'le ton leger et aimable de la bonne compagnie'. At all events, a man
+had better talk too much to women, than too little; they take silence for
+dullness, unless where they think that the passion they have inspired
+occasions it; and in that case they adopt the notion, that
+
+          Silence in love betrays more woe
+          Than words, though ne'er so witty;
+          The beggar that is dumb, we know,
+          Deserves a double pity.
+
+'A propos' of this subject: what progress do you make in that language,
+in which Charles the Fifth said that he would choose to speak to his
+mistress? Have you got all the tender diminutives, in 'etta, ina', and
+'ettina', which, I presume, he alluded to? You already possess, and, I
+hope, take care not to forget, that language which he reserved for his
+horse. You are absolutely master, too, of that language in which he said
+he would converse with men; French. But, in every language, pray attend
+carefully to the choice of your words, and to the turn of your
+expression. Indeed, it is a point of very great consequence. To be heard
+with success, you must be heard with pleasure: words are the dress of
+thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt,
+than your person should. By the way, do you mind your person and your
+dress sufficiently? Do you take great care of your teeth? Pray have them
+put in order by the best operator at Rome. Are you be-laced, bepowdered,
+and be-feathered, as other young fellows are, and should be? At your age,
+'il faut du brillant, et meme un peu de fracas, mais point de mediocre;
+il faut un air vif, aise et noble. Avec les hommes, un maintien
+respectueux et en meme tems respectable; avec les femmes, un caquet
+leger, enjoue, et badin, mais toujours fort poli'.
+
+To give you an opportunity of exerting your talents, I send you, here
+inclosed, a letter of recommendation from Monsieur Villettes to Madame de
+Simonetti at Milan; a woman of the first fashion and consideration there;
+and I shall in my next send you another from the same person to Madame
+Clerici, at the same place. As these two ladies' houses are the resort of
+all the people of fashion at Milan, those two recommendations will
+introduce you to them all. Let me know, in due time, if you have received
+these two letters, that I may have them renewed, in case of accidents.
+
+Adieu, my dear friend! Study hard; divert yourself heartily; distinguish
+carefully between the pleasures of a man of fashion, and the vices of a
+scoundrel; pursue the former, and abhor the latter, like a man of sense.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIV
+
+LONDON, February 5, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Very few people are good economists of their fortune, and
+still fewer of their time; and yet of the two, the latter is the most
+precious. I heartily wish you to be a good economist of both: and you are
+now of an age to begin to think seriously of those two important
+articles. Young people are apt to think that they have so much time
+before them, that they may squander what they please of it, and yet have
+enough left; as very great fortunes have frequently seduced people to a
+ruinous profusion. Fatal mistakes, always repented of, but always too
+late! Old Mr. Lowndes, the famous Secretary of the Treasury in the reigns
+of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to
+say,--TAKE CARE OF THE PENCE, AND THE POUNDS WILL TAKE CARE OF
+THEMSELVES. To this maxim, which he not only preached but practiced, his
+two grandsons at this time owe the very considerable fortunes that he
+left them.
+
+This holds equally true as to time; and I most earnestly recommend to you
+the care of those minutes and quarters of hours, in the course of the
+day, which people think too short to deserve their attention; and yet, if
+summed up at the end of the year, would amount to a very considerable
+portion of time. For example: you are to be at such a place at twelve, by
+appointment; you go out at eleven, to make two or three visits first;
+those persons are not at home, instead of sauntering away that
+intermediate time at a coffeehouse, and possibly alone, return home,
+write a letter, beforehand, for the ensuing post, or take up a good book,
+I do not mean Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, or Newton, by way of
+dipping; but some book of rational amusement and detached pieces, as
+Horace, Boileau, Waller, La Bruyere, etc. This will be so much time
+saved, and by no means ill employed. Many people lose a great deal of
+time by reading: for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the
+absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never
+existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt,
+pompously described: the Oriental ravings and extravagances of the
+"Arabian Nights," and Mogul tales; or, the new flimsy brochures that now
+swarm in France, of fairy tales, 'Reflections sur le coeur et l'esprit,
+metaphysique de l'amour, analyse des beaux sentimens', and such sort of
+idle frivolous stuff, that nourishes and improves the mind just as much
+as whipped cream would the body. Stick to the best established books in
+every language; the celebrated poets, historians, orators, or
+philosophers. By these means (to use a city metaphor) you will make fifty
+PER CENT. Of that time, of which others do not make above three or four,
+or probably nothing at all.
+
+Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness; they loll and
+yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin
+anything then, and that it will do as well another time. This is a most
+unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge
+and business. At your age, you have no right nor claim to laziness; I
+have, if I please, being emeritus. You are but just listed in the world,
+and must be active, diligent, indefatigable. If ever you propose
+commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence. Never
+put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.
+
+Dispatch is the soul of business; and nothing contributes more to
+dispatch than method. Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it
+inviolably, as far as unexpected incidents may allow. Fix one certain
+hour and day in the week for your accounts, and keep them together in
+their proper order; by which means they will require very little time,
+and you can never be much cheated. Whatever letters and papers you keep,
+docket and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you may
+instantly have recourse to any one. Lay down a method also for your
+reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it be
+in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and
+unmethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different
+authors, upon different subjects. Keep a useful and short commonplace
+book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic
+quotations. Never read history without having maps and a chronological
+book, or tables, lying by you, and constantly recurred to; without which
+history is only a confused heap of facts. One method more I recommend to
+you, by which I have found great benefit, even in the most dissipated
+part of my life; that is, to rise early, and at the same hour every
+morning, how late soever you may have sat up the night before. This
+secures you an hour or two, at least, of reading or reflection before the
+common interruptions of the morning begin; and it will save your
+constitution, by forcing you to go to bed early, at least one night in
+three.
+
+You will say, it may be, as many young people would, that all this order
+and method is very troublesome, only fit for dull people, and a
+disagreeable restraint upon the noble spirit and fire of youth. I deny
+it; and assert, on the contrary, that it will procure you both more time
+and more taste for your pleasures; and, so far from being troublesome to
+you, that after you have pursued it a month, it would be troublesome to
+you to lay it aside. Business whets the appetite, and gives a taste to
+pleasure, as exercise does to food; and business can never be done
+without method; it raises the spirits for pleasures; and a SPECTACLE, a
+ball, an assembly, will much more sensibly affect a man who has employed,
+than a man who has lost, the preceding part of the day; nay, I will
+venture to say, that a fine lady will seem to have more charms to a man
+of study or business, than to a saunterer. The same listlessness runs
+through his whole conduct, and he is as insipid in his pleasures, as
+inefficient in everything else.
+
+I hope you earn your pleasures, and consequently taste them; for, by the
+way, I know a great many men, who call themselves men of pleasure, but
+who, in truth, have none. They adopt other people's indiscriminately, but
+without any taste of their own. I have known them often inflict excesses
+upon themselves because they thought them genteel; though they sat as
+awkwardly upon them as other people's clothes would have done. Have no
+pleasures but your own, and then you will shine in them. What are yours?
+Give me a short history of them. 'Tenez-vous votre coin a table, et dans
+les bonnes compagnies? y brillez-vous du cote de la politesse, de
+d'enjouement, du badinage? Etes-vous galant? Filex-vous le parfait amour?
+Est-il question de flechir par vos soins et par vos attentions les
+rigueurs de quelque fiere Princesse'? You may safely trust me; for though
+I am a severe censor of vice and folly, I am a friend and advocate for
+pleasures, and will contribute all in my power to yours.
+
+There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in
+business. In love, a man may lose his heart with dignity; but if he loses
+his nose, he loses his character into the bargain. At table, a man may
+with decency have a distinguishing palate; but indiscriminate
+voraciousness degrades him to a glutton. A man may play with decency; but
+if he games, he is disgraced. Vivacity and wit make a man shine in
+company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. [see
+Mark Twain's identical advice in his 'Speeches' D.W.] Every virtue, they
+say, has its kindred vice; every pleasure, I am sure, has its neighboring
+disgrace. Mark carefully, therefore, the line that separates them, and
+rather stop a yard short, than step an inch beyond it.
+
+I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I
+have in giving it you! and you may the more easily have it, as I give you
+none that is inconsistent with your pleasure. In all that I say to you,
+it is your interest alone that I consider: trust to my experience; you
+know you may to my affection. Adieu.
+
+I have received no letter yet from you or Mr. Harte.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CV
+
+LONDON, February 8, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You have, by this time, I hope and believe, made such a
+progress in the Italian language, that you can read it with ease; I mean,
+the easy books in it; and indeed, in that, as well as in every other
+language, the easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author
+is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think
+clearly. This is, in my opinion, the case of a celebrated Italian author;
+to whom the Italians, from the admiration they have of him, have given
+the epithet of il divino; I mean Dante. Though I formerly knew Italian
+extremely well, I could never understand him; for which reason I had done
+with him, fully convinced that he was not worth the pains necessary to
+understand him.
+
+The good Italian authors are, in my mind, but few; I mean, authors of
+invention; for there are, undoubtedly, very good historians and excellent
+translators. The two poets worth your reading, and, I was going to say,
+the only two, are Tasso and Ariosto. Tasso's 'Gierusalemme Liberata' is
+altogether unquestionably a fine poem, though--it has some low, and many
+false thoughts in it: and Boileau very justly makes it the mark of a bad
+taste, to compare 'le Clinquant Tasse a l' Or de Virgile'. The image,
+with which he adorns the introduction of his epic poem, is low and
+disgusting; it is that of a froward, sick, puking child, who is deceived
+into a dose of necessary physic by 'du bon-bon'. These verses are these:
+
+     "Cosi all'egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi
+     Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso:
+     Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,
+     E dall' inganno suo vita riceve."
+
+However, the poem, with all its faults about it, may justly be called a
+fine one.
+
+If fancy, imagination, invention, description, etc., constitute a poet,
+Ariosto is, unquestionably, a great one. His "Orlando," it is true, is a
+medley of lies and truths--sacred and profane--wars, loves, enchantments,
+giants, madheroes, and adventurous damsels, but then, he gives it you
+very fairly for what it is, and does not pretend to put it upon you for
+the true 'epopee', or epic poem. He says:
+
+     "Le Donne, i Cavalier, l'arme, gli amori
+     Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese, io canto."
+
+The connections of his stories are admirable, his reflections just, his
+sneers and ironies incomparable, and his painting excellent. When
+Angelica, after having wandered over half the world alone with Orlando,
+pretends, notwithstanding,
+
+     "---ch'el fior virginal cosi avea salvo,
+     Come selo porto dal matern' alvo."
+
+The author adds, very gravely,--
+
+     "Forse era ver, ma non pero credibile
+     A chi del senso suo fosse Signore."
+
+Astolpho's being carried to the moon by St. John, in order to look for
+Orlando's lost wits, at the end of the 34th book, and the many lost
+things that he finds there, is a most happy extravagancy, and contains,
+at the same time, a great deal of sense. I would advise you to read this
+poem with attention. It is, also, the source of half the tales, novels,
+and plays, that have been written since.
+
+The 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini is so celebrated, that you should read it;
+but in reading it, you will judge of the great propriety of the
+characters. A parcel of shepherds and shepherdesses, with the TRUE
+PASTORAL' SIMPLICITY, talk metaphysics, epigrams, 'concetti', and
+quibbles, by the hour to each other.
+
+The Aminto del Tasso, is much more what it is intended to be, a pastoral:
+the shepherds, indeed, have their 'concetti' and their antitheses; but
+are not quite so sublime and abstracted as those in Pastor Fido. I think
+that you will like it much the best of the two.
+
+Petrarca is, in my mind, a sing-song, love-sick poet; much admired,
+however, by the Italians: but an Italian who should think no better of
+him than I do, would certainly say that he deserved his 'Laura' better
+than his 'Lauro'; and that wretched quibble would be reckoned an
+excellent piece of Italian wit.
+
+The Italian prose-writers (of invention I mean) which I would recommend
+to your acquaintance, are Machiavello and Boccacio; the former, for the
+established reputation which he has acquired, of a consummate politician
+(whatever my own private sentiments may be of either his politics or his
+morality): the latter, for his great invention, and for his natural and
+agreeable manner of telling his stories.
+
+Guicciardini, Bentivoglio, Davila, etc., are excellent historians, and
+deserved being read with attention. The nature of history checks, a
+little, the flights of Italian imaginations; which, in works of
+invention, are very high indeed. Translations curb them still more: and
+their translations of the classics are incomparable; particularly the
+first ten, translated in the time of Leo the Tenth, and inscribed to him,
+under the title of Collana. That original Collana has been lengthened
+since; and if I mistake not, consist now of one hundred and ten volumes.
+
+From what I have said, you will easily guess that I meant to put you upon
+your guard; and not let your fancy be dazzled and your taste corrupted by
+the concetti, the quaintnesses, and false thoughts, which are too much
+the characteristics of the Italian and Spanish authors. I think you are
+in no great danger, as your taste has been formed upon the best ancient
+models, the Greek and Latin authors of the best ages, who indulge
+themselves in none of the puerilities I have hinted at. I think I may
+say, with truth; that true wit, sound taste, and good sense, are now, as
+it were, engrossed by France and England. Your old acquaintances, the
+Germans, I fear, are a little below them; and your new acquaintances, the
+Italians, are a great deal too much above them. The former, I doubt,
+crawl a little; the latter, I am sure, very often fly out of sight.
+
+I recommended to you a good many years ago, and I believe you then read,
+La maniere de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit par le Pere
+Bouhours; and I think it is very well worth your reading again, now that
+you can judge of it better. I do not know any book that contributes more
+to form a true taste; and you find there, into the bargain, the most
+celebrated passages, both of the ancients and the moderns, which refresh
+your memory with what you have formerly read in them separately. It is
+followed by a book much of the same size, by the same author, entitled,
+'Suite des Pensees ingenieuses'.
+
+To do justice to the best English and French authors, they have not given
+into that false taste; they allow no thoughts to be good, that are not
+just and founded upon truth. The age of Lewis XIV. was very like the
+Augustan; Boileau, Moliere, La Fontaine, Racine, etc., established the
+true, and exposed the false taste. The reign of King Charles II.
+(meritorious in no other respect) banished false taste out of England,
+and proscribed puns, quibbles, acrostics, etc. Since that, false wit has
+renewed its attacks, and endeavored to recover its lost empire, both in
+England and France; but without success; though, I must say, with more
+success in France than in England. Addison, Pope, and Swift, have
+vigorously defended the rights of good sense, which is more than can be
+said of their contemporary French authors, who have of late had a great
+tendency to 'le faux brillant', 'le raffinement, et l'entortillement'.
+And Lord Roscommon would be more in the right now, than he was then, in
+saying that,
+
+     "The English bullion of one sterling line,
+     Drawn to French wire, would through whole pages shine."
+
+Lose no time, my dear child, I conjure you, in forming your taste, your
+manners, your mind, your everything; you have but two years' time to do
+it in; for whatever you are, to a certain degree, at twenty, you will be,
+more or less, all the rest of your life. May it be a long and happy one.
+Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVI
+
+LONDON, February 22, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: If the Italian of your letter to Lady Chesterfield was
+all your own, I am very well satisfied with the progress which you have
+made in that language in so short a time; according to that gradation,
+you will, in a very little time more, be master of it. Except at the
+French Ambassador's, I believe you hear only Italian spoke; for the
+Italians speak very little French, and that little generally very ill.
+The French are even with them, and generally speak Italian as ill; for I
+never knew a Frenchman in my life who could pronounce the Italian ce, ci,
+or ge, gi. Your desire of pleasing the Roman ladies will of course give
+you not only the desire, but the means of speaking to them elegantly in
+their own language. The Princess Borghese, I am told, speaks French both
+ill and unwillingly; and therefore you should make a merit to her of your
+application to her language. She is, by a kind of prescription (longer
+than she would probably wish), at the head of the 'beau monde' at Rome;
+and can, consequently, establish or destroy a young fellow's fashionable
+character. If she declares him 'amabile e leggiadro', others will think
+him so, or at least those who do not will not dare to say so. There are
+in every great town some such women, whose rank, beauty, and fortune have
+conspired to place them at the head of the fashion. They have generally
+been gallant, but within certain decent bounds. Their gallantries have
+taught, both them and their admirers, good-breeding; without which they
+could keep up no dignity, but would be vilified by those very gallantries
+which put them in vogue. It is with these women, as with ministers and
+favorites at court; they decide upon fashion and characters, as these do
+of fortunes and preferments. Pay particular court, therefore, wherever
+you are, to these female sovereigns of the 'beau monde'; their
+recommendation is a passport through all the realms of politeness. But
+then, remember that they require minute officious attentions. You should,
+if possible, guess at and anticipate all their little fancies and
+inclinations; make yourself familiarly and domestically useful to them,
+by offering yourself for all their little commissions, and assisting in
+doing the honors of their houses, and entering with seeming unction into
+all their little grievances, bustles, and views; for they are always
+busy. If you are once 'ben ficcato' at the Palazzo Borghese, you twill
+soon be in fashion at Rome; and being in fashion will soon fashion you;
+for that is what you must now think of very seriously.
+
+I am sorry that there is no good dancing-master at Rome, to form your
+exterior air and carriage; which, I doubt, are not yet the genteelest in
+the world. But you may, and I hope you will, in the meantime, observe the
+air and carriage of those who are reckoned to have the best, and form
+your own upon them. Ease, gracefulness, and dignity, compose the air and
+address of a man of fashion; which is as unlike the affected attitudes
+and motions of a 'petit maitre', as it is to the awkward, negligent,
+clumsy, and slouching manner of a booby.
+
+I am extremely pleased with the account Mr. Harte has given me of the
+allotment of your time at Rome. Those five hours every morning, which you
+employ in serious studies with Mr. Harte, are laid out with great
+interest, and will make you rich all the rest of your life. I do not look
+upon the subsequent morning hours, which you pass with your Ciceroni, to
+be ill-disposed of; there is a kind of connection between them; and your
+evening diversions in good company are, in their way, as useful and
+necessary. This is the way for you to have both weight and lustre in the
+world; and this is the object which I always had in view in your
+education.
+
+Adieu, my friend! go on and prosper.
+
+Mr. Grevenkop has just received Mr. Harte's letter of the 19th N. S.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVII
+
+LONDON, March 8, O. S. 1750
+
+Young as you are, I hope you are in haste to live; by living, I mean
+living with lustre and honor to yourself, with utility to society; doing
+what may deserve to be written, or writing what may deserve to be read; I
+should wish both. Those who consider life in that light, will not idly
+lavish one moment. The present moments are the only ones we are sure of,
+and as such the most valuable; but yours are doubly so at your age; for
+the credit, the dignity, the comfort, and the pleasure of all your future
+moments, depend upon the use you make of your present ones.
+
+I am extremely satisfied with your present manner of employing your time;
+but will you always employ it as well? I am far from meaning always in
+the same way; but I mean as well in proportion, in the variation of age
+and circumstances. You now, study five hours every morning; I neither
+suppose that you will, nor desire that you should do so for the rest of
+your life. Both business and pleasure will justly and equally break in
+upon those hours. But then, will you always employ the leisure they leave
+you in useful studies? If you have but an hour, will you improve that
+hour, instead of idling it away? While you have such a friend and monitor
+with you as Mr. Harte, I am sure you will. But suppose that business and
+situations should, in six or seen months, call Mr. Harte away from you;
+tell me truly, what may I expect and depend upon from you, when left to
+yourself? May I be sure that you will employ some part of every day, in
+adding something to that stock of knowledge which he will have left you?
+May I hope that you will allot one hour in the week to the care of your
+own affairs, to keep them in that order and method which every prudent
+man does? But, above all, may I be convinced that your pleasures,
+whatever they may be, will be confined within the circle of good company,
+and people of fashion? Those pleasures I recommend to you; I will promote
+them I will pay for them; but I will neither pay for, nor suffer, the
+unbecoming, disgraceful, and degrading pleasures (they should not be
+called pleasures), of low and profligate company. I confess the pleasures
+of high life are not always strictly philosophical; and I believe a Stoic
+would blame, my indulgence; but I am yet no Stoic, though turned of
+five-and-fifty; and I am apt to think that you are rather less so, at
+eighteen. The pleasures of the table, among people of the first fashion,
+may indeed sometimes, by accident, run into excesses: but they will never
+sink into a continued course of gluttony and drunkenness. The gallantry
+of high life, though not strictly justifiable, carries, at least, no
+external marks of infamy about it. Neither the heart nor the constitution
+is corrupted by it; neither nose nor character lost by it; manners,
+possibly, improved. Play, in good company, is only play, and not gaming;
+not deep, and consequently not dangerous nor dishonorable. It is only the
+interacts of other amusements.
+
+This, I am sure, is not talking to you like an old man, though it is
+talking to you like an old friend; these are not hard conditions to ask
+of you. I am certain you have sense enough to know how reasonable they
+are on my part, how advantageous they are on yours: but have you
+resolution enough to perform them? Can you withstand the examples, and
+the invitations, of the profligate, and their infamous missionaries? For
+I have known many a young fellow seduced by a 'mauvaise honte', that made
+him ashamed to refuse. These are resolutions which you must form, and
+steadily execute for yourself, whenever you lose the friendly care and
+assistance of your Mentor. In the meantime, make a greedy use of him;
+exhaust him, if you can, of all his knowledge; and get the prophet's
+mantle from him, before he is taken away himself.
+
+You seem to like Rome. How do you go on there? Are you got into the
+inside of that extraordinary government? Has your Abbate Foggini
+discovered many of those mysteries to you? Have you made an acquaintance
+with some eminent Jesuits? I know no people in the world more
+instructive. You would do very well to take one or two such sort of
+people home with you to dinner every day. It would be only a little
+'minestra' and 'macaroni' the more; and a three or four hours'
+conversation 'de suite' produces a thousand useful informations, which
+short meetings and snatches at third places do not admit of; and many of
+those gentlemen are by no means unwilling to dine 'gratis'. Whenever you
+meet with a man eminent in any way, feed him, and feed upon him at the
+same time; it will not only improve you, but give you a reputation of
+knowledge, and of loving it in others.
+
+I have been lately informed of an Italian book, which I believe may be of
+use to you, and which, I dare say, you may get at Rome, written by one
+Alberti, about fourscore or a hundred years ago, a thick quarto. It is a
+classical description of Italy; from whence, I am assured, that Mr.
+Addison, to save himself trouble, has taken most of his remarks and
+classical references. I am told that it is an excellent book for a
+traveler in Italy.
+
+What Italian books have you read, or are you reading? Ariosto. I hope, is
+one of them. Pray apply yourself diligently to Italian; it is so easy a
+language, that speaking it constantly, and reading it often, must, in six
+months more, make you perfect master of it: in which case you will never
+forget it; for we only forget those things of which we know but little.
+
+But, above all things, to all that you learn, to all that you say, and to
+all that you do, remember to join the Graces. All is imperfect without
+them; with them everything is at least tolerable. Nothing could hurt me
+more than to find you unattended by them. How cruelly should I be
+shocked, if, at our first meeting, you should present yourself to me
+without them! Invoke them, and sacrifice to them every moment; they are
+always kind, where they are assiduously courted. For God's sake, aim at
+perfection in everything: 'Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.
+Adieu. Yours most tenderly.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVIII
+
+LONDON, March 19, O. S. 1750.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I acknowledge your last letter of the 24th February, N.
+S. In return for your earthquake, I can tell you that we have had here
+more than our share of earthquakes; for we had two very strong ones in
+eight-and-twenty days. They really do too much honor to our cold climate;
+in your warm one, they are compensated by favors from the sun, which we
+do not enjoy.
+
+I did not think that the present Pope was a sort of man to build seven
+modern little chapels at the expense of so respectable a piece of
+antiquity as the Coliseum. However, let his Holiness's taste of 'virtu'
+be ever so bad, pray get somebody to present you to him before you leave
+Rome; and without hesitation kiss his slipper, or whatever else the
+etiquette of that Court requires. I would have you see all those
+ceremonies; and I presume that you are, by this time, ready enough at
+Italian to understand and answer 'il Santo Padre' in that language. I
+hope, too, that you have acquired address and usage enough of the world
+to be presented to anybody, without embarrassment or disapprobation. If
+that is not yet quite perfect, as I cannot suppose it is entirely, custom
+will improve it daily, and habit at last complete it. I have for some
+time told you, that the great difficulties are pretty well conquered. You
+have acquired knowledge, which is the 'principium et fons'; but you have
+now a variety of lesser things to attend to, which collectively make one
+great and important object. You easily guess that I mean the graces, the
+air, address, politeness, and, in short, the whole 'tournure' and
+'agremens' of a man of fashion; so many little things conspire to form
+that 'tournure', that though separately they seem too insignificant to
+mention, yet aggregately they are too material for me (who think for you
+down to the very lowest things) to omit. For instance, do you use
+yourself to carve, eat and drink genteelly, and with ease? Do you take
+care to walk, sit, stand, and present yourself gracefully? Are you
+sufficiently upon your guard against awkward attitudes, and illiberal,
+ill-bred, and disgusting habits, such as scratching yourself, putting
+your fingers in your mouth, nose, and ears? Tricks always acquired at
+schools, often too much neglected afterward; but, however, extremely
+ill-bred and nauseous. For I do not conceive that any man has a right to
+exhibit, in company, any one excrement more than another. Do you dress
+well, and think a little of the brillant in your person? That, too, is
+necessary, because it is 'prevenant'. Do you aim at easy, engaging, but,
+at the same time, civil or respectful manners, according to the company
+you are in? These, and a thousand other things, which you will observe in
+people of fashion better than I can describe them, are absolutely
+necessary for every man; but still more for you, than for almost any man
+living. The showish, the shining, the engaging parts of the character of
+a fine gentleman, should (considering your destination) be the principal
+objects, of your present attention.
+
+When you return here, I am apt to think that you will find something
+better to do than to run to Mr. Osborne's at Gray's Inn, to pick up
+scarce books. Buy good books and read them; the best books are the
+commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are
+not blockheads, for they may profit of the former. But take care not to
+understand editions and title-pages too well. It always smells of
+pedantry, and not always of learning. What curious books I have--they are
+indeed but few--shall be at your service. I have some of the old Collana,
+and the Machiavel of 1550. Beware of the 'Bibliomanie'.
+
+In the midst of either your studies or your pleasures, pray never lose
+view of the object of your destination: I mean the political affairs of
+Europe. Follow them politically, chronologically, and geographically,
+through the newspapers, and trace up the facts which you meet with there
+to their sources: as, for example, consult the treaties Neustadt and Abo,
+with regard to the disputes, which you read of every day in the public
+papers, between Russia and Sweden. For the affairs of Italy, which are
+reported to be the objects of present negotiations, recur to the
+quadruple alliance of the year 1718, and follow them down through their
+several variations to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748; in which (by
+the bye) you will find the very different tenures by which the Infant Don
+Philip, your namesake, holds Parma and Placentia. Consult, also, the
+Emperor Charles the Sixth's Act of Cession of the kingdoms of Naples and
+Sicily, being a point which, upon the death of the present King of Spain,
+is likely to occasion some disputes; do not lose the thread of these
+matters; which is carried on with great ease, but if once broken, is
+resumed with difficulty.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Harte, that I have sent his packet to Baron Firmian by
+Count Einsiedlen, who is gone from hence this day for Germany, and passes
+through Vienna in his way to Italy; where he is in hopes of crossing upon
+you somewhere or other. Adieu, my friend.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIX
+
+LONDON, March 29, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are now, I suppose, at Naples, in a new scene of
+'Virtu', examining all the curiosities of Herculaneum, watching the
+eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, and surveying the magnificent churches and
+public buildings, by which Naples is distinguished.
+
+You have a court there into the bargain, which, I hope, you frequent and
+attend to. Polite manners, a versatility of mind, a complaisance even to
+enemies, and the 'volto sciolto', with the 'pensieri stretti', are only
+to be learned at courts, and must be well learned by whoever would either
+shine or thrive in them. Though they do not change the nature, they
+smooth and soften the manners of mankind. Vigilance, dexterity, and
+flexibility supply the place of natural force; and it is the ablest mind,
+not the strongest body that prevails there. Monsieur and Madame Fogliani
+will, I am sure, show you all the politeness of courts; for I know no
+better bred people than they are. Domesticate yourself there while you
+stay at Naples, and lay aside the English coldness and formality. You
+have also a letter to Comte Mahony, whose house I hope you frequent, as
+it is the resort of the best company. His sister, Madame Bulkeley, is now
+here; and had I known of your going so soon to Naples, I would have got
+you, 'ex abundanti', a letter from her to her brother. The conversation
+of the moderns in the evening is full as necessary for you, as that of
+the ancients in the morning.
+
+You would do well, while you are at Naples, to read some very short
+history of that kingdom. It has had great variety of masters, and has
+occasioned many wars; the general history of which will enable you to ask
+many proper questions, and to receive useful informations in return.
+Inquire into the manner and form of that government; for constitution it
+has none, being an absolute one; but the most absolute governments have
+certain customs and forms, which are more or less observed by their
+respective tyrants. In China it is the fashion for the emperors, absolute
+as they are, to govern with justice and equity; as in the other Oriental
+monarchies, it is the custom to govern by violence and cruelty. The King
+of France, as absolute, in fact, as any of them, is by custom only more
+gentle; for I know of no constitutional bar to his will. England is now,
+the only monarchy in the world, that can properly be said to have a
+constitution; for the people's rights and liberties are secured by laws;
+and I cannot reckon Sweden and Poland to be monarchies, those two kings
+having little more to say than the Doge of Venice. I do not presume to
+say anything of the constitution of the empire to you, who are
+'jurisperitorum Germanicorum facile princeps'.
+
+When you write to me, which, by the way, you do pretty seldom, tell me
+rather whom you see, than what you see. Inform me of your evening
+transactions and acquaintances; where, and how you pass your evenings;
+what people of learning you have made acquaintance with; and, if you will
+trust me with so important an affair, what belle passion inflames you. I
+interest myself most in what personally concerns you most; and this is a
+very critical year in your life. To talk like a virtuoso, your canvas is,
+I think, a good one, and RAPHAEL HARTE has drawn the outlines admirably;
+nothing is now wanting but the coloring of Titian, and the Graces, the
+'morbidezza' of Guido; but that is a great deal. You must get them soon,
+or you will never get them at all. 'Per la lingua Italiana, sono sicuro
+ch'ella n'e adesso professore, a segno tale ch'io non ardisca dirle altra
+cosa in quela lingua se non. Addio'.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CX
+
+LONDON, April 26, O. S. 1756.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: As your journey to Paris approaches, and as that period
+will, one way or another, be of infinite consequence to you, my letters
+will henceforward be principally calculated for that meridian. You will
+be left there to your own discretion, instead of Mr. Harte's, and you
+will allow me, I am sure, to distrust a little the discretion of
+eighteen. You will find in the Academy a number of young fellows much
+less discreet than yourself. These will all be your acquaintances; but
+look about you first, and inquire into their respective characters,
+before you form any connections among them; and, 'caeteris paribus',
+single out those of the most considerable rank and family. Show them a
+distinguishing attention; by which means you will get into their
+respective houses, and keep the best company. All those French young
+fellows are excessively 'etourdis'; be upon your guard against scrapes
+and quarrels; have no corporal pleasantries with them, no 'jeux de
+mains', no 'coups de chambriere', which frequently bring on quarrels. Be
+as lively as they, if you please, but at the same time be a little wiser
+than they. As to letters, you will find most of them ignorant; do not
+reproach them with that ignorance, nor make them feel your superiority.
+It is not their faults, they are all bred up for the army; but, on the
+other, hand, do not allow their ignorance and idleness to break in upon
+those morning hours which you may be able to allot to your serious,
+studies. No breakfastings with them, which consume a great deal of time;
+but tell them (not magisterially and sententiously) that you will read
+two or three hours in the morning, and that for the rest of the day you
+are very much at their service. Though, by the way, I hope you will keep
+wiser company in the evenings.
+
+I must insist upon your never going to what is called the English
+coffee-house at Paris, which is the resort of all the scrub English, and
+also of the fugitive and attainted Scotch and Irish; party quarrels and
+drunken squabbles are very frequent there; and I do not know a more
+degrading place in all Paris. Coffee-houses and taverns are by no means
+creditable at Paris. Be cautiously upon your guard against the infinite
+number of fine-dressed and fine-spoken 'chevaliers d'industrie' and
+'avanturiers' which swarm at Paris: and keep everybody civilly at arm's
+length, of whose real character or rank you are not previously informed.
+Monsieur le Comte or Monsieur le Chevalier, in a handsome laced coat, 'et
+tres bien mis', accosts you at the play, or some other public place; he
+conceives at first sight an infinite regard for you: he sees that you are
+a stranger of the first distinction; he offers you his services, and
+wishes nothing more ardently than to contribute, as far as may be in his
+little power, to procure you 'les agremens de Paris'. He is acquainted
+with some ladies of condition, 'qui prefrent une petite societe agreable,
+et des petits soupers aimables d'honnetes gens, au tumulte et a la
+dissipation de Paris'; and he will with the greatest pleasure imaginable
+have the honor of introducing you to those ladies of quality. Well, if
+you were to accept of this kind offer, and go with him, you would find
+'au troisieme; a handsome, painted and p----d strumpet, in a tarnished
+silver or gold second-hand robe, playing a sham party at cards for
+livres, with three or four sharpers well dressed enough, and dignified by
+the titles of Marquis, Comte, and Chevalier. The lady receives you in the
+most polite and gracious manner, and with all those 'complimens de
+routine' which every French woman has equally. Though she loves
+retirement, and shuns 'le grande monde', yet she confesses herself
+obliged to the Marquis for having procured her so inestimable, so
+accomplished an acquaintance as yourself; but her concern is how to amuse
+you: for she never suffers play at her house for above a livre; if you
+can amuse yourself with that low play till supper, 'a la bonne heure'.
+Accordingly you sit down to that little play, at which the good company
+takes care that you shall win fifteen or sixteen livres, which gives them
+an opportunity of celebrating both your good luck and your good play.
+Supper comes up, and a good one it is, upon the strength of your being
+able to pay for it. 'La Marquise en fait les honneurs au mieux, talks
+sentiments, 'moeurs et morale', interlarded with 'enjouement', and
+accompanied with some oblique ogles, which bid you not despair in time.
+After supper, pharaoh, lansquenet, or quinze, happen accidentally to be
+mentioned: the Marquise exclaims against it, and vows she will not suffer
+it, but is at last prevailed upon by being assured 'que ce ne sera que
+pour des riens'. Then the wished-for moment is come, the operation
+begins: you are cheated, at best, of all the money in your pocket, and if
+you stay late, very probably robbed of your watch and snuff-box, possibly
+murdered for greater security. This I can assure you, is not an
+exaggerated, but a literal description of what happens every day to some
+raw and inexperienced stranger at Paris. Remember to receive all these
+civil gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight, very
+coldly, and take care always to be previously engaged, whatever party
+they propose to you. You may happen sometimes, in very great and good
+companies, to meet with some dexterous gentlemen, who may be very
+desirous, and also very sure, to win your money, if they can but engage
+you to play with them. Therefore lay it down as an invariable rule never
+to play with men, but only with women of fashion, at low play, or with
+women and men mixed. But, at the same time, whenever you are asked to
+play deeper than you would, do not refuse it gravely and sententiously,
+alleging the folly of staking what would be very inconvenient to one to
+lose, against what one does not want to win; but parry those invitations
+ludicrously, 'et en badinant'. Say that, if you were sure to lose, you
+might possibly play, but that as you may as well win, you dread
+'l'embarras des richesses', ever since you have seen what an encumbrance
+they were to poor Harlequin, and that, therefore, you are determined
+never to venture the winning above two louis a-day; this sort of light
+trifling way of declining invitations to vice and folly, is more becoming
+your age, and at the same time more effectual, than grave philosophical
+refusals. A young fellow who seems to have no will of his own, and who
+does everything that is asked of him, is called a very good-natured, but
+at the same time, is thought a very silly young fellow. Act wisely, upon
+solid principles, and from true motives, but keep them to yourself, and
+never talk sententiously. When you are invited to drink, say that you
+wish you could, but that so little makes you both drunk and sick, 'que le
+jeu me vaut pas la chandelle'.
+
+Pray show great attention, and make your court to Monsieur de la
+Gueriniere; he is well with Prince Charles and many people of the first
+distinction at Paris; his commendations will raise your character there,
+not to mention that his favor will be of use to you in the Academy
+itself. For the reasons which I mentioned to you in my last, I would have
+you be interne in the Academy for the first six months; but after that, I
+promise you that you shall have lodgings of your own 'dans un hotel
+garni', if in the meantime I hear well of you, and that you frequent, and
+are esteemed in the best French companies. You want nothing now, thank
+God, but exterior advantages, that last polish, that 'tournure du monde',
+and those graces, which are so necessary to adorn, and give efficacy to,
+the most solid merit. They are only to be acquired in the best companies,
+and better in the best French companies than in any other. You will not
+want opportunities, for I shall send you letters that will establish you
+in the most distinguished companies, not only of the beau monde, but of
+the beaux esprits, too. Dedicate, therefore, I beg of you, that whole
+year to your own advantage and final improvement, and do not be diverted
+from those objects by idle dissipations, low seduction, or bad example.
+After that year, do whatever you please; I will interfere no longer in
+your conduct; for I am sure both you and I shall be safe then. Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXI
+
+LONDON, April 30, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Mr. Harte, who in all his letters gives you some dash of
+panegyric, told me in his last a thing that pleases me extremely; which
+was that at Rome you had constantly preferred the established Italian
+assemblies to the English conventicles setup against them by dissenting
+English ladies. That shows sense, and that you know what you are sent
+abroad for. It is of much more consequence to know the 'mores multorem
+hominum' than the 'urbes'. Pray continue this judicious conduct wherever
+you go, especially at Paris, where, instead of thirty, you will find
+above three hundred English, herding together and conversing with no one
+French body.
+
+The life of 'les Milords Anglois' is regularly, or, if you will,
+irregularly, this. As soon as they rise, which is very late, they
+breakfast together, to the utter loss of two good morning hours. Then
+they go by coachfuls to the Palais, the Invalides, and Notre-Dame; from
+thence to the English coffee-house, where they make up their tavern party
+for dinner. From dinner, where they drink quick, they adjourn in clusters
+to the play, where they crowd up the stage, dressed up in very fine
+clothes, very ill-made by a Scotch or Irish tailor. From the play to the
+tavern again, where they get very drunk, and where they either quarrel
+among themselves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the streets, and
+are taken up by the watch. Those who do not speak French before they go,
+are sure to learn none there. Their tender vows are addressed to their
+Irish laundress, unless by chance some itinerant Englishwoman, eloped
+from her husband, or her creditors, defrauds her of them. Thus they
+return home, more petulant, but not more informed, than when they left
+it; and show, as they think, their improvement by affectedly both
+speaking and dressing in broken French:--
+
+          "Hunc to Romane caveito."
+
+Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French;
+improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform
+cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to
+their vices. Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for
+remonstrances do not suit with your age. In French companies in general
+you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish
+yours in their faces. People hate those who make them feel their own
+inferiority. Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the
+company of les Gens d'Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them
+rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw it. Your
+are then thought, from that seeming unwillingness, to have still more
+knowledge than it may be you really have, and with the additional merit
+of modesty into the bargain. A man who talks of, or even hints at, his
+'bonnes fortunes', is seldom believed, or, if believed, much blamed;
+whereas a man who conceals with care is often supposed to have more than
+he has, and his reputation of discretion gets him others. It is just so
+with a man of learning; if he affects to show it, it is questioned, and
+he is reckoned only superficial; but if afterward it appears that he
+really has it, he is pronounced a pedant. Real merit of any kind, 'ubi
+est non potest diu celari'; it will be discovered, and nothing can
+depreciate it but a man's exhibiting it himself. It may not always be
+rewarded as it ought, but it will always be known. You will in general
+find the women of the beau monde at Paris more instructed than the men,
+who are bred up singly for the army, and thrown into it at twelve or
+thirteen years old; but then that sort of education, which makes them
+ignorant of books, gives them a great knowledge of the world, an easy
+address, and polite manners.
+
+Fashion is more tyrannical at Paris than in any other place in the world;
+it governs even more absolutely than their king, which is saying a great
+deal. The least revolt against it is punished by proscription. You must
+observe, and conform to all the 'minutiae' of it, if you will be in
+fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
+Get, therefore, at all events, into the company of those men and women
+'qui donnent le ton'; and though at first you should be admitted upon
+that shining theatre only as a 'persona muta', persist, persevere, and
+you will soon have a part given you. Take great care never to tell in one
+company what you see or hear in another, much less to divert the present
+company at the expense of the last; but let discretion and secrecy be
+known parts of your character. They will carry you much further, and much
+safer than more shining talents. Be upon your guard against quarrels at
+Paris; honor is extremely nice there, though the asserting of it is
+exceedingly penal. Therefore, 'point de mauvaises plaisanteries, point de
+jeux de main, et point de raillerie piquante'.
+
+Paris is the place in the world where, if you please, you may the best
+unite the 'utile' and the 'dulce'. Even your pleasures will be your
+improvements, if you take them with the people of the place, and in high
+life. From what you have hitherto done everywhere else, I have just
+reason to believe, that you will do everything that you ought at Paris.
+Remember that it is your decisive moment; whatever you do there will be
+known to thousands here, and your character there, whatever it is, will
+get before you here. You will meet with it at London. May you and I both
+have reason to rejoice at that meeting! Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXII
+
+LONDON, May 8, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: At your age the love of pleasures is extremely natural,
+and the enjoyment of them not unbecoming: but the danger, at your age, is
+mistaking the object, and setting out wrong in the pursuit. The character
+of a man of pleasure dazzles young eyes; they do not see their way to it
+distinctly, and fall into vice and profligacy. I remember a strong
+instance of this a great many years ago. A young fellow, determined to
+shine as a man of pleasure, was at the play called the "Libertine
+Destroyed," a translation of 'Le Festin de Pierre' of Molieire's. He was
+so struck with what he thought the fine character of the libertine, that
+he swore he would be the LIBERTINE DESTROYED. Some friends asked him,
+whether he had not better content himself with being only the libertine,
+but without being DESTROYED? to which he answered with great warmth, "No,
+for that being destroyed was the perfection of the whole." This,
+extravagant as it seems in this light, is really the case of many an
+unfortunate young fellow, who, captivated by the name of pleasures,
+rushes indiscriminately, and without taste, into them all, and is finally
+DESTROYED. I am not stoically advising, nor parsonically preaching to you
+to be a Stoic at your age; far from it: I am pointing out to you the
+paths to pleasures, and am endeavoring only to quicken and heighten them
+for you. Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and then you will
+taste them; but adopt none; trust to nature for genuine ones. The
+pleasures that you would feel you must earn; the man who gives himself up
+to all, feels none sensibly. Sardanapalus, I am convinced, never felt any
+in his life. Those only who join serious occupations with pleasures, feel
+either as they should do. Alcibiades, though addicted to the most
+shameful excesses, gave some time to philosophy, and some to business.
+Julius Caesar joined business with pleasure so properly, that they
+mutually assisted each other; and though he was the husband of all the
+wives at Rome, he found time to be one of the best scholars, almost the
+best orator, and absolutely the best general there. An uninterrupted life
+of pleasures is as insipid as contemptible. Some hours given every day to
+serious business must whet both the mind and the senses, to enjoy those
+of pleasure. A surfeited glutton, an emaciated sot, and an enervated
+rotten whoremaster, never enjoy the pleasures to which they devote
+themselves; but they are only so many human sacrifices to false gods. The
+pleasures of low life are all of this mistaken, merely sensual, and
+disgraceful nature; whereas, those of high life, and in good company
+(though possibly in themselves not more moral) are more delicate, more
+refined, less dangerous, and less disgraceful; and, in the common course
+of things, not reckoned disgraceful at all. In short, pleasure must not,
+nay, cannot, be the business of a man of sense and character; but it may
+be, and is, his relief, his reward. It is particularly so with regard to
+the women; who have the utmost contempt for those men, that, having no
+character nor consideration with their own sex, frivolously pass their
+whole time in 'ruelles' and at 'toilettes'. They look upon them as their
+lumber, and remove them whenever they can get better furniture. Women
+choose their favorites more by the ear than by any other of their senses
+or even their understandings. The man whom they hear the most commended
+by the men, will always be the best received by them. Such a conquest
+flatters their vanity, and vanity is their universal, if not their
+strongest passion. A distinguished shining character is irresistible with
+them; they crowd to, nay, they even quarrel for the danger in hopes of
+the triumph. Though, by the way (to use a vulgar expression), she who
+conquers only catches a Tartar, and becomes the slave of her captive.
+'Mais c'est la leur affaire'. Divide your time between useful occupations
+and elegant pleasures. The morning seems to belong to study, business, or
+serious conversations with men of learning and figure; not that I exclude
+an occasional hour at a toilette. From sitting down to dinner, the proper
+business of the day is pleasure, unless real business, which must never
+be postponed for pleasure, happens accidentally to interfere. In good
+company, the pleasures of the table are always carried to a certain point
+of delicacy and gratification, but never to excess and riot. Plays,
+operas, balls, suppers, gay conversations in polite and cheerful
+companies, properly conclude the evenings; not to mention the tender
+looks that you may direct and the sighs that you may offer, upon these
+several occasions, to some propitious or unpropitious female deity, whose
+character and manners will neither disgrace nor corrupt yours. This is
+the life of a man of real sense and pleasure; and by this distribution of
+your time, and choice of your pleasures, you will be equally qualified
+for the busy, or the 'beau monde'. You see I am not rigid, and do not
+require that you and I should be of the same age. What I say to you,
+therefore, should have the more weight, as coming from a friend, not a
+father. But low company, and their low vices, their indecent riots and
+profligacy, I never will bear nor forgive.
+
+I have lately received two volumes of treaties, in German and Latin, from
+Hawkins, with your orders, under your own hand, to take care of them for
+you, which orders I shall most dutifully and punctually obey, and they
+wait for you in my library, together with your great collection of rare
+books, which your Mamma sent me upon removing from her old house.
+
+I hope you not only keep up, but improve in your German, for it will be
+of great use to you when you cone into business; and the more so, as you
+will be almost the only Englishman who either can speak or understand it.
+Pray speak it constantly to all Germans, wherever you meet them, and you
+will meet multitudes of them at Paris. Is Italian now become easy and
+familiar to you? Can you speak it with the same fluency that you can
+speak German? You cannot conceive what an advantage it will give you in
+negotiations to possess Italian, German, and French perfectly, so as to
+understand all the force and finesse of those three languages. If two men
+of equal talents negotiate together, he who best understands the language
+in which the negotiation is carried on, will infallibly get the better of
+the other. The signification and force of one single word is often of
+great consequence in a treaty, and even in a letter.
+
+Remember the GRACES, for without them 'ogni fatica e vana'. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIII
+
+LONDON, May 17, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your apprenticeship is near out, and you are soon to set
+up for yourself; that approaching moment is a critical one for you, and
+an anxious one for me. A tradesman who would succeed in his way, must
+begin by establishing a character of integrity and good manners; without
+the former, nobody will go to his shop at all; without the latter, nobody
+will go there twice. This rule does not exclude the fair arts of trade.
+He may sell his goods at the best price he can, within certain bounds. He
+may avail himself of the humor, the whims, and the fantastical tastes of
+his customers; but what he warrants to be good must be really so, what he
+seriously asserts must be true, or his first fraudulent profits will soon
+end in a bankruptcy. It is the same in higher life, and in the great
+business of the world. A man who does not solidly establish, and really
+deserve, a character of truth, probity, good manners, and good morals, at
+his first setting out in the world, may impose, and shine like a meteor
+for a very short time, but will very soon vanish, and be extinguished
+with contempt. People easily pardon, in young men, the common
+irregularities of the senses: but they do not forgive the least vice of
+the heart. The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse;
+always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will
+only be a greater knave as he grows older. But should a bad young heart,
+accompanied with a good head (which, by the way, very seldom is the
+case), really reform in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of its
+folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be thought
+prudential and political, but never sincere. I hope in God, and I verily.
+believe, that you want no moral virtue. But the possession of all the
+moral virtues, in 'actu primo', as the logicians call it, is not
+sufficient; you must have them in 'actu secundo' too; nay, that is not
+sufficient neither--you must have the reputation of them also. Your
+character in the world must be built upon that solid foundation, or it
+will soon fall, and upon your own head. You cannot, therefore, be too
+careful, too nice, too scrupulous, in establishing this character at
+first, upon which your whole depends. Let no conversation, no example, no
+fashion, no 'bon mot', no silly desire of seeming to be above, what most
+knaves, and many fools, call prejudices, ever tempt you to avow, excuse,
+extenuate, or laugh at the least breach of morality; but show upon all
+occasions, and take all occasions to show, a detestation and abhorrence
+of it. There, though young, you ought to be strict; and there only, while
+young, it becomes you to be strict and severe. But there, too, spare the
+persons while you lash the crimes. All this relates, as you easily judge,
+to the vices of the heart, such as lying, fraud, envy, malice,
+detraction, etc., and I do not extend it to the little frailties of
+youth, flowing from high spirits and warm blood. It would ill become you,
+at your age, to declaim against them, and sententiously censure a
+gallantry, an accidental excess of the table, a frolic, an inadvertency;
+no, keep as free from them yourself as you can: but say nothing against
+them in others. They certainly mend by time, often by reason; and a man's
+worldly character is not affected by them, provided it be pure in all
+other respects.
+
+To come now to a point of much less, but yet of very great consequence at
+your first setting out. Be extremely upon your guard against vanity, the
+common failing of inexperienced youth; but particularly against that kind
+of vanity that dubs a man a coxcomb; a character which, once acquired, is
+more indelible than that of the priesthood. It is not to be imagined by
+how many different ways vanity defeats its own purposes. One man decides
+peremptorily upon every subject, betrays his ignorance upon many, and
+shows a disgusting presumption upon the rest. Another desires to appear
+successful among the women; he hints at the encouragement he has
+received, from those of the most distinguished rank and beauty, and
+intimates a particular connection with some one; if it is true, it is
+ungenerous; if false, it is infamous: but in either case he destroys the
+reputation he wants to get. Some flatter their vanity by little
+extraneous objects, which have not the least relation to themselves; such
+as being descended from, related to, or acquainted with, people of
+distinguished merit and eminent characters. They talk perpetually of
+their grandfather such-a-one, their uncle such-a-one, and their intimate
+friend Mr. Such-a-one, with whom, possibly, they are hardly acquainted.
+But admitting it all to be as they would have it, what then? Have they
+the more merit for those accidents? Certainly not. On the contrary, their
+taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit; a rich man
+never borrows. Take this rule for granted, as a never-failing one: That
+you must never seem to affect the character in which you have a mind to
+shine. Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise. The
+affectation of courage will make even a brave man pass only for a bully;
+as the affectation of wit will make a man of parts pass for a coxcomb. By
+this modesty I do not mean timidity and awkward bashfulness. On the
+contrary, be inwardly firm and steady, know your own value whatever it
+may be, and act upon that principle; but take great care to let nobody
+discover that you do know your own value. Whatever real merit you have,
+other people will discover, and people always magnify their own
+discoveries, as they lessen those of others.
+
+For God's sake, revolve all these things seriously in your thoughts,
+before you launch out alone into the ocean of Paris. Recollect the
+observations that you have yourself made upon mankind, compare and
+connect them with my instructions, and then act systematically and
+consequentially from them; not 'au jour la journee'. Lay your little plan
+now, which you will hereafter extend and improve by your own
+observations, and by the advice of those who can never mean to mislead
+you; I mean Mr. Harte and myself.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIV
+
+LONDON, May 24., O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 7th, N. S., from
+Naples, to which place I find you have traveled, classically, critically,
+and 'da virtuoso'. You did right, for whatever is worth seeing at, all,
+is worth seeing well, and better than most people see it. It is a poor
+and frivolous excuse, when anything curious is talked of that one has
+seen, to say, I SAW IT, BUT REALLY I DID NOT MUCH MIND IT. Why did they
+go to see it, if they would not mind it? or why not mind it when they saw
+it? Now that you are at Naples, you pass part of your time there 'en
+honnete homme, da garbato cavaliere', in the court and the best
+companies. I am told that strangers are received with the utmost
+hospitality at Prince-------'s, 'que lui il fait bonne chere, et que
+Madame la Princesse donne chere entire; mais que sa chair est plus que
+hazardee ou mortifiee meme'; which in plain English means, that she is
+not only tender, but rotten. If this be true, as I am pretty sure it is,
+one may say to her in a little sense, 'juvenumque prodis, publics cura'.
+
+Mr. Harte informs me that you are clothed in sumptuous apparel; a young
+fellow should be so; especially abroad, where fine clothes are so
+generally the fashion. Next to their being fine, they should be well
+made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat,
+if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as
+if it were a plain one.
+
+I thank you for your drawing, which I am impatient to see, and which I
+shall hang up in a new gallery that I am building at Blackheath, and very
+fond of; but I am still more impatient for another copy, which I wonder I
+have not yet received, I mean the copy of your countenance. I believe,
+were that a whole length, it would still fall a good deal short of the
+dimensions of the drawing after Dominichino, which you say is about eight
+feet high; and I take you, as well as myself, to be of the family of the
+Piccolomini. Mr. Bathurst tells me that he thinks you rather taller than
+I am; if so, you may very possibly get up to five feet eight inches,
+which I would compound for, though I would wish you five feet ten. In
+truth, what do I not wish you, that has a tendency to perfection? I say a
+tendency only, for absolute perfection is not in human nature, so that it
+would be idle to wish it. But I am very willing to compound for your
+coming nearer to perfection than the generality of your contemporaries:
+without a compliment to you, I think you bid fair for that. Mr. Harte
+affirms (and if it were consistent with his character would, I believe,
+swear) that you have no vices of the heart; you have undoubtedly a stock
+of both ancient and modern learning, which I will venture to say nobody
+of your age has, and which must now daily increase, do what you will.
+What, then, do you want toward that practicable degree of perfection
+which I wish you? Nothing but the knowledge, the turn, and the manners of
+the world; I mean the 'beau monde'. These it is impossible that you can
+yet have quite right; they are not given, they must be learned. But then,
+on the other hand, it is impossible not to acquire them, if one has a
+mind to them; for they are acquired insensibly, by keeping good company,
+if one has but the least attention to their characters and manners.
+
+Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally
+converses with are. He catches their air, their manners, and even their
+way of thinking. If he observes with attention, he will catch them soon,
+but if he does not, he will at long run contract them insensibly. I know
+nothing in the world but poetry that is not to be acquired by application
+and care. The sum total of this is a very comfortable one for you, as it
+plainly amounts to this in your favor, that you now want nothing but what
+even your pleasures, if they are liberal ones, will teach you. I
+congratulate both you and myself upon your being in such a situation,
+that, excepting your exercises, nothing is now wanting but pleasures to
+complete you. Take them, but (as I am sure you will) with people of the
+first fashion, whereever you are, and the business is done; your
+exercises at Paris, which I am sure you will attend to, will supple and
+fashion your body; and the company you will keep there will, with some
+degree of observation on your part, soon give you their air, address,
+manners, in short, 'le ton de la bonne compagnie'. Let not these
+considerations, however, make you vain: they are only between you and me
+but as they are very comfortable ones, they may justly give you a manly
+assurance, a firmness, a steadiness, without which a man can neither be
+well-bred, or in any light appear to advantage, or really what he is.
+They may justly remove all, timidity, awkward bashfulness, low diffidence
+of one's self, and mean abject complaisance to every or anybody's
+opinion. La Bruyere says, very truly, 'on ne vaut dans ce monde, que ce
+que l'on veut valoir'. It is a right principle to proceed upon in the
+world, taking care only to guard against the appearances and outward
+symptoms of vanity. Your whole then, you see, turns upon the company you
+keep for the future. I have laid you in variety of the best at Paris,
+where, at your arrival you will find a cargo of letters to very different
+sorts of people, as 'beaux esprils, savants, et belles dames'. These, if
+you will frequent them, will form you, not only by their examples,
+advice, and admonitions in private, as I have desired them to do; and
+consequently add to what you have the only one thing now needful.
+
+Pray tell me what Italian books you have read, and whether that language
+is now become familiar to you.
+
+Read Ariosto and Tasso through, and then you will have read all the
+Italian poets who in my opinion are worth reading. In all events, when
+you get to Paris, take a good Italian master to read Italian with you
+three times a week; not only to keep what you have already, which you
+would otherwise forget, but also to perfect you in the rest. It is a
+great pleasure, as well as a great advantage, to be able to speak to
+people of all nations, and well, in their own language. Aim at perfection
+in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they
+who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it, than those whose
+laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. 'Magnis
+tamen excidit ausis' is a degree of praise which will always attend a
+noble and shining temerity, and a much better sign in a young fellow,
+than 'serpere humi, tutus nimium timidusque procellae'. For men as well
+as women:
+
+        "---------born to be controlled,
+        Stoop to the forward and the bold."
+
+A man who sets out in the world with real timidity and diffidence has not
+an equal chance for it; he will be discouraged, put by, or trampled upon.
+But to succeed, a man, especially a young one, should have inward
+firmness, steadiness, and intrepidity, with exterior modesty and SEEMING
+diffidence. He must modestly, but resolutely, assert his own rights and
+privileges. 'Suaviter in modo', but 'fortiter in re'. He should have an
+apparent frankness and openness, but with inward caution and closeness.
+All these things will come to you by frequenting and observing good
+company. And by good company, I mean that sort of company which is called
+good company by everybody of that place. When all this is over, we shall
+meet; and then we will talk over, tete-a-tete, the various little
+finishing strokes which conversation and, acquaintance occasionally
+suggest, and which cannot be methodically written.
+
+Tell Mr. Harte that I have received his two letters of the 2d and 8th N.
+S., which, as soon as I have received a third, I will answer. Adieu, my
+dear! I find you will do.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXV
+
+LONDON, June 5, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your picture, which I have long waited
+for with impatience: I wanted to see your countenance from whence I am
+very apt, as I believe most people are, to form some general opinion of
+the mind. If the painter has taken you as well as he has done Mr. Harte
+(for his picture is by far the most like I ever saw in my life), I draw
+good conclusions from your countenance, which has both spirit and finesse
+in it. In bulk you are pretty well increased since I saw you; if your
+height has not increased in proportion, I desire that you will make haste
+to, complete it. Seriously, I believe that your exercises at Paris will
+make you shoot up to a good size; your legs, by all accounts, seem to
+promise it. Dancing excepted, the wholesome part is the best part of
+those academical exercises. 'Ils degraissent leur homme'.
+
+'A propos' of exercises, I have prepared everything for your reception at
+Monsieur de la Gueriniere's, and your room, etc., will be ready at your
+arrival. I am sure you must be sensible how much better it will be for
+you to be interne in the Academy for the first six or seven months at
+least, than to be 'en hotel garni', at some distance from it, and obliged
+to go to it every morning, let the weather be what it will, not to
+mention the loss of time too; besides, by living and boarding in the
+Academy, you will make an acquaintance with half the young fellows of
+fashion at Paris; and in a very little while be looked upon as one of
+them in all French companies: an advantage that has never yet happened to
+any one Englishman that I have known. I am sure you do not suppose that
+the difference of the expense, which is but a trifle, has any weight with
+me in this resolution. You have the French language so perfectly, and you
+will acquire the French 'tournure' so soon, that I do not know anybody
+likely to pass their time so well at Paris as yourself. Our young
+countrymen have generally too little French, and too bad address, either
+to present themselves, or be well received in the best French companies;
+and, as a proof of it, there is no one instance of an Englishman's having
+ever been suspected of a gallantry with a French woman of condition,
+though every French woman of condition is more than suspected of having a
+gallantry. But they take up with the disgraceful and dangerous commerce
+of prostitutes, actresses, dancing-women, and that sort of trash; though,
+if they had common address, better achievements would be extremely easy.
+'Un arrangement', which is in plain English a gallantry, is, at Paris, as
+necessary a part of a woman of fashion's establishment, as her house,
+stable, coach, etc. A young fellow must therefore be a very awkward one,
+to be reduced to, or of a very singular taste, to prefer drabs and danger
+to a commerce (in the course of the world not disgraceful) with a woman
+of health, education, and rank. Nothing sinks a young man into low
+company, both of women and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of
+himself. If he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will
+not please. But with proper endeavors to please, and a degree of
+persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will. How many
+people does one meet with everywhere, who, with very moderate parts, and
+very little knowledge, push themselves pretty far, simply by being
+sanguine, enterprising, and persevering? They will take no denial from
+man or woman; difficulties do not discourage them; repulsed twice or
+thrice, they rally, they charge again, and nine times in ten prevail at
+last. The same means will much sooner, and, more certainly, attain the
+same ends, with your parts and knowledge. You have a fund to be sanguine
+upon, and good forces to rally. In business (talents supposed) nothing is
+more effectual or successful, than a good, though concealed opinion of
+one's self, a firm resolution, and an unwearied perseverance. None but
+madmen attempt impossibilities; and whatever is possible, is one way or
+another to be brought about. If one method fails, try another, and suit
+your methods to the characters you have to do with. At the treaty of the
+Pyrenees, which Cardinal Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro concluded, 'dans
+l'Isle des Faisans', the latter carried some very important points by his
+constant and cool perseverance.
+
+The Cardinal had all the Italian vivacity and impatience; Don Louis all
+the Spanish phlegm and tenaciousness. The point which the Cardinal had
+most at heart was, to hinder the re-establishment of the Prince of Conde,
+his implacable enemy; but he was in haste to conclude, and impatient to
+return to Court, where absence is always dangerous. Don Louis observed
+this, and never failed at every conference to bring the affair of the
+Prince of Conde upon the tapis. The Cardinal for some time refused even
+to treat upon it. Don Louis, with the same 'sang froid', as constantly
+persisted, till he at last prevailed: contrary to the intentions and the
+interest both of the Cardinal and of his Court. Sense must distinguish
+between what is impossible, and what is only difficult; and spirit and
+perseverance will get the better of the latter. Every man is to be had
+one way or another, and every woman almost any way. I must not omit one
+thing, which is previously necessary to this, and, indeed, to everything
+else; which is attention, a flexibility of attention; never to be wholly
+engrossed by any past or future object, but instantly directed to the
+present one, be it what it will. An absent man can make but few
+observations; and those will be disjointed and imperfect ones, as half
+the circumstance must necessarily escape him. He can pursue nothing
+steadily, because his absences make him lose his way. They are very
+disagreeable, and hardly to be tolerated in old age; but in youth they
+cannot be forgiven. If you find that you have the least tendency to them,
+pray watch yourself very carefully, and you may prevent them now; but if
+you let them grow into habit, you will find it very difficult to cure
+them hereafter, and a worse distemper I do not know.
+
+I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been
+lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies
+than yourself. The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris;
+where they are particularly kind to all strangers, who will be civil to
+them, and show a desire of pleasing. But they must be flattered a little,
+not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their country,
+their manners, and their customs; which is but a very small price to pay
+for a very good reception. Were I in Africa, I would pay it to a negro
+for his goodwill. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVI
+
+LONDON, June 11, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The President Montesquieu (whom you will be acquainted
+with at Paris), after having laid down in his book, 'De l'Esprit des
+Lois', the nature and principles of the three different kinds of
+government, viz, the democratical, the monarchical, and the despotic,
+treats of the education necessary for each respective form. His chapter
+upon the education proper for the monarchical I thought worth
+transcribing and sending to you. You will observe that the monarchy which
+he has in his eye is France:--
+
+"In monarchies, the principal branch of education is not taught in
+colleges or academies. It commences, in some measure, at our setting out
+in the world; for this is the school of what we call honor, that
+universal preceptor, which ought everywhere to be our guide.
+
+"Here it is that we constantly hear three rules or maxims, viz: That we
+should have a certain nobleness in our virtues, a kind of frankness in
+our morals, and a particular politeness in our behavior.
+
+"The virtues we are here taught, are less what we owe to others, than to
+ourselves; they are not so much what draws us toward society, as what
+distinguishes us from our fellow-citizens.
+
+"Here the actions of men are judged, not as virtuous, but as shining; not
+as just, but as great; not as reasonable, but as extraordinary.
+
+"When honor here meets with anything noble in our actions, it is either a
+judge that approves them, or a sophister by whom they are excused.
+
+"It allows of gallantry, when united with the idea of sensible affection,
+or with that of conquest; this is the reason why we never meet with so
+strict a purity of morals in monarchies as in republican governments.
+
+"It allows of cunning and craft, when joined with the notion of greatness
+of soul or importance of affairs; as, for instance, in politics, with
+whose finenesses it is far from being offended.
+
+"It does not forbid adulation, but when separate from the idea of a large
+fortune, and connected only with the sense of our mean condition.
+
+"With regard to morals, I have observed, that the education of monarchies
+ought to admit of a certain frankness and open carriage. Truth,
+therefore, in conversation, is here a necessary point. But is it for the
+sake of truth. By no means. Truth is requisite only, because a person
+habituated to veracity has an air of boldness and freedom. And, indeed, a
+man of this stamp seems to lay a stress only on the things themselves,
+not on the manner in which they are received.
+
+"Hence it is, that in proportion as this kind of frankness is commended,
+that of the common people is despised, which has nothing but truth and
+simplicity for its object.
+
+"In fine, the education of monarchies requires a certain politeness of
+behavior. Man, a sociable animal, is formed to please in society; and a
+person that would break through the rules of decency, so as to shock
+those he conversed with, would lose the public esteem, and become
+incapable of doing any good.
+
+"But politeness, generally speaking, does not derive its original from so
+pure a source. It arises from a desire of distinguishing ourselves. It is
+pride that renders us polite; we are flattered with being taken notice of
+for a behavior that shows we are not of a mean condition, and that we
+have not been bred up with those who in all ages are considered as the
+scum of the people.
+
+"Politeness, in monarchies, is naturalized at court. One man excessively
+great renders everybody else little. Hence that regard which is paid to
+our fellow-subjects; hence that politeness, equally pleasing to those by
+whom, as to those toward whom, it is practiced; because it gives people
+to understand that a person actually belongs, or at least deserves to
+belong, to the court.
+
+"A court air consists in quitting a real for a borrowed greatness. The
+latter pleases the courtier more than the former. It inspires him with a
+certain disdainful modesty, which shows itself externally, but whose
+pride insensibly diminishes in proportion to his distance from the source
+of this greatness.
+
+"At court we find a delicacy of taste in everything; a delicacy arising
+from the constant use of the superfluities of life; from the variety, and
+especially the satiety of pleasures; from the multiplicity and even
+confusion of fancies, which, if they are not agreeable, are sure of being
+well received.
+
+"These are the things which properly fall within the province of
+education, in order to form what we call a man of honor, a man possessed
+of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of government.
+
+"Here it is that honor interferes with everything, mixing even with
+people's manner of thinking, and directing their very principles.
+
+"To this whimsical honor it is owing that the virtues are only just what
+it pleases; it adds rules of its own invention to everything prescribed
+to us; it extends or limits our duties according to its own fancy,
+whether they proceed from religion, politics, or morality.
+
+"There is nothing so strongly inculcated in monarchies, by the laws, by
+religion, and honor, as submission to the Prince's will, but this very
+honor tells us, that the Prince never ought to command a dishonorable
+action, because this would render us incapable of serving him.
+
+"Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but offered to fight
+him. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX., having sent
+orders to the governors in the several provinces for the Huguenots to be
+murdered, Viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the
+King: 'Sire, Among the inhabitants of this town, and your Majesty's
+troops, I could not find so much as one executioner; they are honest
+citizens and brave soldiers. We jointly, therefore, beseech your Majesty
+to command our arms and lives in things that are practicable.' This great
+and generous soul looked upon a base action as a thing impossible.
+
+"There is nothing that honor more strongly recommends to the nobility,
+than to serve their Prince in a military capacity. And indeed this is
+their favorite profession, because its dangers, its success, and even its
+miscarriages, are the road to grandeur. Yet this very law, of its own
+making, honor chooses to explain; and in case of any affront, it requires
+or permits us to retire.
+
+"It insists also, that we should be at liberty either to seek or to
+reject employments; a liberty which it prefers even to an ample fortune.
+
+"Honor, therefore, has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to
+conform. The chief of these are, that we are permitted to set a value
+upon our fortune, but are absolutely forbidden to set any upon our lives.
+
+"The second is, that when we are raised to a post or preferment, we
+should never do or permit anything which may seem to imply that we look
+upon ourselves as inferior to the rank we hold.
+
+"The third is, that those things which honor forbids are more rigorously
+forbidden, when the laws do not concur in the prohibition; and those it
+commands are more strongly insisted upon, when they happen not to be
+commanded by law."
+
+Though our government differs considerably from the French, inasmuch as
+we have fixed laws and constitutional barriers for the security of our
+liberties and properties, yet the President's observations hold pretty
+near as true in England as in France. Though monarchies may differ a good
+deal, kings differ very little. Those who are absolute desire to continue
+so, and those who are not, endeavor to become so; hence the same maxims
+and manners almost in all courts: voluptuousness and profusion
+encouraged, the one to sink the people into indolence, the other into
+poverty--consequently into dependence. The court is called the world here
+as well as at Paris; and nothing more is meant by saying that a man knows
+the world, than that he knows courts. In all courts you must expect to
+meet with connections without friendship, enmities without hatred, honor
+without virtue, appearances saved, and realities sacrificed; good manners
+with bad morals; and all vice and virtues so disguised, that whoever has
+only reasoned upon both would know neither when he first met them at
+court. It is well that you should know the map of that country, that when
+you come to travel in it, you may do it with greater safety.
+
+From all this you will of yourself draw this obvious conclusion: That you
+are in truth but now going to the great and important school, the world;
+to which Westminster and Leipsig were only the little preparatory
+schools, as Marylebone, Windsor, etc., are to them. What you have already
+acquired will only place you in the second form of this new school,
+instead of the first. But if you intend, as I suppose you do, to get into
+the shell, you have very different things to learn from Latin and Greek:
+and which require much more sagacity and attention than those two dead
+languages; the language of pure and simple nature; the language of nature
+variously modified and corrupted by passions, prejudices, and habits; the
+language of simulation and dissimulation: very hard, but very necessary
+to decipher. Homer has not half so many, nor so difficult dialects, as
+the great book of the school you are now going to. Observe, therefore,
+progressively, and with the greatest attention, what the best scholars in
+the form immediately above you do, and so on, until you get into the
+shell yourself. Adieu.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Harte that I have received his letter of the 27th May, N.
+S., and that I advise him never to take the English newswriters
+literally, who never yet inserted any one thing quite right. I have both
+his patent and his mandamus, in both which he is Walter, let the
+newspapers call him what they please.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVII
+
+LONDON, July 9, O. S. 1750.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I should not deserve that appellation in return from you,
+if I did not freely and explicitly inform you of every corrigible defect
+which I may either hear of, suspect, or at any time discover in you.
+Those who, in the common course of the world, will call themselves your
+friends; or whom, according to the common notions of friendship, you may
+possibly think such, will never tell you of your faults, still less of
+your weaknesses. But, on the contrary, more desirous to make you their
+friend, than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter both, and, in
+truth, not be sorry for either. Interiorly, most people enjoy the
+inferiority of their best friends. The useful and essential part of
+friendship, to you, is reserved singly for Mr. Harte and myself: our
+relations to you stand pure and unsuspected of all private views. In
+whatever we say to you, we can have no interest but yours. We are
+therefore authorized to represent, advise, and remonstrate; and your
+reason must tell you that you ought to attend to and believe us.
+
+I am credibly informed, that there is still a considerable hitch or
+hobble in your enunciation; and that when you speak fast you sometimes
+speak unintelligibly. I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts
+before you so fully upon this subject, that I can say nothing new upon it
+now. I must therefore only repeat, that your whole depends upon it. Your
+trade is to speak well, both in public and in private. The manner of your
+speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to
+be tickled, than understandings to judge. Be your productions ever so
+good, they will be of no use, if you stifle and strangle them in their
+birth. The best compositions of Corelli, if ill executed and played out
+of tune, instead of touching, as they do when well performed, would only
+excite the indignation of the hearer's, when murdered by an unskillful
+performer. But to murder your own productions, and that 'coram Populo',
+is a MEDEAN CRUELTY, which Horace absolutely forbids. Remember of what
+importance Demosthenes, and one of the Gracchi, thought ENUNCIATION; and
+read what stress Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it; even the herb-women
+at Athens were correct judges of it. Oratory, with all its graces, that
+of enunciation in particular, is full as necessary in our government as
+it ever was in Greece or Rome. No man can make a fortune or a figure in
+this country, without speaking, and speaking well in public. If you will
+persuade, you must first please; and if you will please, you must tune
+your voice to harmony, you must articulate every syllable distinctly,
+your emphasis and cadences must be strongly and properly marked; and the
+whole together must be graceful and engaging: If you do not speak in that
+manner, you had much better not speak at all. All the learning you have,
+or ever can have, is not worth one groat without it. It may be a comfort
+and an amusement to you in your closet, but can be of no use to you in
+the world. Let me conjure you, therefore, to make this your only object,
+till you have absolutely conquered it, for that is in your power; think
+of nothing else, read and speak for nothing else. Read aloud, though
+alone, and read articulately and distinctly, as if you were reading in
+public, and on the most important occasion. Recite pieces of eloquence,
+declaim scenes of tragedies to Mr. Harte, as if he were a numerous
+audience. If there is any particular consonant which you have a
+difficulty in articulating, as I think you had with the R, utter it
+millions and millions of times, till you have uttered it right. Never
+speak quick, till you have first learned to speak well. In short, lay
+aside every book, and every thought, that does not directly tend to this
+great object, absolutely decisive of your future fortune and figure.
+
+The next thing necessary in your destination, is writing correctly,
+elegantly, and in a good hand too; in which three particulars, I am sorry
+to tell you, that you hitherto fail. Your handwriting is a very bad one,
+and would make a scurvy figure in an office-book of letters, or even in a
+lady's pocket-book. But that fault is easily cured by care, since every
+man, who has the use of his eyes and of his right hand, can write
+whatever hand he pleases. As to the correctness and elegance of your
+writing, attention to grammar does the one, and to the best authors the
+other. In your letter to me of the 27th June, N. S., you omitted the date
+of the place, so that I only conjectured from the contents that you were
+at Rome.
+
+Thus I have, with the truth and freedom of the tenderest affection, told
+you all your defects, at least all that I know or have heard of. Thank
+God, they are all very curable; they must be cured, and I am sure, you
+will cure them. That once done, nothing remains for you to acquire, or
+for me to wish you, but the turn, the manners, the address, and the
+GRACES, of the polite world; which experience, observation, and good
+company; will insensibly give you. Few people at your age have read,
+seen, and known, so much as you have; and consequently few are so near as
+yourself to what I call perfection, by which I only, mean being very near
+as well as the best. Far, therefore, from being discouraged by what you
+still want, what you already have should encourage you to attempt, and
+convince you that by attempting you will inevitably obtain it. The
+difficulties which you have surmounted were much greater than any you
+have now to encounter. Till very lately, your way has been only through
+thorns and briars; the few that now remain are mixed with roses. Pleasure
+is now the principal remaining part of your education. It will soften and
+polish your manners; it will make you pursue and at last overtake the
+GRACES. Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal; no one feels, who does not at
+the same time give it. To be pleased one must please. What pleases you in
+others, will in general please them in you. Paris is indisputably the
+seat of the GRACES; they will even court you, if you are not too coy.
+Frequent and observe the best companies there, and you will soon be
+naturalized among them; you will soon find how particularly attentive
+they are to the correctness and elegance of their language, and to the
+graces of their enunciation: they would even call the understanding of a
+man in question, who should neglect or not know the infinite advantages
+arising from them. 'Narrer, reciter, declamer bien', are serious studies
+among them, and well deserve to be so everywhere. The conversations, even
+among the women, frequently turn upon the elegancies and minutest
+delicacies of the French language. An 'enjouement', a gallant turn,
+prevails in all their companies, to women, with whom they neither are,
+nor pretend to be, in love; but should you (as may very possibly happen)
+fall really in love there with some woman of fashion and sense (for I do
+not suppose you capable of falling in love with a strumpet), and that
+your rival, without half your parts or knowledge, should get the better
+of you, merely by dint of manners, 'enjouement, badinage', etc., how
+would you regret not having sufficiently attended to those
+accomplishments which you despised as superficial and trifling, but which
+you would then find of real consequence in the course of the world! And
+men, as well as women, are taken by those external graces. Shut up your
+books, then, now as a business, and open them only as a pleasure; but let
+the great book of the world be your serious study; read it over and over,
+get it by heart, adopt its style, and make it your own.
+
+When I cast up your account as it now stands, I rejoice to see the
+balance so much in your favor; and that the items per contra are so few,
+and of such a nature, that they may be very easily cancelled. By way of
+debtor and creditor, it stands thus:
+
+Creditor.  By French          Debtor. To English
+        German               Enunciation
+        Italian               Manners
+        Latin
+        Greek
+        Logic
+        Ethics
+        History
+        |Naturae
+      Jus |Gentium
+        |Publicum
+
+This, my dear friend, is a very true account; and a very encouraging one
+for you. A man who owes so little can clear it off in a very little time,
+and, if he is a prudent man, will; whereas a man who, by long negligence,
+owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay; and therefore
+never looks into his account at all.
+
+When you go to Genoa, pray observe carefully all the environs of it, and
+view them with somebody who can tell you all the situations and
+operations of the Austrian army, during that famous siege, if it deserves
+to be called one; for in reality the town never was besieged, nor had the
+Austrians any one thing necessary for a siege. If Marquis Centurioni, who
+was last winter in England, should happen to be there, go to him with my
+compliments, and he will show you all imaginable civilities.
+
+I could have sent you some letters to Florence, but that I knew Mr. Mann
+would be of more use to you than all of them. Pray make him my
+compliments. Cultivate your Italian, while you are at Florence, where it
+is spoken in its utmost purity, but ill pronounced.
+
+Pray save me the seed of some of the best melons you eat, and put it up
+dry in paper. You need not send it me; but Mr. Harte will bring it in his
+pocket when he comes over. I should likewise be glad of some cuttings of
+the best figs, especially la Pica gentile and the Maltese; but as this is
+not the season for them, Mr. Mann will, I dare say, undertake that
+commission, and send them to me at the proper time by Leghorn. Adieu.
+Endeavor to please others, and divert yourself as much as ever you can,
+in 'honnete et galant homme'.
+
+P. S. I send you the inclosed to deliver to Lord Rochford, upon your
+arrival at Turin.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVIII.
+
+LONDON, August 6, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Since your letter from Sienna, which gave me a very
+imperfect account both of your illness and your recovery, I have not
+received one word either from you or Mr. Harte. I impute this to the
+carelessness of the post simply: and the great distance between us at
+present exposes our letters to those accidents. But when you come to
+Paris, from whence the letters arrive here very regularly, I shall insist
+upon you writing to me constantly once a week; and that upon the same
+day, for instance, every Thursday, that I may know by what mail to expect
+your letter. I shall also require you to be more minute in your account
+of yourself than you have hitherto been, or than I have required, because
+of the informations which I receive from time to time from Mr. Harte. At
+Paris you will be out of your time, and must set up for yourself; it is
+then that I shall be very solicitous to know how you carry on your
+business. While Mr. Harte was your partner, the care was his share, and
+the profit yours. But at Paris, if you will have the latter, you must
+take the former along with it. It will be quite a new world to you; very
+different from the little world that you have hitherto seen; and you will
+have much more to do in it. You must keep your little accounts constantly
+every morning, if you would not have them run into confusion, and swell
+to a bulk that would frighten you from ever looking into them at all. You
+must allow some time for learning what you do not know, and some for
+keeping what you do know; and you must leave a great deal of time for
+your pleasures; which (I repeat it, again) are now become the most
+necessary part of your education. It is by conversations, dinners,
+suppers, entertainments, etc., in the best companies, that you must be
+formed for the world. 'Les manieres les agremens, les graces' cannot be
+learned by theory; they are only to be got by use among those who have
+them; and they are now the main object of your life, as they are the
+necessary steps to your fortune. A man of the best parts, and the
+greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience
+and observation, will be very absurd; and consequently very unwelcome in
+company. He may say very good things; but they will probably be so
+ill-timed, misplaced, or improperly addressed, that he had much better
+hold his tongue. Full of his own matter, and uninformed of; or
+inattentive to, the particular circumstances and situations of the
+company, he vents it indiscriminately; he puts some people out of
+countenance; he shocks others; and frightens all, who dread what may come
+out next. The most general rule that I can give you for the world, and
+which your experience will convince you of the truth of, is, Never to
+give the tone to the company, but to take it from them; and to labor more
+to put them in conceit with themselves, than to make them admire you.
+Those whom you can make like themselves better, will, I promise you, like
+you very well.
+
+A system-monger, who, without knowing anything of the world by
+experience, has formed a system, of it in his dusty cell, lays it down,
+for example, that (from the general nature of mankind) flattery is
+pleasing. He will therefore flatter. But how? Why, indiscriminately. And
+instead of repairing and heightening the piece judiciously, with soft
+colors and a delicate pencil,--with a coarse brush and a great deal of
+whitewash, he daubs and besmears the piece he means to adorn. His
+flattery offends even his patron; and is almost too gross for his
+mistress. A man of the world knows the force of flattery as well as he
+does; but then he knows how, when, and where to give it; he proportions
+his dose to the constitution of the patient. He flatters by application,
+by inference, by comparison, by hint, and seldom directly. In the course
+of the world, there is the same difference in everything between system
+and practice.
+
+I long to have you at Paris, which is to be your great school; you will
+be then in a manner within reach of me.
+
+Tell me, are you perfectly recovered, or do you still find any remaining
+complaint upon your lungs? Your diet should be cooling, and at the same
+time nourishing. Milks of all kinds are proper for you; wines of all
+kinds bad. A great deal of gentle, and no violent exercise, is good for
+you. Adieu. 'Gratia, fama, et valetudo, contingat, abunde!'
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIX
+
+LONDON, October 22, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: This letter will, I am persuaded, find you, and I hope
+safely, arrived at Montpelier; from whence I trust that Mr. Harte's
+indisposition will, by being totally removed, allow you to get to Paris
+before Christmas. You will there find two people who, though both
+English, I recommend in the strongest manner possible to your attention;
+and advise you to form the most intimate connections with them both, in
+their different ways. The one is a man whom you already know something
+of, but not near enough: it is the Earl of Huntingdon; who, next to you,
+is the truest object of my affection and esteem; and who (I am proud to
+say it) calls me, and considers me as his adopted father. His parts are
+as quick as his knowledge is extensive; and if quality were worth putting
+into an account, where every other item is so much more valuable, he is
+the first almost in this country: the figure he will make in it, soon
+after he returns to it, will, if I am not more mistaken than ever I was
+in my life, equal his birth and my hopes. Such a connection will be of
+infinite advantage to you; and, I can assure you, that he is extremely
+disposed to form it upon my account; and will, I hope and believe, desire
+to improve and cement it upon your own.
+
+In our parliamentary government, connections are absolutely necessary;
+and, if prudently formed and ably maintained, the success of them is
+infallible. There are two sorts of connections, which I would always
+advise you to have in view. The first I will call equal ones; by which I
+mean those, where the two connecting parties reciprocally find their
+account, from pretty near an equal degree of parts and abilities. In
+those, there must be a freer communication; each must see that the other
+is able, and be convinced that he is willing to be of use to him. Honor
+must be the principle of such connections; and there must be a mutual
+dependence, that present and separate interest shall not be able to break
+them. There must be a joint system of action; and, in case of different
+opinions, each must recede a little, in order at last to form an
+unanimous one. Such, I hope, will be your connection with Lord
+Huntingdon. You will both come into parliament at the same time; and if
+you have an equal share of abilities and application, you and he, with
+other young people, with whom you will naturally associate, may form a
+band which will be respected by any administration, and make a figure in
+the public. The other sort of connections I call unequal ones; that is,
+where the parts are all on one side, and the rank and fortune on the
+other. Here, the advantage is all on one side; but that advantage must be
+ably and artfully concealed. Complaisance, an engaging manner, and a
+patient toleration of certain airs of superiority, must cement them. The
+weaker party must be taken by the heart, his head giving no hold; and he
+must be governed by being made to believe that he governs. These people,
+skillfully led, give great weight to their leader. I have formerly
+pointed out to you a couple that I take to be proper objects for your
+skill; and you will meet with twenty more, for they are very rife.
+
+The other person whom I recommended to you is a woman; not as a woman,
+for that is not immediately my business; besides, I fear that she is
+turned of fifty. It is Lady Hervey, whom I directed you to call upon at
+Dijon, but who, to my great joy, because to your great advantage, passes
+all this winter at Paris. She has been bred all her life at courts; of
+which she has acquired all the easy good-breeding and politeness, without
+the frivolousness. She has all the reading that a woman should have; and
+more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well,
+though she wisely conceals it. As she will look upon you as her son, I
+desire that you will look upon her as my delegate: trust, consult, and
+apply to her without reserve. No woman ever had more than she has, 'le
+ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manieres engageantes, et le
+je ne sais quoi qui plait'. Desire her to reprove and correct any, and
+every the least error and inaccuracy in your manners, air, address,
+etc. No woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more
+willingly, or in a more proper and obliging manner. In such a case she
+will not put you out of countenance, by telling you of it in company; but
+either intimate it by some sign, or wait for an opportunity when you are
+alone together. She is also in the best French company, where she will
+not only introduce but PUFF you, if I may use so low a word. And I can
+assure you that it is no little help, in the 'beau monde', to be puffed
+there by a fashionable woman. I send you the inclosed billet to carry
+her, only as a certificate of the identity of your person, which I take
+it for granted she could not know again.
+
+You would be so much surprised to receive a whole letter from me without
+any mention of the exterior ornaments necessary for a gentleman, as
+manners, elocution, air, address, graces, etc., that, to comply with your
+expectations, I will touch upon them; and tell you, that when you come to
+England, I will show you some people, whom I do not now care to name,
+raised to the highest stations singly by those exterior and adventitious
+ornaments, whose parts would never have entitled them to the smallest
+office in the excise. Are they then necessary, and worth acquiring, or
+not? You will see many instances of this kind at Paris, particularly a
+glaring one, of a person--[M. le Marechal de Richelieu]--raised to the
+highest posts and dignities in France, as well as to be absolute
+sovereign of the 'beau monde', simply by the graces of his person and
+address; by woman's chit-chat, accompanied with important gestures; by an
+imposing air and pleasing abord. Nay, by these helps, he even passes for
+a wit, though he hath certainly no uncommon share of it. I will not name
+him, because it would be very imprudent in you to do it. A young fellow,
+at his first entrance into the 'beau monde', must not offend the king 'de
+facto' there. It is very often more necessary to conceal contempt than
+resentment, the former forgiven, but the latter sometimes forgot.
+
+There is a small quarto book entitled, 'Histoire Chronologique de la
+France', lately published by Le President Henault, a man of parts and
+learning, with whom you will probably get acquainted at Paris. I desire
+that it may always lie upon your table, for your recourse as often as you
+read history. The chronology, though chiefly relative to the history of
+France, is not singly confined to it; but the most interesting events of
+all the rest of Europe are also inserted, and many of them adorned by
+short, pretty, and just reflections. The new edition of 'Les Memoires de
+Sully', in three quarto volumes, is also extremely well worth your
+reading, as it will give you a clearer, and truer notion of one of the
+most interesting periods of the French history, than you can yet have
+formed from all the other books you may have read upon the subject. That
+prince, I mean Henry the Fourth, had all the accomplishments and virtues
+of a hero, and of a king, and almost of a man. The last are the most
+rarely seen. May you possess them all! Adieu.
+
+Pray make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and let him know that I have this
+moment received his letter of the 12th, N. S., from Antibes. It requires
+no immediate answer; I shall therefore delay mine till I have another
+from him. Give him the inclosed, which I have received from Mr. Eliot.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXX
+
+LONDON, November 1, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope that this letter will not find you still at
+Montpelier, but rather be sent after you from thence to Paris, where, I
+am persuaded, that Mr. Harte could find as good advice for his leg as at
+Montpelier, if not better; but if he is of a different opinion, I am sure
+you ought to stay there, as long as he desires.
+
+While you are in France, I could wish that the hours you allot for
+historical amusement should be entirely devoted to the history of France.
+One always reads history to most advantage in that country to which it is
+relative; not only books, but persons being ever at hand to solve doubts
+and clear up difficulties. I do by no means advise you to throw away your
+time in ransacking, like a dull antiquarian, the minute and unimportant
+parts of remote and fabulous times. Let blockheads read what blockheads
+wrote. And a general notion of the history of France, from the conquest
+of that country by the Franks, to the reign of Louis the Eleventh, is
+sufficient for use, consequently sufficient for you. There are, however,
+in those remote times, some remarkable eras that deserve more particular
+attention; I mean those in which some notable alterations happened in the
+constitution and form of government. As, for example, in the settlement
+of Clovis in Gaul, and the form of government which he then established;
+for, by the way; that form of government differed in this particular from
+all the other Gothic governments, that the people, neither collectively
+nor by representatives, had any share in it. It was a mixture of monarchy
+and aristocracy: and what were called the States General of France
+consisted only of the nobility and clergy till the time of Philip le Bel,
+in the very beginning of the fourteenth century, who first called the
+people to those assemblies, by no means for the good of the people, who
+were only amused by this pretended honor, but, in truth, to check the
+nobility and clergy, and induce them to grant the money he wanted for his
+profusion; this was a scheme of Enguerrand de Marigny, his minister, who
+governed both him and his kingdom to such a degree as to, be called the
+coadjutor and governor of the kingdom. Charles Martel laid aside these
+assemblies, and governed by open force. Pepin restored them, and attached
+them to him, and with them the nation; by which means he deposed
+Childeric and mounted the throne. This is a second period worth your
+attention. The third race of kings, which begins with Hugues Capet, is a
+third period. A judicious reader of history will save himself a great
+deal of time and trouble by attending with care only to those interesting
+periods of history which furnish remarkable events, and make eras, and
+going slightly over the common run of events. Some people read history
+as others read the "Pilgrim's Progress"; giving equal attention to, and
+indiscriminately loading their memories with every part alike. But I
+would have you read it in a different manner; take the shortest general
+history you can find of every country; and mark down in that history the
+most important periods, such as conquests, changes of kings, and
+alterations of the form of government; and then have recourse to more
+extensive histories or particular treatises, relative to those great
+points. Consider them well, trace up their causes, and follow their
+consequences. For instance, there is a most excellent, though very short
+history of France, by Le Gendre. Read that with attention, and you will
+know enough of the general history; but when you find there such
+remarkable periods as are above mentioned, consult Mezeray, and other of
+the best and minutest historians, as well as political treatises upon
+those subjects. In later times, memoirs, from those of Philip de
+Commines, down to the innumerble ones in the reign of Louis the
+Fourteenth, have been of great use, and thrown great light upon
+particular parts of history.
+
+Conversation in France, if you have the address and dexterity to turn it
+upon useful subjects, will exceedingly improve your historical knowledge;
+for people there, however classically ignorant they may be, think it a
+shame to be ignorant of the history of their own country: they read that,
+if they read nothing else, and having often read nothing else, are proud
+of having read that, and talk of it willingly; even the women are well
+instructed in that sort of reading. I am far from meaning by this that
+you should always be talking wisely in company, of books, history, and
+matters of knowledge. There are many companies which you will, and ought
+to keep, where such conversations would be misplaced and ill-timed; your
+own good sense must distinguish the company and the time. You must trifle
+only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious, but dance to
+those who pipe. 'Cur in theatrum Cato severs venisti?' was justly said to
+an old man: how much more so would it be to one of your age? From the
+moment that you are dressed and go out, pocket all your knowledge with
+your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired: the
+producing of the one unasked, implies that you are weary of the company;
+and the producing of the other unrequired, will make the company weary of
+you. Company is a republic too jealous of its liberties, to suffer a
+dictator even for a quarter of an hour; and yet in that, as in republics,
+there are some few who really govern; but then it is by seeming to
+disclaim, instead of attempting to usurp the power; that is the occasion
+in which manners, dexterity, address, and the undefinable 'je ne sais
+quoi' triumph; if properly exerted, their conquest is sure, and the more
+lasting for not being perceived. Remember, that this is not only your
+first and greatest, but ought to be almost your only object, while you
+are in France.
+
+I know that many of your countrymen are apt to call the freedom and
+vivacity of the French petulancy and illbreeding; but, should you think
+so, I desire upon many accounts that you will not say so; I admit that it
+may be so in some instances of 'petits maitres Etourdis', and in some
+young people unbroken to the world; but I can assure you, that you will
+find it much otherwise with people of a certain rank and age, upon whose
+model you will do very well to form yourself. We call their steady
+assurance, impudence why? Only because what we call modesty is awkward
+bashfulness and 'mauvaise honte'. For my part, I see no impudence, but,
+on the contrary, infinite utility and advantage in presenting one's self
+with the same coolness and unconcern in any and every company. Till one
+can do that, I am very sure that one can never present one's self well.
+Whatever is done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done, and,
+till a man is absolutely easy and unconcerned in every company, he will
+never be thought to have kept good company, nor be very welcome in it. A
+steady assurance, with seeming modesty, is possibly the most useful
+qualification that a man can have in every part of life. A man would
+certainly make a very considerable fortune and figure in the world, whose
+modesty and timidity should often, as bashfulness always does (put him in
+the deplorable and lamentable situation of the pious AEneas, when
+'obstupuit, steteruntque comae; et vox faucibus haesit!). Fortune (as
+well as women)--
+
+        "---------born to be controlled,
+        Stoops to the forward and the bold."
+
+Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty,
+clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by
+difficulties in its journey; whereas barefaced impudence is the noisy and
+blustering harbinger of a worthless and senseless usurper.
+
+You will think that I shall never have done recommending to you these
+exterior worldly accomplishments, and you will think right, for I never
+shall; they are of too great consequence to you for me to be indifferent
+or negligent about them: the shining part of your future figure and
+fortune depends now wholly upon them. These are the acquisitions which
+must give efficacy and success to those you have already made. To have it
+said and believed that you are the most learned man in England, would be
+no more than was said and believed of Dr. Bentley; but to have it said,
+at the same time, that you are also the best-bred, most polite, and
+agreeable man in the kingdom, would be such a happy composition of a
+character as I never yet knew any one man deserve; and which I will
+endeavor, as well as ardently wish, that you may. Absolute perfection is,
+I well know, unattainable; but I know too, that a man of parts may be
+unweariedly aiming at it, and arrive pretty near it. Try, labor,
+persevere. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXI
+
+LONDON, November 8, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Before you get to Paris, where you will soon be left to
+your own discretion, if you have any, it is necessary that we should
+understand one another thoroughly; which is the most probable way of
+preventing disputes. Money, the cause of much mischief in the world, is
+the cause of most quarrels between fathers and sons; the former commonly
+thinking that they cannot give too little, and the latter, that they
+cannot have enough; both equally in the wrong. You must do me the justice
+to acknowledge, that I have hitherto neither stinted nor grudged any
+expense that could be of use or real pleasure to you; and I can assure
+you, by the way, that you have traveled at a much more considerable
+expense than I did myself; but I never so much as thought of that, while
+Mr. Harte was at the head of your finances; being very sure that the sums
+granted were scrupulously applied to the uses for which they were
+intended. But the case will soon be altered, and you will be your own
+receiver and treasurer. However, I promise you, that we will not quarrel
+singly upon the quantum, which shall be cheerfully and freely granted:
+the application and appropriation of it will be the material point, which
+I am now going to clear up and finally settle with you. I will fix, or
+even name, no settled allowance; though I well know in my own mind what
+would be the proper one; but I will first try your draughts, by which I
+can in a good degree judge of your conduct. This only I tell you in
+general, that if the channels through which my money is to go are the
+proper ones, the source shall not be scanty; but should it deviate into
+dirty, muddy, and obscure ones (which by the bye, it cannot do for a week
+without my knowing it); I give you fair and timely notice, that the
+source will instantly be dry. Mr. Harte, in establishing you at Paris,
+will point out to you those proper channels; he will leave you there upon
+the foot of a man of fashion, and I will continue you upon the same; you
+will have your coach, your valet de chambre, your own footman, and a
+valet de place; which, by the way, is one servant more than I had. I
+would have you very well dressed, by which I mean dressed as the
+generality of people of fashion are; that is, not to be taken notice of,
+for being either more or less fine than other people: it is by being well
+dressed, not finely dressed, that a gentleman should be distinguished.
+You must frequent 'les spectacles', which expense I shall willingly
+supply. You must play 'a des petits jeux de commerce' in mixed companies;
+that article is trifling; I shall pay it cheerfully. All the other
+articles of pocket-money are very inconsiderable at Paris, in comparison
+of what they are here, the silly custom of giving money wherever one
+dines or sups, and the expensive importunity of subscriptions, not being
+yet introduced there. Having thus reckoned up all the decent expenses of
+a gentleman, which I will most readily defray, I come now to those which
+I will neither bear nor supply. The first of these is gaming, of which,
+though I have not the least reason to suspect you, I think it necessary
+eventually to assure you, that no consideration in the world shall ever
+make me pay your play debts; should you ever urge to me that your honor
+is pawned, I should most immovably answer you, that it was your honor,
+not mine, that was pawned; and that your creditor might e'en take the
+pawn for the debt.
+
+Low company, and low pleasures, are always much more costly than liberal
+and elegant ones. The disgraceful riots of a tavern are much more
+expensive, as well as dishonorable, than the sometimes pardonable
+excesses in good company. I must absolutely hear of no tavern scrapes and
+squabbles.
+
+I come now to another and very material point; I mean women; and I will
+not address myself to you upon this subject, either in a religious, a
+moral, or a parental style. I will even lay aside my age, remember yours,
+and speak to you as one man of pleasure, if he had parts too, would speak
+to another. I will by no means pay for whores, and their never-failing
+consequences, surgeons; nor will I, upon any account, keep singers,
+dancers, actresses, and 'id genus omne'; and, independently of the
+expense, I must tell you, that such connections would give me, and all
+sensible people, the utmost contempt for your parts and address; a young
+fellow must have as little sense as address, to venture, or more properly
+to sacrifice, his health and ruin his fortune, with such sort of
+creatures; in such a place as Paris especially, where gallantry is both
+the profession and the practice of every woman of fashion. To speak
+plainly, I will not forgive your understanding c--------s and p-------s;
+nor will your constitution forgive them you. These distempers, as well as
+their cures, fall nine times in ten upon the lungs. This argument, I am
+sure, ought to have weight with you: for I protest to you, that if you
+meet with any such accident, I would not give one year's purchase for
+your life. Lastly, there is another sort of expense that I will not
+allow, only because it is a silly one; I mean the fooling away your money
+in baubles at toy shops. Have one handsome snuff-box (if you take snuff),
+and one handsome sword; but then no more pretty and very useless things.
+
+By what goes before, you will easily perceive that I mean to allow you
+whatever is necessary, not only for the figure, but for the pleasures of
+a gentleman, and not to supply the profusion of a rake. This, you must
+confess, does not savor of either the severity or parsimony of old age. I
+consider this agreement between us, as a subsidiary treaty on my part,
+for services to be performed on yours. I promise you, that I will be as
+punctual in the payment of the subsidies, as England has been during the
+last war; but then I give you notice at the same time, that I require a
+much more scrupulous execution of the treaty on your part, than we met
+with on that of our allies; or else that payment will be stopped. I hope
+all that I have now said was absolutely unnecessary, and that sentiments
+more worthy and more noble than pecuniary ones, would of themselves have
+pointed out to you the conduct I recommend; but, at all events, I
+resolved to be once for all explicit with you, that, in the worst that
+can happen, you may not plead ignorance, and complain that I had not
+sufficiently explained to you my intentions.
+
+Having mentioned the word rake, I must say a word or two more on that
+subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt
+to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there
+are not in the world two characters more different. A rake is a
+composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful
+vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character, and to ruin his
+fortune; while wine and the p-------s contend which shall soonest and
+most effectually destroy his constitution. A dissolute, flagitious
+footman, or porter, makes full as good a rake as a man of the first
+quality. By the bye, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my
+youth, I never was a rake, but, on the contrary, always detested and
+despised that character.
+
+A man of pleasure, though not always so scrupulous as he should be, and
+as one day he will wish he had been, refines at least his pleasures by
+taste, accompanies them with decency, and enjoys them with dignity. Few
+men can be men of pleasure, every man may be a rake. Remember that I
+shall know everything you say or do at Paris, as exactly as if, by the
+force of magic, I could follow you everywhere, like a sylph or a gnome,
+invisible myself. Seneca says, very prettily, that one should ask nothing
+of God, but what one should be willing that men should know; nor of men,
+but what one should be willing that God should know. I advise you to say
+and do nothing at Paris, but what you would be willing that I should
+know. I hope, nay, I believe, that will be the case. Sense, I dare say,
+you do not want; instruction, I am sure, you have never wanted:
+experience you are daily gaining: all which together must inevitably (I
+should think) make you both 'respectable et aimable', the perfection of a
+human character. In that case nothing shall be wanting on my part, and
+you shall solidly experience all the extent and tenderness of my
+affection for you; but dread the reverse of both! Adieu!
+
+P. S. When you get to Paris, after you have been to wait on Lord
+Albemarle, go to see Mr. Yorke, whom I have particular reasons for
+desiring that you should be well with, as I shall hereafter explain to
+you. Let him know that my orders, and your own inclinations, conspired to
+make you desire his friendship and protection.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXII
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have sent you so many preparatory letters for Paris,
+that this, which will meet you there, shall only be a summary of them
+all.
+
+You have hitherto had more liberty than anybody of your age ever had; and
+I must do you the justice to own, that you have made a better use of it
+than most people of your age would have done; but then, though you had
+not a jailer, you had a friend with you. At Paris, you will not only be
+unconfined, but unassisted. Your own good sense must be your only guide:
+I have great confidence in it, and am convinced that I shall receive just
+such accounts of your conduct at Paris as I could wish; for I tell you
+beforehand, that I shall be most minutely informed of all that you do,
+and almost of all that you say there. Enjoy the pleasures of youth, you
+cannot do better: but refine and dignify them like a man, of parts; let
+them raise, and not sink; let them adorn and not vilify your character;
+let them, in short, be the pleasures of a gentleman, and taken with your
+equals at least, but rather with your superiors, and those chiefly
+French.
+
+Inquire into the characters of the several Academicians, before you form
+a connection with any of them; and be most upon your guard against those
+who make the most court to you.
+
+You cannot study much in the Academy; but you may study usefully there,
+if you are an economist of your time, and bestow only upon good books
+those quarters and halves of hours, which occur to everybody in the
+course of almost every day; and which, at the year's end, amount to a
+very considerable sum of time. Let Greek, without fail, share some part
+of every day; I do not mean the Greek poets, the catches of Anacreon, or
+the tender complaints of Theocritus, or even the porter-like language of
+Homer's heroes; of whom all smatterers in Greek know a little, quote
+often, and talk of always; but I mean Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes,
+and Thucydides, whom none but adepts know. It is Greek that must
+distinguish you in the learned world, Latin alone will not: and Greek
+must be sought to be retained, for it never occurs like Latin. When you
+read history or other books of amusement, let every language you are
+master of have its turn, so that you may not only retain, but improve in
+everyone. I also desire that you will converse in German and Italian,
+with all the Germans and the Italians with whom you converse at all. This
+will be a very agreeable and flattering thing to them, and a very useful
+one to you.
+
+Pray apply yourself diligently to your exercises; for though the doing
+them well is not supremely meritorious, the doing them ill is illiberal,
+vulgar, and ridiculous.
+
+I recommend theatrical representations to you; which are excellent at
+Paris. The tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the comedies of
+Moliere, well attended to, are admirable lessons, both for the heart and
+the head. There is not, nor ever was, any theatre comparable to the
+French. If the music of the French operas does not please your Italian
+ear, the words of them, at least, are sense and poetry, which is much
+more than I can, say of any Italian opera that I ever read or heard in my
+life.
+
+I send you the inclosed letter of recommendation to Marquis Matignon,
+which I would have you deliver to him as soon as you can; you will, I am
+sure, feel the good effects of his warm friendship for me and Lord
+Bolingbroke, who has also wrote to him upon your subject. By that, and by
+the other letters which I have sent you, you will be at once so
+thoroughly introduced into the best French company, that you must take
+some pains if you will keep bad; but that is what I do not suspect you
+of. You have, I am sure, too much right ambition to prefer low and
+disgraceful company to that of your superiors, both in rank and age. Your
+character, and consequently your fortune, absolutely depends upon the
+company you keep, and the turn you take at Paris. I do not in the least
+mean a grave turn; on the contrary, a gay, a sprightly, but, at the same
+time, an elegant and liberal one.
+
+Keep carefully out of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character
+extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France; where a man is
+dishonored by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting
+it. The young Frenchmen are hasty, giddy, and petulant; extremely
+national, and 'avantageux'. Forbear from any national jokes or
+reflections, which are always improper, and commonly unjust. The colder
+northern nations generally look upon France as a whistling, singing,
+dancing, frivolous nation; this notion is very far from being a true one,
+though many 'Petits maitres' by their behavior seem to justify it; but
+those very 'petits maltres', when mellowed by age and experience, very
+often turn out very able men. The number of great generals and statesmen,
+as well as excellent authors, that France has produced, is an undeniable
+proof, that it is not that frivolous, unthinking, empty nation that
+northern prejudices suppose it. Seem to like and approve of everything at
+first, and I promise you that you will like and approve of many things
+afterward.
+
+I expect that you will write to me constantly, once every week, which I
+desire may be every Thursday; and that your letters may inform me of your
+personal transactions: not of what you see, but of whom you see, and what
+you do.
+
+Be your own monitor, now that you will have no other. As to enunciation,
+I must repeat it to you again and again, that there is no one thing so
+necessary: all other talents, without that, are absolutely useless,
+except in your own closet.
+
+It sounds ridiculously to bid you study with your dancing-master; and yet
+I do. The bodily-carriage and graces are of infinite consequence to
+everybody, and more particularly to you.
+
+Adieu for this time, my dear child. Yours tenderly.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXIII
+
+LONDON, November 12, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You will possibly think, that this letter turns upon
+strange, little, trifling objects; and you will think right, if you
+consider them separately; but if you take them aggregately, you will be
+convinced that as parts, which conspire to form that whole, called the
+exterior of a man of fashion, they are of importance. I shall not dwell
+now upon these personal graces, that liberal air, and that engaging
+address, which I have so often recommended to you; but descend still
+lower, to your dress, cleanliness, and care of your person.
+
+When you come to Paris, you may take care to be extremely well dressed;
+that is, as the fashionable people are; this does by no means consist in
+the finery, but in the taste, fitness, and manner of wearing your
+clothes; a fine suit ill-made, and slatternly or stiffly worn, far from
+adorning, only exposes the awkwardness of the wearer. Get the best French
+tailor to make your clothes, whatever they are, in the fashion, and to
+fit you: and then wear them, button them, or unbutton them, as the
+genteelest people you see do. Let your man learn of the best friseur to
+do your hair well, for that is a very material part of your dress. Take
+care to have your stockings well gartered up, and your shoes well
+buckled; for nothing gives a more slovenly air to a man than ill-dressed
+legs. In your person you must be accurately clean; and your teeth, hands,
+and nails, should be superlatively so; a dirty mouth has real ill
+consequences to the owner, for it infallibly causes the decay, as well as
+the intolerable pain of the teeth, and it is very offensive to his
+acquaintance, for it will most inevitably stink. I insist, therefore,
+that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a
+soft sponge and swarm water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your
+mouth five or six times. Mouton, whom I desire you will send for upon
+your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used
+sometimes. Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, than dirty
+hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails: I do not suspect you of that
+shocking, awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough: you
+must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not tipped with black, as
+the ordinary people's always are. The ends of your nails should be small
+segments of circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting, they
+are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your hands, rub the
+skin round your nails backward, that it may not grow up, and shorten your
+nails too much. The cleanliness of the rest of your person, which, by the
+way, will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to time to
+the bagnio. My mentioning these particulars arises (I freely own) from
+some suspicion that the hints are not unnecessary; for, when you were a
+schoolboy, you were slovenly and dirty above your fellows. I must add
+another caution, which is that upon no account whatever, you put your
+fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears. It is
+the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness, that can be offered to
+company; it disgusts one, it turns one's stomach; and, for my own part, I
+would much rather know that a man's fingers were actually in his breech,
+than see them in his nose. Wash your ears well every morning, and blow
+your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion; but, by the
+way, without looking at it afterward. There should be in the least, as
+well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, 'les manieres nobles'.
+Sense will teach you some, observation others; attend carefully to the
+manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion, and
+form your own upon them. On the other hand, observe a little those of the
+vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things which they say or
+do may be the same, the manner is always totally different: and in that,
+and nothing else, consists the characteristic of a man of fashion. The
+lowest peasant speaks, moves, dresses, eats, and drinks, as much as a man
+of the first fashion, but does them all quite differently; so that by
+doing and saying most things in a manner opposite to that of the vulgar,
+you have a great chance of doing and saying them right. There are
+gradations in awkwardness and vulgarism, as there are in everything else.
+'Les manieres de robe', though not quite right, are still better than
+'les manieres bourgeoises'; and these, though bad, are still better than
+'les manieres de campagne'. But the language, the air, the dress, and the
+manners of the court, are the only true standard 'des manieres nobles, et
+d'un honnete homme. Ex pede Herculem' is an old and true saying, and very
+applicable to our present subject; for a man of parts, who has been bred
+at courts, and used to keep the best company, will distinguish himself,
+and is to be known from the vulgar by every word, attitude, gesture, and
+even look. I cannot leave these seeming 'minutiae', without repeating to
+you the necessity of your carving well; which is an article, little as it
+is, that is useful twice every day of one's life; and the doing it ill is
+very troublesome to one's self, and very disagreeable, often ridiculous,
+to others.
+
+Having said all this, I cannot help reflecting, what a formal dull
+fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would say, if they were to see this
+letter: they would look upon it with the utmost contempt, and say that
+surely a father might find much better topics for advice to a son. I
+would admit it, if I had given you, or that you were capable of
+receiving, no better; but if sufficient pains have been taken to form
+your heart and improve your mind, and, as I hope, not without success, I
+will tell those solid gentlemen, that all these trifling things, as they
+think them, collectively, form that pleasing 'je ne sais quoi', that
+ensemble, which they are utter strangers to both in themselves and
+others. The word aimable is not known in their language, or the thing in
+their manners. Great usage of the world, great attention, and a great
+desire of pleasing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle. It is from
+old people's looking upon these things as trifles, or not thinking of
+them at all, that so many young people are so awkward and so ill-bred.
+Their parents, often careless and unmindful of them, give them only the
+common run of education, as school, university, and then traveling;
+without examining, and very often without being able to judge, if they
+did examine, what progress they make in any one of these stages. Then,
+they carelessly comfort themselves, and say, that their sons will do like
+other people's sons; and so they do, that is, commonly very ill. They
+correct none of the childish nasty tricks, which they get at school; nor
+the illiberal manners which they contract at the university; nor the
+frivolous and superficial pertness, which is commonly all that they
+acquire by their travels. As they do not tell them of these things,
+nobody else can; so they go on in the practice of them, without ever
+hearing, or knowing, that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking.
+For, as I have often formerly observed to you, nobody but a father can
+take the liberty to reprove a young fellow, grown up, for those kinds of
+inaccuracies and improprieties of behavior. The most intimate friendship,
+unassisted by the paternal superiority, will not authorize it. I may
+truly say, therefore, that you are happy in having me for a sincere,
+friendly, and quick-sighted monitor. Nothing will escape me: I shall pry
+for your defects, in order to correct them, as curiously as I shall seek
+for your perfections, in order to applaud and reward them, with this
+difference only, that I shall publicly mention the latter, and never hint
+at the former, but in a letter to, or a tete-d-tete with you. I will
+never put you out of countenance before company; and I hope you will
+never give me reason to be out of countenance for you, as any one of the
+above-mentioned defects would make me. 'Praetor non, curat de minimis',
+was a maxim in the Roman law; for causes only of a certain value were
+tried by him but there were inferior jurisdictions, that took cognizance
+of the smallest. Now I shall try you, not only as 'praetor' in the
+greatest, but as 'censor' in lesser, and as the lowest magistrate in the
+least cases.
+
+I have this moment received Mr. Harte's letter of the 1st November, N.
+S., by which I am very glad to find that he thinks of moving toward
+Paris, the end of this month, which looks as if his leg were better;
+besides, in my opinion, you both of you only lose time at Montpelier; he
+would find better advice, and you better company, at Paris. In the
+meantime, I hope you go into the best company there is at Montpelier; and
+there always is some at the Intendant's, or the Commandant's. You will
+have had full time to learn 'les petites chansons Languedociennes', which
+are exceedingly pretty ones, both words and tunes. I remember, when I was
+in those parts, I was surprised at the difference which I found between
+the people on one side, and those on the other side of the Rhone. The
+Provencaux were, in general, surly, ill-bred, ugly, and swarthy; the
+Languedocians the very reverse: a cheerful, well-bred, handsome people.
+Adieu! Yours most affectionately.
+
+P. S. Upon reflection, I direct this letter to Paris; I think you must
+have left Montpelier before it could arrive there.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXIV
+
+LONDON, November 19, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I was very glad to find by your letter of the 12th, N.
+S., that you had informed yourself so well of the state of the French
+marine at Toulon, and of the commerce at Marseilles; they are objects
+that deserve the inquiry and attention of every man who intends to be
+concerned in public affairs. The French are now wisely attentive to both;
+their commerce is incredibly increased within these last thirty years;
+they have beaten us out of great part of our Levant trade; their East
+India trade has greatly affected ours; and, in the West Indies, their
+Martinico establishment supplies, not only France itself, but the
+greatest part of Europe, with sugars whereas our islands, as Jamaica,
+Barbadoes, and the Leeward, have now no other market for theirs but
+England. New France, or Canada, has also greatly lessened our fur and
+skin trade. It is true (as you say) that we have no treaty of commerce
+subsisting (I do not say WITH MARSEILLES) but with France. There was a
+treaty of commerce made between England and France, immediately after the
+treaty of Utrecht; but the whole treaty was conditional, and to depend
+upon the parliament's enacting certain things which were stipulated in
+two of the articles; the parliament, after a very famous debate, would
+not do it; so the treaty fell to the ground: however, the outlines of
+that treaty are, by mutual and tacit consent, the general rules of our
+present commerce with France. It is true, too, that our commodities which
+go to France, must go in our bottoms; the French having imitated in many
+respects our famous Act of Navigation, as it is commonly called. This act
+was made in the year 1652, in the parliament held by Oliver Cromwell. It
+forbids all foreign ships to bring into England any merchandise or
+commodities whatsoever, that were not of the growth and produce of that
+country to which those ships belonged, under penalty of the forfeiture of
+such ships. This act was particularly leveled at the Dutch, who were at
+that time the carriers of almost all Europe, and got immensely by
+freight. Upon this principle, of the advantages arising from freight,
+there is a provision in the same act, that even the growth and produce of
+our own colonies in America shall not be carried from thence to any other
+country in Europe, without first touching in England; but this clause has
+lately been repealed, in the instances of some perishable commodities,
+such as rice, etc., which are allowed to be carried directly from our
+American colonies to other countries. The act also provides, that
+two-thirds, I think, of those who navigate the said ships shall be
+British subjects. There is an excellent, and little book, written by the
+famous Monsieur Huet Eveque d'Avranches, 'Sur le Commerce des Anciens',
+which is very well worth your reading, and very soon read. It will give
+you a clear notion of the rise and progress of commerce. There are many
+other books, which take up the history of commerce where Monsieur
+d'Avranches leaves it, and bring it down to these times. I advise you to
+read some of them with care; commerce being a very essential part of
+political knowledge in every country; but more particularly in that which
+owes all its riches and power to it.
+
+I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I
+may call bad spelling ORTHOGRAPHY. You spell induce, ENDUCE; and
+grandeur, you spell grandURE; two faults of which few of my housemaids
+would have been guilty. I must tell you that orthography, in the true
+sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters; or a
+gentleman, that one false spelling may fix ridicule upon him for the rest
+of his life; and I know a man of quality, who never recovered the
+ridicule of having spelled WHOLESOME without the w.
+
+Reading with care will secure everybody from false spelling; for books
+are always well spelled, according to the orthography of the times. Some
+words are indeed doubtful, being spelled differently by different authors
+of equal authority; but those are few; and in those cases every man has
+his option, because he may plead his authority either way; but where
+there is but one right way, as in the two words above mentioned, it is
+unpardonable and ridiculous for a gentleman to miss it; even a woman of a
+tolerable education would despise and laugh, at a lover, who should send
+her an ill-spelled billet-doux. I fear and suspect, that you have taken
+it into your head, in most cases, that the matter is all, and the manner
+little or nothing. If you have, undeceive yourself, and be convinced
+that, in everything, the manner is full as important as the matter. If
+you speak the sense of an angel, in bad words and with a disagreeable
+utterance, nobody will hear you twice, who can help it. If you write
+epistles as well as Cicero, but in a very bad hand, and very ill-spelled,
+whoever receives will laugh at them; and if you had the figure of Adonis,
+with an awkward air and motions, it will disgust instead of pleasing.
+Study manner, therefore, in everything, if you would be anything. My
+principal inquiries of my friends at Paris, concerning you, will be
+relative to your manner of doing whatever you do. I shall not inquire
+whether you understand Demosthenes, Tacitus, or the 'Jus Publicum
+Imperii'; but I shall inquire, whether your utterance is pleasing, your
+style not only pure, but elegant, your manners noble and easy, your air
+and address engaging in short, whether you are a gentleman, a man of
+fashion, and fit to keep good company, or not; for, till I am satisfied
+in these particulars, you and I must by no means meet; I could not
+possibly stand it. It is in your power to become all this at Paris, if
+you please. Consult with Lady Hervey and Madame Monconseil upon all these
+matters; and they will speak to you, and advise you freely. Tell them,
+that 'bisogna compatire ancora', that you are utterly new in the world;
+that you are desirous to form yourself; that you beg they will reprove,
+advise, and correct you; that you know that none can do it so well; and
+that you will implicitly follow their directions. This, together with
+your careful observation of the manners of the best company, will really
+form you.
+
+Abbe Guasco, a friend of mine, will come to you as soon as he knows of
+your arrival at Paris; he is well received in the best companies there,
+and will introduce you to them. He will be desirous to do you any service
+he can; he is active and curious, and can give you information upon most
+things. He is a sort of 'complaisant' of the President Montesquieu, to
+whom you have a letter.
+
+I imagine that this letter will not wait for you very long at Paris,
+where I reckon you will be in about a fortnight. Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXV
+
+LONDON, December 24, 1750
+
+DEAR FRIEND: At length you are become a Parisian, and consequently must
+be addressed in French; you will also answer me in the same language,
+that I may be able to judge of the degree in which you possess the
+elegance, the delicacy, and the orthography of that language which is, in
+a manner, become the universal one of Europe. I am assured that you speak
+it well, but in that well there are gradations. He, who in the provinces
+might be reckoned to speak correctly, would at Paris be looked upon as an
+ancient Gaul. In that country of mode, even language is subservient to
+fashion, which varies almost as often as their clothes.
+
+The AFFECTED, the REFINED, the NEOLOGICAL, OR NEW FASHIONABLE STYLE are
+at present too much in vogue at Paris. Know, observe, and occasionally
+converse (if you please) according to those different styles; but do not
+let your taste be infected by them. Wit, too, is there subservient to
+fashion; and actually, at Paris, one must have wit, even in despite of
+Minerva. Everybody runs after it; although if it does not come naturally
+and of itself; it never can be overtaken. But, unfortunately for those
+who pursue, they seize upon what they take for wit, and endeavor to pass
+it for such upon others. This is, at best, the lot of Ixion, who embraced
+a cloud instead of the goddess he pursued. Fine sentiments, which never
+existed, false and unnatural thoughts, obscure and far-sought
+expressions, not only unintelligible, but which it is even impossible to
+decipher, or to guess at, are all the consequences of this error; and
+two-thirds of the new French books which now appear are made up of those
+ingredients. It is the new cookery of Parnassus, in which the still is
+employed instead of the pot and the spit, and where quintessences and
+extracts ate chiefly used. N. B. The Attic salt is proscribed.
+
+You will now and then be obliged to eat of this new cookery, but do not
+suffer your taste to be corrupted by it. And when you, in your turn, are
+desirous of treating others, take the good old cookery of Lewis XIV.'s
+reign for your rule. There were at that time admirable head cooks, such
+as Corneille, Boileau, Racine, and La Fontaine. Whatever they prepared
+was simple, wholesome, and solid. But laying aside all metaphors, do not
+suffer yourself to be dazzled by false brilliancy, by unnatural
+expressions, nor by those antitheses so much in fashion: as a protection
+against such innovations, have a recourse to your own good sense, and to
+the ancient authors. On the other hand, do not laugh at those who give
+into such errors; you are as yet too young to act the critic, or to stand
+forth a severe avenger of the violated rights of good sense. Content
+yourself with not being perverted, but do not think of converting others;
+let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste, as well as in religion.
+Within the course of the last century and a half, taste in France has (as
+well as that kingdom itself) undergone many vicissitudes. Under the reign
+of I do not say Lewis XIII. but of Cardinal de Richelieu, good taste
+first began to make its way. It was refined under that of Lewis XIV., a
+great king, at least, if not a great man. Corneille was the restorer of
+true taste, and the founder of the French theatre; although rather
+inclined to the Italian 'Concetti' and the Spanish 'Agudeze'. Witness
+those epigrams which he makes Chimene utter in the greatest excess of
+grief.
+
+Before his time, those kind of itinerant authors, called troubadours or
+romanciers, were a species of madmen who attracted the admiration of
+fools. Toward the end of Cardinal de Richelieu's reign, and the beginning
+of Lewis XIV.'s, the Temple of Taste was established at the Hotel of
+Rambouillet; but that taste was not judiciously refined this Temple of
+Taste might more properly have been named a Laboratory of Wit, where good
+sense was put to the torture, in order to extract from it the most
+subtile essence. There it was that Voiture labored hard and incessantly
+to create wit. At length, Boileau and Moliere fixed the standard of true
+taste. In spite of the Scuderys, the Calprenedes, etc., they defeated and
+put to flight ARTAMENES, JUBA, OROONDATES, and all those heroes of
+romance, who were, notwithstanding (each of them), as good as a whole
+Army. Those madmen then endeavored to obtain an asylum in libraries; this
+they could not accomplish, but were under a necessity of taking shelter
+in the chambers of some few ladies. I would have you read one volume of
+"Cleopatra," and one of "Clelia"; it will otherwise be impossible for you
+to form any idea of the extravagances they contain; but God keep you from
+ever persevering to the twelfth.
+
+During almost the whole reign of Lewis XIV., true taste remained in its
+purity, until it received some hurt, although undesignedly, from a very
+fine genius, I mean Monsieur de Fontenelle; who, with the greatest sense
+and the most solid learning, sacrificed rather too much to the Graces,
+whose most favorite child and pupil he was. Admired with reason, others
+tried to imitate him; but, unfortunately for us, the author of the
+"Pastorals," of the "History of Oracles," and of the "French Theatre,"
+found fewer imitators than the Chevalier d'Her did mimics. He has since
+been taken off by a thousand authors: but never really imitated by anyone
+that I know of.
+
+At this time, the seat of true taste in France seems to me not well
+established. It exists, but torn by factions. There is one party of
+petits maitres, one of half-learned women, another of insipid authors
+whose works are 'verba et voces, et praeterea nihil'; and, in short, a
+numerous and very fashionable party of writers, who, in a metaphysical
+jumble, introduce their false and subtle reasonings upon the movements
+and the sentiments of THE SOUL, THE HEART, and THE MIND.
+
+Do not let yourself be overpowered by fashion, nor by particular sets of
+people with whom you may be connected; but try all the different coins
+before you receive any in payment. Let your own good sense and reason
+judge of the value of each; and be persuaded, that NOTHING CAN BE
+BEAUTIFUL UNLESS TRUE: whatever brilliancy is not the result of the
+solidity and justness of a thought, it is but a false glare. The Italian
+saying upon a diamond is equally just with regard to thoughts, 'Quanto
+Piu sodezza, tanto piu splendore'.
+
+All this ought not to hinder you from conforming externally to the modes
+and tones of the different companies in which you may chance to be. With
+the 'petits maitres' speak epigrams; false sentiments, with frivolous
+women; and a mixture of all these together, with professed beaux esprits.
+I would have you do so; for at your age you ought not to aim at changing
+the tone of the company, but conform to it. Examine well, however; weigh
+all maturely within yourself; and do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for
+the gold of Virgil.
+
+You will find at Paris good authors, and circles distinguished by the
+solidity of their reasoning. You will never hear TRIFLING, AFFECTED, and
+far-sought conversations, at Madame de Monconseil's, nor at the hotels of
+Matignon and Coigni, where she will introduce you. The President
+Montesquieu will not speak to you in the epigrammatic style. His book,
+the "Spirit of the Laws," written in the vulgar tongue, will equally
+please and instruct you.
+
+Frequent the theatre whenever Corneille, Racine, and Moliere's pieces are
+played. They are according to nature and to truth. I do not mean by this
+to give an exclusion to several admirable modern plays, particularly
+"Cenie,"--[Imitated in English by Mr. Francis, in a play called
+"Eugenia."]--replete with sentiments that are true, natural, and
+applicable to one's self. If you choose to know the characters of people
+now in fashion, read Crebillon the younger, and Marivaux's works. The
+former is a most excellent painter; the latter has studied, and knows the
+human heart, perhaps too well. Crebillon's 'Egaremens du Coeur et de
+l'Esprit is an excellent work in its kind; it will be of infinite
+amusement to you, and not totally useless. The Japanese history of
+"Tanzar and Neadarne," by the same author, is an amiable extravagancy,
+interspersed with the most just reflections. In short, provided you do
+not mistake the objects of your attention, you will find matter at Paris
+to form a good and true taste.
+
+As I shall let you remain at Paris without any person to direct your
+conduct, I flatter myself that you will not make a bad use of the
+confidence I repose in you. I do not require that you should lead the
+life of a Capuchin friar; quite the contrary: I recommend pleasures to
+you; but I expect that they shall be the pleasures of a gentleman. Those
+add brilliancy to a young man's character; but debauchery vilifies and
+degrades it. I shall have very true and exact accounts of your conduct;
+and, according to the informations I receive, shall be more, or less, or
+not at all, yours. Adieu.
+
+P. S. Do not omit writing to me once a-week; and let your answer to this
+letter be in French. Connect yourself as much as possible with the
+foreign ministers; which is properly traveling into different countries,
+without going from one place. Speak Italian to all the Italians, and
+German to all the Germans you meet, in order not to forget those two
+languages.
+
+I wish you, my dear friend, as many happy new years as you deserve, and
+not one more. May you deserve a great number!
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITORS BOOKMARKS:
+
+Absurd romances of the two last centuries
+Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue
+Ariosto
+Assurance and intrepidity
+Attention
+Author is obscure and difficult in his own language
+Characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed
+Collana
+Commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence
+Complaisance to every or anybody's opinion
+Conceal all your learning carefully
+Connections
+Contempt
+Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing
+Court mores
+Dance to those who pipe
+Dante
+Decides peremptorily upon every subject
+Desire to please, and that is the main point
+Desirous to make you their friend
+Despairs of ever being able to pay
+Difference in everything between system and practice
+Dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business
+Distinction between simulation and dissimulation
+Do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for the gold of Virgil
+Doing what may deserve to be written
+Done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done
+Dressed as the generality of people of fashion are
+Economist of your time
+Economists
+Establishing a character of integrity and good manners
+Feed him, and feed upon him at the same time
+Flattery
+Fortune stoops to the forward and the bold
+Frivolous and superficial pertness
+Gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight
+Guard against those who make the most court to you
+Have no pleasures but your own
+If you will persuade, you must first please
+Improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young
+Indiscriminately loading their memories with every part alike
+Insipid in his pleasures, as inefficient in everything else
+Labor more to put them in conceit with themselves
+Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it inviolably
+Leo the Tenth
+Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote
+Let nobody discover that you do know your own value
+Let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste
+Lying
+Man is dishonored by not resenting an affront
+Manner is full as important as the matter
+Method
+Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise
+Money, the cause of much mischief
+Montesquieu
+More people have ears to be tickled, than understandings to judg
+Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends
+Necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances
+Never affect the character in which you have a mind to shine
+Never put you out of countenance before company
+Never read history without having maps
+No one feels pleasure, who does not at the same time give it
+Not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife, unsuspected
+Often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment
+Passes for a wit, though he hath certainly no uncommon share
+Patient toleration of certain airs of superiority
+People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority
+People lose a great deal of time by reading
+Pleased with him, by making them first pleased with themselves
+Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal
+Pocket all your knowledge with your watch
+Put out your time, but to good interest
+Real merit of any kind will be discovered
+Resentment
+Respect without timidity
+Rich man never borrows
+Same coolness and unconcern in any and every company
+Seem to like and approve of everything at first
+Sentiments that were never felt, pompously described
+Shall be more, or less, or not at all, yours
+She has all the reading that a woman should have
+She who conquers only catches a Tartar
+Silence in love betrays more woe
+Spare the persons while you lash the crimes
+Steady assurance, with seeming modesty
+Suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgive
+Take the hue of the company you are with
+Taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit
+Tasso
+The present moments are the only ones we are sure of
+Those whom you can make like themselves better
+Timidity and diffidence
+To be heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure
+To be pleased one must please
+Trifle only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious
+Trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon
+Unwilling and forced; it will never please
+Well dressed, not finely dressed
+What is impossible, and what is only difficult
+What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you
+Whatever real merit you have, other people will discover
+Wish you, my dear friend, as many happy new years as you deserve
+Women choose their favorites more by the ear
+Words are the dress of thoughts
+Writing what may deserve to be read
+You must be respectable, if you will be respected
+Your character there, whatever it is, will get before you here
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to His Son, 1750
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
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+Title: Letters to His Son, 1750
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+
+Letters to His Son, 1750
+
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+
+
+
+                           LETTERS TO HIS SON
+                      By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+                     on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                            MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                                 and a
+
+                               GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+LETTER C
+
+LONDON, January 8, O. S.  1750
+
+DEAR BOY: I have seldom or never written to you upon the subject of
+religion and morality; your own reason, I am persuaded, has given you
+true notions of both; they speak best for themselves; but if they wanted
+assistance, you have Mr. Harte at hand, both for precept and example; to
+your own reason, therefore, and to Mr. Harte, shall I refer you for the
+reality of both, and confine myself in this letter to the decency, the
+utility, and the necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances of
+both.  When I say the appearances of religion, I do not mean that you
+should talk or act like a missionary or an enthusiast, nor that you
+should take up a controversial cudgel against whoever attacks the sect
+you are of; this would be both useless and unbecoming your age; but I
+mean that you should by no means seem to approve, encourage, or applaud,
+those libertine notions, which strike at religions equally, and which are
+the poor threadbare topics of halfwits and minute philosophers.  Even
+those who are silly enough to laugh at their jokes, are still wise enough
+to distrust and detest their characters; for putting moral virtues at the
+highest, and religion at the lowest, religion must still be allowed to be
+a collateral security, at least, to virtue, and every prudent man will
+sooner trust to two securities than to one.  Whenever, therefore, you
+happen to be in company with those pretended 'Esprits forts', or with
+thoughtless libertines, who laugh at all religion to show their wit, or
+disclaim it, to complete their riot, let no word or look of yours
+intimate the least approbation; on the contrary, let a silent gravity
+express your dislike: but enter not into the subject and decline such
+unprofitable and indecent controversies.  Depend upon this truth, that
+every man is the worse looked upon, and the less trusted for being
+thought to have no religion; in spite of all the pompous and specious
+epithets he may assume, of , 'Esprit fort', freethinker, or moral
+philosopher; and a wise atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his
+own interest and character in this world, pretend to some religion.
+
+Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife,
+unsuspected.  The least speck or blemish upon it is fatal.  Nothing
+degrades and vilifies more, for it excites and unites detestation and
+contempt.  There are, however, wretches in the world profligate enough to
+explode all notions of moral good and evil; to maintain that they are
+merely local, and depend entirely upon the customs and fashions of
+different countries; nay, there are still, if possible, more
+unaccountable wretches; I mean those who affect to preach and propagate
+such absurd and infamous notions without believing them themselves.
+These are the devil's hypocrites.  Avoid, as much as possible, the
+company of such people; who reflect a degree of discredit and infamy upon
+all who converse with them.  But as you may, sometimes, by accident, fall
+into such company, take great care that no complaisance, no good-humor,
+no warmth of festal mirth, ever make you seem even to acquiesce, much
+less to approve or applaud, such infamous doctrines.  On the other hand,
+do not debate nor enter into serious argument upon a subject so much
+below it: but content yourself with telling these APOSTLES that you know
+they are not, serious; that you have a much better opinion of them than
+they would have you have; and that, you are very sure, they would not
+practice the doctrine they preach.  But put your private mark upon them,
+and shun them forever afterward.
+
+There is nothing so delicate as your moral character, and nothing which
+it is your interest so much to preserve pure.  Should you be suspected of
+injustice, malignity, perfidy, lying, etc., all the parts and knowledge
+in the world will never procure you esteem, friendship, or respect.
+A strange concurrence of circumstances has sometimes raised very bad men
+to high stations, but they have been raised like criminals to a pillory,
+where their persons and their crimes, by being more conspicuous, are only
+the more known, the more detested, and the more pelted and insulted.
+If, in any case whatsoever, affectation and ostentation are pardonable,
+it is in the case of morality; though even there, I would not advise you
+to a pharisaical pomp of virtue.  But I will recommend to you a most
+scrupulous tenderness for your moral character, and the utmost care not
+to say or do the least thing that may ever so slightly taint it.  Show
+yourself, upon all occasions, the advocate, the friend, but not the bully
+of virtue.  Colonel Chartres, whom you have certainly heard of (who was,
+I believe, the most notorious blasted rascal in the world, and who had,
+by all sorts of crimes, amassed immense wealth), was so sensible of the
+disadvantage of a bad character, that I heard him once say, in his
+impudent, profligate manner, that though he would not give one farthing
+for virtue, he would give ten thousand pounds for a character; because he
+should get a hundred thousand pounds by it; whereas, he was so blasted,
+that he had no longer an opportunity of cheating people.  Is it possible,
+then, that an honest man can neglect what a wise rogue would purchase so
+dear?
+
+There is one of the vices above mentioned, into which people of good
+education, and, in the main, of good principles, sometimes fall, from
+mistaken notions of skill, dexterity, and self-defense, I mean lying;
+though it is inseparably attended with more infamy and loss than any
+other.  The prudence and necessity of often concealing the truth,
+insensibly seduces people to violate it.  It is the only art of mean
+capacities, and the only refuge of mean spirits.  Whereas, concealing the
+truth, upon proper occasions, is as prudent and as innocent, as telling a
+lie, upon any occasion, is infamous and foolish.  I will state you a case
+in your own department.  Suppose you are employed at a foreign court, and
+that the minister of that court is absurd or impertinent enough to ask
+you what your instructions are? will you tell him a lie, which as soon as
+found out (and found out it certainly will be) must destroy your credit,
+blast your character, and render you useless there?  No.  Will you tell
+him the truth then, and betray your trust?  As certainly, No.  But you
+will answer with firmness, That you are surprised at such a question,
+that you are persuaded he does not expect an answer to it; but that, at
+all events, he certainly will not have one.  Such an answer will give him
+confidence in you; he will conceive an opinion of your veracity, of which
+opinion you may afterward make very honest and fair advantages.  But if,
+in negotiations, you are looked upon as a liar and a trickster, no
+confidence will be placed in you, nothing will be communicated to you,
+and you will be in the situation of a man who has been burned in the
+cheek; and who, from that mark, cannot afterward get an honest livelihood
+if he would, but must continue a thief.
+
+Lord Bacon, very justly, makes a distinction between simulation and
+dissimulation; and allows the latter rather than the former; but still
+observes, that they are the weaker sort of politicians who have recourse
+to either.  A man who has strength of mind and strength of parts, wants
+neither of them.  Certainly (says he) the ablest men that ever were, have
+all had an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and
+veracity; but then, they were like horses well managed; for they could
+tell, passing well, when to stop or turn; and at such times, when they
+thought the case indeed required some dissimulation, if then they used
+it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good
+faith and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible.
+
+There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they
+reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurts nobody but
+themselves.  This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity,
+begotten upon folly: these people deal in the marvelous; they have seen
+some things that never existed; they have seen other things which they
+never really saw, though they did exist, only because they were thought
+worth seeing.  Has anything remarkable been said or done in any place,
+or in any company? they immediately present and declare themselves eye or
+ear witnesses of it.  They have done feats themselves, unattempted, or at
+least unperformed by others.  They are always the heroes of their own
+fables; and think that they gain consideration, or at least present
+attention, by it.  Whereas, in truth, all that they get is ridicule and
+contempt, not without a good degree of distrust; for one must naturally
+conclude, that he who will tell any lie from idle vanity, will not
+scruple telling a greater for interest.  Had I really seen anything so
+very extraordinary as to be almost incredible I would keep it to myself,
+rather than by telling it give anybody room to doubt, for one minute, of
+my veracity.  It is most certain, that the reputation of chastity is not
+so necessary for a women, as that of veracity is for a man; and with
+reason; for it is possible for a woman to be virtuous, though not
+strictly chaste, but it is not possible for a man to be virtuous without
+strict veracity.  The slips of the poor women are sometimes mere bodily
+frailties; but a lie in a man is a vice of the mind and of the heart.
+For God's sake be scrupulously jealous of the purity of your moral
+character; keep it immaculate, unblemished, unsullied; and it will be
+unsuspected.  Defamation and calumny never attack, where there is no weak
+place; they magnify, but they do not create.
+
+There is a very great difference between the purity of character, which I
+so earnestly recommend to you, and the stoical gravity and austerity of
+character, which I do by no means recommend to you.  At your, age,
+I would no more wish you to be a Cato than a Clodius.  Be, and be
+reckoned, a man of pleasure as well as a man of business.  Enjoy this
+happy and giddy time of your life; shine in the pleasures, and in the
+company of people of your own age.  This is all to be done, and indeed
+only can be done, without the least taint to the purity of your moral
+character; for those mistaken young fellows, who think to shine by an
+impious or immoral licentiousness, shine only from their stinking, like
+corrupted flesh, in the dark.  Without this purity, you can have no
+dignity of character; and without dignity of character it is impossible
+to rise in the world.  You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
+I have known people slattern away their character, without really
+polluting it; the consequence of which has been, that they have become
+innocently contemptible; their merit has been dimmed, their pretensions
+unregarded, and all their views defeated.  Character must be kept bright,
+as well as clean.  Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing.  In
+purity of character and in politeness of manners labor to excel all, if
+you wish to equal many.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CI
+
+LONDON, January 11, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Harte, of the 31st
+December, N. S., which I will answer soon; and for which I desire you to
+return him my thanks now.  He tells me two things that give me great
+satisfaction: one is that there are very few English at Rome; the other
+is, that you frequent the best foreign companies.  This last is a very
+good symptom; for a man of sense is never desirous to frequent those
+companies, where he is not desirous to please, or where he finds that he
+displeases; it will not be expected in those companies, that, at your
+age, you should have the 'Garbo', the 'Disinvoltura', and the
+'Leggiadria' of a man of five-and-twenty, who has been long used to keep
+the best companies; and therefore do not be discouraged, and think
+yourself either slighted or laughed at, because you see others, older and
+more used to the world, easier, more familiar, and consequently rather
+better received in those companies than yourself.  In time your turn will
+come; and if you do but show an inclination, a desire to please, though
+you should be embarrassed or even err in the means, which must
+necessarily happen to you at first, yet the will (to use a vulgar
+expression) will be taken for the deed; and people, instead of laughing
+at you, will be glad to instruct you.  Good sense can only give you the
+great outlines of good-breeding; but observation and usage can alone give
+you the delicate touches, and the fine coloring.  You will naturally
+endeavor to show the utmost respect to people of certain ranks and
+characters, and consequently you will show it; but the proper, the
+delicate manner of showing that respect, nothing but observation and time
+can give.
+
+I remember that when, with all the awkwardness and rust of Cambridge
+about me, I was first introduced into good company, I was frightened out
+of my wits.  I was determined to be, what I thought, civil; I made fine
+low bows, and placed myself below everybody; but when I was spoken to,
+or attempted to speak myself, 'obstupui, steteruntque comae, et vox
+faucibus haesit'.  If I saw people whisper, I was sure it was at me; and
+I thought myself the sole object of either the ridicule or the censure of
+the whole company, who, God knows, did not trouble their heads about me.
+In this way I suffered, for some time, like a criminal at the bar; and
+should certainly have renounced all polite company forever, if I had not
+been so convinced of the absolute necessity of forming my manners upon
+those of the best companies, that I determined to persevere and suffer
+anything, or everything, rather than not compass that point.  Insensibly
+it grew easier to me; and I began not to bow so ridiculously low, and to
+answer questions without great hesitation or stammering: if, now and
+then, some charitable people, seeing my embarrassment, and being
+'desoevre' themselves, came and spoke to me, I considered them as angels
+sent to comfort me, and that gave me a little courage.  I got more soon
+afterward, and was intrepid enough to go up to a fine woman, and tell her
+that I thought it a warm day; she answered me, very civilly, that she
+thought so too; upon which the conversation ceased, on my part, for some
+time, till she, good-naturedly resuming it, spoke to me thus: "I see your
+embarrassment, and I am sure that the few words you said to me cost you a
+great deal; but do not be discouraged for that reason, and avoid good
+company.  We see that you desire to please, and that is the main point;
+you want only the manner, and you think that you want it still more than
+you do.  You must go through your noviciate before you can profess good-
+breeding: and, if you will be my novice, I will present you my
+acquaintance as such."
+
+You will easily imagine how much this speech pleased me, and how
+awkwardly I answered it; I hemmed once or twice (for it gave me a bur in
+my throat) before I could tell her that I was very much obliged to her;
+that it was true, that I had a great deal of reason to distrust my own
+behavior, not being used to fine company; and that I should be proud of
+being her novice, and receiving her instructions.
+
+As soon as I had fumbled out this answer, she called up three or four
+people to her, and said: Savez-vous (for she was a foreigner, and I was
+abroad) que j'ai entrepris ce jeune homme, et qu'il le faut rassurer?
+Pour moi, je crois en avoir fait---- [Do you know that I have undertaken
+this young man, and he must be encouraged?  As for me, I think I have
+made a conquest of him; for he just now ventured to tell me, although
+tremblingly, that it is warm.  You will assist me in polishing him.  He
+must necessarily have a passion for somebody; if he does not think me
+worthy of being the object, he will seek out some other.  However, my
+novice, do not disgrace yourself by frequenting opera girls and
+actresses; who will not require of you sentiments and politeness, but
+will be your ruin in every respect.  I repeat it to you, my, friend, if
+you should get into low, mean company, you will be undone.  Those
+creatures will destroy your fortune and your health, corrupt your morals,
+and you will never acquire the style of good company.]
+
+The company laughed at this lecture, and I was stunned with it.  I did
+not know whether she was serious or in jest.  By turns I was pleased,
+ashamed, encouraged, and dejected.  But when I found afterward, that both
+she, and those to whom she had presented me, countenanced and protected
+me in company, I gradually got more assurance, and began not to be
+ashamed of endeavoring to be civil.  I copied the best masters, at first
+servilely, afterward more freely, and at last I joined habit and
+invention.
+
+All this will happen to you, if you persevere in the desire of pleasing
+and shining as a man of the world; that part of your character is the
+only one about which I have at present the least doubt.  I cannot
+entertain the least suspicion of your moral character; your learned
+character is out of question.  Your polite character is now the only
+remaining object that gives me the least anxiety; and you are now in the
+right way of finishing it.  Your constant collision with good company
+will, of course, smooth and polish you.  I could wish that you would say,
+to the five or six men or women with whom you are the most acquainted,
+that you are sensible that, from youth and inexperience, you must make
+many mistakes in good-breeding; that you beg of them to correct you,
+without reserve, wherever they see you fail; and that you shall take such
+admonition as the strongest proofs of their friendship.  Such a
+confession and application will be very engaging to those to whom you
+make them.  They will tell others of them, who will be pleased with that
+disposition, and, in a friendly manner, tell you of any little slip or
+error.  The Duke de Nivernois --[ At that time Ambassador from the Court
+of France to Rome.]-- would, I am sure, be charmed, if you dropped such a
+thing to him; adding, that you loved to address yourself always to the
+best masters.  Observe also the different modes of good-breeding of
+several nations, and conform yourself to them respectively.  Use an easy
+civility with the French, more ceremony with the Italians, and still more
+with the Germans; but let it be without embarrassment and with ease.
+Bring it by use to be habitual to you; for, if it seems unwilling and
+forced; it will never please.  'Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et res'.
+Acquire an easiness and versatility of manners, as well as of mind; and,
+like the chameleon, take the hue of the company you are with.
+
+There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who having lived always in
+the 'grande monde', and having possibly had some gallantries, together
+with the experience of five-and-twenty, or thirty years, form a young
+fellow better than all the rules that can be given him.  These women,
+being past their bloom, are extremely flattered by the least attention
+from a young fellow; and they will point out to him those manners and
+ATTENTIONS that pleased and engaged them, when they were in the pride of
+their youth and beauty.  Wherever you go, make some of those women your
+friends; which a very little matter will do.  Ask their advice, tell them
+your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not
+to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age; and the
+suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives.  I
+long for your picture, which Mr. Harte tells me is now drawing.  I want
+to see your countenance, your air, and even your dress; the better they
+all three are, the better I am not wise enough to despise any one of
+them.  Your dress, at least, is in your own power, and I hope that you
+mind it to a proper degree.  Yours, Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CII
+
+LONDON, January 18, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I consider the solid part of your little edifice as so
+near being finished and completed, that my only remaining care is about
+the embellishments; and that must now be your principal care too. Adorn
+yourself with all those graces and accomplishments, which, without
+solidity, are frivolous; but without which solidity is, to a great
+degree, useless.  Take one man, with a very moderate degree of knowledge,
+but with a pleasing figure, a prepossessing address, graceful in all that
+he says and does, polite, 'liant', and, in short, adorned with all the
+lesser talents: and take another man, with sound sense and profound
+knowledge, but without the above-mentioned advantages; the former will
+not only get the better of the latter, in every pursuit of every KIND,
+but in truth there will be no sort of competition between them.  But can
+every man acquire these advantages?  I say, Yes, if he please, suppose he
+is in a situation and in circumstances to frequent good company.
+Attention, observation, and imitation, will most infallibly do it.
+
+When you see a man whose first 'abord' strikes you, prepossesses you in
+his favor, and makes you entertain a good opinion of him, you do not know
+why, analyze that 'abord', and examine, within yourself, the several
+parts that composed it; and you will generally find it to be the result,
+the happy assemblage of modesty unembarrassed, respect without timidity,
+a genteel, but unaffected attitude of body and limbs, an open, cheerful,
+but unsmirking countenance, and a dress, by no means negligent, and yet
+not foppish.  Copy him, then, not servilely, but as some of the greatest
+masters of painting have copied others; insomuch that their copies have
+been equal to the originals, both as to beauty and freedom.  When you see
+a man who is universally allowed to shine as an agreeable, well-bred man,
+and a fine gentleman (as, for example, the Duke de Nivernois), attend to
+him, watch him carefully; observe in what manner he addresses himself to
+his superiors, how he lives with his equals, and how he treats his
+inferiors.  Mind his turn of conversation in the several situations of
+morning visits, the table, and the evening amusements.  Imitate, without
+mimicking him; and be his duplicate, but not his ape. You will find that
+he takes care never to say or do any thing that can be construed into a
+slight, or a negligence; or that can, in any degree, mortify people's
+vanity and self-love; on the contrary, you will perceive that he makes
+people pleased with him, by making them first pleased with themselves: he
+shows respect, regard, esteem and attention, where they are severally
+proper: he sows them with care, and he reaps them in plenty.
+
+These amiable accomplishments are all to be acquired by use and
+imitation; for we are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation.
+The great point is, to choose good models and to study them with care.
+People insensibly contract, not only the air, the manners, and the vices,
+of those with whom they commonly converse, but their virtues too, and
+even their way of thinking.  This is so true, that I have known very
+plain understandings catch a certain degree of wit, by constantly
+conversing with those who had a great deal.  Persist, therefore, in
+keeping the best company, and you will insensibly become like them; but
+if you add attention and observation, you will very soon become one of
+them.  The inevitable contagion of company shows you the necessity of
+keeping the best, and avoiding all other; for in everyone, something will
+stick.  You have hitherto, I confess, had very few opportunities of
+keeping polite company.  Westminster school is, undoubtedly, the seat of
+illiberal manners and brutal behavior.  Leipsig, I suppose, is not the
+seat of refined and elegant manners.  Venice, I believe, has done
+something; Rome, I hope, will do a great deal more; and Paris will, I
+dare say, do all that you want; always supposing that you frequent the
+best companies, and in the intention of improving and forming yourself;
+for without that intention nothing will do.
+
+I here subjoin a list of all those necessary, ornamental accomplishments
+(without which, no man living can either please, or rise in the world)
+which hitherto I fear you want, and which only require your care and
+attention to possess.
+
+To speak elegantly, whatever language you speak in; without which nobody
+will hear you with pleasure, and consequently you will speak to very
+little purpose.
+
+An agreeable and distinct elocution; without which nobody will hear you
+with patience: this everybody may acquire, who is not born with some
+imperfection in the organs of speech.  You are not; and therefore it is
+wholly in your power.  You need take much less pains for it than
+Demosthenes did.
+
+A distinguished politeness of manners and address; which common sense,
+observation, good company, and imitation, will infallibly give you if you
+will accept it.
+
+A genteel carriage and graceful motions, with the air of a man of
+fashion: a good dancing-master, with some care on your part, and some
+imitation of those who excel, will soon bring this about.
+
+To be extremely clean in your person, and perfectly well dressed,,
+according to the fashion, be that what it will: Your negligence of your
+dress while you were a schoolboy was pardonable, but would not be so now.
+
+Upon the whole, take it for granted, that without these accomplishments,
+all you know, and all you can do, will avail you very little.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIII
+
+LONDON, January 25, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have heard from you, that I suppose
+Rome engrosses every moment of your time; and if it engrosses it in the
+manner I could wish, I willingly give up my share of it.  I would rather
+'prodesse quam conspici'.  Put out your time, but to good interest; and I
+do not desire to borrow much of it.  Your studies, the respectable
+remains of antiquity, and your evening amusements cannot, and indeed
+ought not, to leave you much time to write.  You will, probably, never
+see Rome again; and therefore you ought to see it well now; by seeing it
+well, I do not mean only the buildings, statues, and paintings, though
+they undoubtedly deserve your attention: but I mean seeing into the
+constitution and government of it.  But these things certainly occur to
+your own common sense.
+
+How go, your pleasures at Rome?  Are you in fashion there? that is, do
+you live with the people who are? --the only way of being so yourself, in
+time.  Are you domestic enough in any considerable house to be called 'le
+petit Stanhope'?  Has any woman of fashion and good-breeding taken the
+trouble of abusing and laughing at you amicably to your face?  Have you
+found a good 'decrotteuse'.   For those are the steps by which you must
+rise to politeness.  I do not presume to ask if you have any attachment,
+because I believe you will not make me your confident; but this I will
+say, eventually, that if you have one, 'il faut bien payer d'attentions
+et de petits soin', if you would have your sacrifice propitiously
+received.  Women are not so much taken by beauty as men are, but prefer
+those men who show them the most attention.
+
+               Would you engage the lovely fair?
+               With gentlest manners treat her;
+               With tender looks and graceful air,
+               In softest accents greet her.
+
+               Verse were but vain, the Muses fail,
+               Without the Graces' aid;
+               The God of Verse could not prevail
+               To stop the flying maid.
+
+               Attention by attentions gain,
+               And merit care by cares;
+               So shall the nymph reward your pain;
+               And Venus crown your prayers.
+                                        Probatum est.
+
+
+A man's address and manner weigh much more with them than his beauty;
+and, without them, the Abbati and Monsignori will get the better of you.
+This address and manner should be exceedingly respectful, but at the same
+time easy and unembarrassed.  Your chit-chat or 'entregent' with them
+neither can, nor ought to be very solid; but you should take care to turn
+and dress up your trifles prettily, and make them every now and then
+convey indirectly some little piece of flattery.  A fan, a riband, or a
+head-dress, are great materials for gallant dissertations, to one who has
+got 'le ton leger et aimable de la bonne compagnie'.  At all events, a
+man had better talk too much to women, than too little; they take silence
+for dullness, unless where they think that the passion they have inspired
+occasions it; and in that case they adopt the notion, that
+
+                    Silence in love betrays more woe
+                    Than words, though ne'er so witty;
+                    The beggar that is dumb, we know,
+                    Deserves a double pity.
+
+'A propos' of this subject: what progress do you make in that language,
+in which Charles the Fifth said that he would choose to speak to his
+mistress?  Have you got all the tender diminutives, in 'etta, ina', and
+'ettina', which, I presume, he alluded to?  You already possess, and, I
+hope, take care not to forget, that language which he reserved for his
+horse.  You are absolutely master, too, of that language in which he said
+he would converse with men; French.  But, in every language, pray attend
+carefully to the choice of your words, and to the turn of your
+expression.  Indeed, it is a point of very great consequence.  To be
+heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure: words are the dress
+of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and
+dirt, than your person should.  By the way, do you mind your person and
+your dress sufficiently?  Do you take great care of your teeth?  Pray
+have them put in order by the best operator at Rome.  Are you be-laced,
+bepowdered, and be-feathered, as other young fellows are, and should be?
+At your age, 'il faut du brillant, et meme un peu de fracas, mais point
+de mediocre; il faut un air vif, aise et noble.  Avec les hommes, un
+maintien respectueux et en meme tems respectable; avec les femmes, un
+caquet leger, enjoue, et badin, mais toujours fort poli'.
+
+To give you an opportunity of exerting your talents, I send you, here
+inclosed, a letter of recommendation from Monsieur Villettes to Madame de
+Simonetti at Milan; a woman of the first fashion and consideration there;
+and I shall in my next send you another from the same person to Madame
+Clerici, at the same place.  As these two ladies' houses are the resort
+of all the people of fashion at Milan, those two recommendations will
+introduce you to them all.  Let me know, in due time, if you have
+received these two letters, that I may have them renewed, in case of
+accidents.
+
+Adieu, my dear friend! Study hard; divert yourself heartily; distinguish
+carefully between the pleasures of a man of fashion, and the vices of a
+scoundrel; pursue the former, and abhor the latter, like a man of sense.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIV
+
+LONDON, February 5, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Very few people are good economists of their fortune,
+and still fewer of their time; and yet of the two, the latter is the most
+precious.  I heartily wish you to be a good economist of both: and you
+are now of an age to begin to think seriously of those two important
+articles.  Young people are apt to think that they have so much time
+before them, that they may squander what they please of it, and yet have
+enough left; as very great fortunes have frequently seduced people to a
+ruinous profusion.  Fatal mistakes, always repented of, but always too
+late!  Old Mr. Lowndes, the famous Secretary of the Treasury in the
+reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to
+say,--TAKE CARE OF THE PENCE, AND THE POUNDS WILL TAKE CARE OF
+THEMSELVES.
+To this maxim, which he not only preached but practiced, his two grandsons
+at this time owe the very considerable fortunes that he left them.
+
+This holds equally true as to time; and I most earnestly recommend to you
+the care of those minutes and quarters of hours, in the course of the
+day, which people think too short to deserve their attention; and yet, if
+summed up at the end of the year, would amount to a very considerable
+portion of time.  For example: you are to be at such a place at twelve,
+by appointment; you go out at eleven, to make two or three visits first;
+those persons are not at home, instead of sauntering away that
+intermediate time at a coffeehouse, and possibly alone, return home,
+write a letter, beforehand, for the ensuing post, or take up a good book,
+I do not mean Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, or Newton, by way of
+dipping; but some book of rational amusement and detached pieces, as
+Horace, Boileau, Waller, La Bruyere, etc.  This will be so much time
+saved, and by no means ill employed.  Many people lose a great deal of
+time by reading: for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the
+absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never
+existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt,
+pompously described: the Oriental ravings and extravagances of the
+"Arabian Nights," and Mogul tales; or, the new flimsy brochures that now
+swarm in France, of fairy tales, 'Reflections sur le coeur et l'esprit,
+metaphysique de l'amour, analyse des beaux sentimens', and such sort of
+idle frivolous stuff, that nourishes and improves the mind just as much
+as whipped cream would the body.  Stick to the best established books in
+every language; the celebrated poets, historians, orators, or
+philosophers.  By these means (to use a city metaphor) you will make
+fifty PER CENT.  Of that time, of which others do not make above three or
+four, or probably nothing at all.
+
+Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness; they loll and
+yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin
+anything then, and that it will do as well another time.  This is a most
+unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge
+and business.  At your age, you have no right nor claim to laziness; I
+have, if I please, being emeritus.  You are but just listed in the world,
+and must be active, diligent, indefatigable.  If ever you propose
+commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence.  Never
+put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.
+
+Dispatch is the soul of business; and nothing contributes more to
+dispatch than method.  Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it
+inviolably, as far as unexpected incidents may allow.  Fix one certain
+hour and day in the week for your accounts, and keep them together in
+their proper order; by which means they will require very little time,
+and you can never be much cheated.  Whatever letters and papers you keep,
+docket and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you may
+instantly have recourse to any one.  Lay down a method also for your
+reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it be
+in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and
+unmethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different
+authors, upon different subjects.  Keep a useful and short commonplace
+book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic
+quotations.  Never read history without having maps and a chronological
+book, or tables, lying by you, and constantly recurred to; without which
+history is only a confused heap of facts.  One method more I recommend to
+you, by which I have found great benefit, even in the most dissipated
+part of my life; that is, to rise early, and at the same hour every
+morning, how late soever you may have sat up the night before.  This
+secures you an hour or two, at least, of reading or reflection before the
+common interruptions of the morning begin; and it will save your
+constitution, by forcing you to go to bed early, at least one night in
+three.
+
+You will say, it may be, as many young people would, that all this order
+and method is very troublesome, only fit for dull people, and a
+disagreeable restraint upon the noble spirit and fire of youth.  I deny
+it; and assert, on the contrary, that it will procure you both more time
+and more taste for your pleasures; and, so far from being troublesome to
+you, that after you have pursued it a month, it would be troublesome to
+you to lay it aside.  Business whets the appetite, and gives a taste to
+pleasure, as exercise does to food; and business can never be done
+without method; it raises the spirits for pleasures; and a SPECTACLE, a
+ball, an assembly, will much more sensibly affect a man who has employed,
+than a man who has lost, the preceding part of the day; nay, I will
+venture to say, that a fine lady will seem to have more charms to a man
+of study or business, than to a saunterer.  The same listlessness runs
+through his whole conduct, and he is as insipid in his pleasures, as
+inefficient in everything else.
+
+I hope you earn your pleasures, and consequently taste them; for, by the
+way, I know a great many men, who call themselves men of pleasure, but
+who, in truth, have none.  They adopt other people's indiscriminately,
+but without any taste of their own.  I have known them often inflict
+excesses upon themselves because they thought them genteel; though they
+sat as awkwardly upon them as other people's clothes would have done.
+Have no pleasures but your own, and then you will shine in them.  What
+are yours?  Give me a short history of them.  'Tenez-vous votre coin a
+table, et dans les bonnes compagnies? y brillez-vous du cote de la
+politesse, de d'enjouement, du badinage?  Etes-vous galant?  Filex-vous
+le parfait amour?  Est-il question de flechir par vos soins et par vos
+attentions les rigueurs de quelque fiere Princesse'?  You may safely
+trust me; for though I am a severe censor of vice and folly, I am a
+friend and advocate for pleasures, and will contribute all in my power to
+yours.
+
+There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in
+business.  In love, a man may lose his heart with dignity; but if he
+loses his nose, he loses his character into the bargain.  At table, a man
+may with decency have a distinguishing palate; but indiscriminate
+voraciousness degrades him to a glutton.  A man may play with decency;
+but if he games, he is disgraced.  Vivacity and wit make a man shine in
+company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. [see
+Mark Twain's identical advice in his 'Speeches'  D.W.]  Every virtue,
+they say, has its kindred vice; every pleasure, I am sure, has its
+neighboring disgrace.  Mark carefully, therefore, the line that separates
+them, and rather stop a yard short, than step an inch beyond it.
+
+I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I
+have in giving it you! and you may the more easily have it, as I give you
+none that is inconsistent with your pleasure.  In all that I say to you,
+it is your interest alone that I consider: trust to my experience; you
+know you may to my affection.  Adieu.
+
+I have received no letter yet from you or Mr. Harte.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CV
+
+LONDON, February 8, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You have, by this time, I hope and believe, made such a
+progress in the Italian language, that you can read it with ease; I mean,
+the easy books in it; and indeed, in that, as well as in every other
+language, the easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author
+is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think
+clearly.  This is, in my opinion, the case of a celebrated Italian
+author; to whom the Italians, from the admiration they have of him, have
+given the epithet of il divino; I mean Dante.  Though I formerly knew
+Italian extremely well, I could never understand him; for which reason I
+had done with him, fully convinced that he was not worth the pains
+necessary to understand him.
+
+The good Italian authors are, in my mind, but few; I mean, authors of
+invention; for there are, undoubtedly, very good historians and excellent
+translators.  The two poets worth your reading, and, I was going to say,
+the only two, are Tasso and Ariosto.  Tasso's 'Gierusalemme Liberata' is
+altogether unquestionably a fine poem, though--it has some low, and many
+false thoughts in it: and Boileau very justly makes it the mark of a bad
+taste, to compare 'le Clinquant Tasse a l' Or de Virgile'.  The image,
+with which he adorns the introduction of his epic poem, is low and
+disgusting; it is that of a froward, sick, puking child, who is deceived
+into a dose of necessary physic by 'du bon-bon'.  These verses are these:
+
+          "Cosi all'egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi
+          Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso:
+          Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,
+          E dall' inganno suo vita riceve."
+
+However, the poem, with all its faults about it, may justly be called a
+fine one.
+
+If fancy, imagination, invention, description, etc., constitute a poet,
+Ariosto is, unquestionably, a great one.  His "Orlando," it is true, is a
+medley of lies and truths--sacred and profane--wars, loves, enchantments,
+giants, madheroes, and adventurous damsels, but then, he gives it you
+very fairly for what it is, and does not pretend to put it upon you for
+the true 'epopee', or epic poem.  He says:
+
+          "Le Donne, i Cavalier, l'arme, gli amori
+          Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese, io canto."
+
+The connections of his stories are admirable, his reflections just, his
+sneers and ironies incomparable, and his painting excellent.  When
+Angelica, after having wandered over half the world alone with Orlando,
+pretends, notwithstanding,
+
+          "--- ch'el fior virginal cosi avea salvo,
+          Come selo porto dal matern' alvo."
+
+The author adds, very gravely, --
+
+          "Forse era ver, ma non pero credibile
+          A chi del senso suo fosse Signore."
+
+Astolpho's being carried to the moon by St. John, in order to look for
+Orlando's lost wits, at the end of the 34th book, and the many lost
+things that he finds there, is a most happy extravagancy, and contains,
+at the same time, a great deal of sense.  I would advise you to read this
+poem with attention.  It is, also, the source of half the tales, novels,
+and plays, that have been written since.
+
+The 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini is so celebrated, that you should read it;
+but in reading it, you will judge of the great propriety of the
+characters.  A parcel of shepherds and shepherdesses, with the TRUE
+PASTORAL' SIMPLICITY, talk metaphysics, epigrams, 'concetti', and
+quibbles, by the hour to each other.
+
+The Aminto del Tasso, is much more what it is intended to be, a pastoral:
+the shepherds, indeed, have their 'concetti' and their antitheses; but
+are not quite so sublime and abstracted as those in Pastor Fido.  I think
+that you will like it much the best of the two.
+
+Petrarca is, in my mind, a sing-song, love-sick poet; much admired,
+however, by the Italians: but an Italian who should think no better of
+him than I do, would certainly say that he deserved his 'Laura' better
+than his 'Lauro'; and that wretched quibble would be reckoned an
+excellent piece of Italian wit.
+
+The Italian prose-writers (of invention I mean) which I would recommend
+to your acquaintance, are Machiavello and Boccacio; the former, for the
+established reputation which he has acquired, of a consummate politician
+(whatever my own private sentiments may be of either his politics or his
+morality): the latter, for his great invention, and for his natural and
+agreeable manner of telling his stories.
+
+Guicciardini, Bentivoglio, Davila, etc., are excellent historians, and
+deserved being read with attention.  The nature of history checks, a
+little, the flights of Italian imaginations; which, in works of
+invention, are very high indeed.  Translations curb them still more: and
+their translations of the classics are incomparable; particularly the
+first ten, translated in the time of Leo the Tenth, and inscribed to him,
+under the title of Collana.  That original Collana has been lengthened
+since; and if I mistake not, consist now of one hundred and ten volumes.
+
+From what I have said, you will easily guess that I meant to put you upon
+your guard; and not let your fancy be dazzled and your taste corrupted by
+the concetti, the quaintnesses, and false thoughts, which are too much
+the characteristics of the Italian and Spanish authors.  I think you are
+in no great danger, as your taste has been formed upon the best ancient
+models, the Greek and Latin authors of the best ages, who indulge
+themselves in none of the puerilities I have hinted at.  I think I may
+say, with truth; that true wit, sound taste, and good sense, are now, as
+it were, engrossed by France and England.  Your old acquaintances, the
+Germans, I fear, are a little below them; and your new acquaintances, the
+Italians, are a great deal too much above them.  The former, I doubt,
+crawl a little; the latter, I am sure, very often fly out of sight.
+
+I recommended to you a good many years ago, and I believe you then read,
+La maniere de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit par le Pere
+Bouhours; and I think it is very well worth your reading again, now that
+you can judge of it better.  I do not know any book that contributes more
+to form a true taste; and you find there, into the bargain, the most
+celebrated passages, both of the ancients and the moderns, which refresh
+your memory with what you have formerly read in them separately.  It is
+followed by a book much of the same size, by the same author, entitled,
+'Suite des Pensees ingenieuses'.
+
+To do justice to the best English and French authors, they have not given
+into that false taste; they allow no thoughts to be good, that are not
+just and founded upon truth.  The age of Lewis XIV. was very like the
+Augustan; Boileau, Moliere, La Fontaine, Racine,, etc., established the
+true, and exposed the false taste.  The reign of King Charles II.
+(meritorious in no other respect) banished false taste out of England,
+and proscribed puns, quibbles, acrostics, etc.  Since that, false wit has
+renewed its attacks, and endeavored to recover its lost empire, both in
+England and France; but without success; though, I must say, with more
+success in France than in England.  Addison, Pope, and Swift, have
+vigorously defended the rights of good sense, which is more than can be
+said of their contemporary French authors, who have of late had a great
+tendency to 'le faux brillant', 'le raffinement, et l'entortillement'.
+And Lord Roscommon would be more in the right now, than he was then, in
+saying, that,
+
+          "The English bullion of one sterling line,
+          Drawn to French wire, would through whole pages shine."
+
+Lose no time, my dear child, I conjure you, in forming your taste, your
+manners, your mind, your everything; you have but two years' time to do
+it in; for whatever you are, to a certain degree, at twenty, you will be,
+more or less, all the rest of your life.  May it be a long and happy one.
+Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVI
+
+LONDON, February 22, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: If the Italian of your letter to Lady Chesterfield was
+all your own, I am very well satisfied with the progress which you have
+made in that language in so short a time; according to that gradation,
+you will, in a very little time more, be master of it.  Except at the
+French Ambassador's, I believe you hear only Italian spoke; for the
+Italians speak very little French, and that little generally very ill.
+The French are even with them, and generally speak Italian as ill; for I
+never knew a Frenchman in my life who could pronounce the Italian ce, ci,
+or ge, gi.  Your desire of pleasing the Roman ladies will of course give
+you not only the desire, but the means of speaking to them elegantly in
+their own language.  The Princess Borghese, I am told, speaks French both
+ill and unwillingly; and therefore you should make a merit to her of your
+application to her language.  She is, by a kind of prescription (longer
+than she would probably wish), at the head of the 'beau monde' at Rome;
+and can, consequently, establish or destroy a young fellow's fashionable
+character.  If she declares him 'amabile e leggiadro', others will think
+him so, or at least those who do not will not dare to say so.  There are
+in every great town some such women, whose rank, beauty, and fortune have
+conspired to place them at the head of the fashion.  They have generally
+been gallant, but within certain decent bounds.  Their gallantries have
+taught, both them and their admirers, good-breeding; without which they
+could keep up no dignity, but would be vilified by those very gallantries
+which put them in vogue.  It is with these women, as with ministers and
+favorites at court; they decide upon fashion and characters, as these do
+of fortunes and preferments.  Pay particular court, therefore, wherever
+you are, to these female sovereigns of the 'beau monde'; their
+recommendation is a passport through all the realms of politeness.
+But then, remember that they require minute officious attentions.  You
+should, if possible, guess at and anticipate all their little fancies and
+inclinations; make yourself familiarly and domestically useful to them,
+by offering yourself for all their little commissions, and assisting in
+doing the honors of their houses, and entering with seeming unction into
+all their little grievances, bustles, and views; for they are always
+busy.  If you are once 'ben ficcato' at the Palazzo Borghese, you twill
+soon be in fashion at Rome; and being in fashion will soon fashion you;
+for that is what you must now think of very seriously.
+
+I am sorry that there is no good dancing-master at Rome, to form your
+exterior air and carriage; which, I doubt, are not yet the genteelest in
+the world.  But you may, and I hope you will, in the meantime, observe
+the air and carriage of those who are reckoned to have the best, and form
+your own upon them.  Ease, gracefulness, and dignity, compose the air and
+address of a man of fashion; which is as unlike the affected attitudes
+and motions of a 'petit maitre', as it is to the awkward, negligent,
+clumsy, and slouching manner of a booby.
+
+I am extremely pleased with the account Mr. Harte has given me of the
+allotment of your time at Rome.  Those five hours every morning, which
+you employ in serious studies with Mr. Harte, are laid out with great
+interest, and will make you rich all the rest of your life.  I do not
+look upon the subsequent morning hours, which you pass with your
+Ciceroni, to be ill-disposed of; there is a kind of connection between
+them; and your evening diversions in good company are, in their way, as
+useful and necessary.  This is the way for you to have both weight and
+lustre in the world; and this is the object which I always had in view in
+your education.
+
+Adieu, my friend! go on and prosper.
+
+Mr. Grevenkop has just received Mr. Harte's letter of the 19th N. S.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVII
+
+LONDON, March 8, O. S.  1750
+
+Young as you are, I hope you are in haste to live; by living, I mean
+living with lustre and honor to yourself, with utility to society; doing
+what may deserve to be written, or writing what may deserve to be read; I
+should wish both.  Those who consider life in that light, will not idly
+lavish one moment.  The present moments are the only ones we are sure of,
+and as such the most valuable; but yours are doubly so at your age; for
+the credit, the dignity, the comfort, and the pleasure of all your future
+moments, depend upon the use you make of your present ones.
+
+I am extremely satisfied with your present manner of employing your time;
+but will you always employ it as well?  I am far from meaning always in
+the same way; but I mean as well in proportion, in the variation of age
+and circumstances.  You now, study five hours every morning; I neither
+suppose that you will, nor desire that you should do so for the rest of
+your life.  Both business and pleasure will justly and equally break in
+upon those hours.  But then, will you always employ the leisure they
+leave you in useful studies?  If you have but an hour, will you improve
+that hour, instead of idling it away?  While you have such a friend and
+monitor with you as Mr. Harte, I am sure you will.  But suppose that
+business and situations should, in six or seen months, call Mr. Harte
+away from you; tell me truly, what may I expect and depend upon from you,
+when left to yourself ?  May I be sure that you will employ some part of
+every day, in adding something to that stock of knowledge which he will
+have left you?  May I hope that you will allot one hour in the week to
+the care of your own affairs, to keep them in that order and method which
+every prudent man does?  But, above all, may I be convinced that your
+pleasures, whatever they may be, will be confined within the circle of
+good company, and people of fashion?  Those pleasures I recommend to you;
+I will promote them I will pay for them; but I will neither pay for, nor
+suffer, the unbecoming, disgraceful, and degrading pleasures (they should
+not be called pleasures), of low and profligate company.  I confess the
+pleasures of high life are not always strictly philosophical; and I
+believe a Stoic would blame, my indulgence; but I am yet no Stoic, though
+turned of five-and-fifty; and I am apt to think that you are rather less
+so, at eighteen.  The pleasures of the table, among people of the first
+fashion, may indeed sometimes, by accident, run into excesses: but they
+will never sink into a continued course of gluttony and drunkenness.
+The gallantry of high life, though not strictly justifiable, carries,
+at least, no external marks of infamy about it.  Neither the heart nor
+the constitution is corrupted by it; neither nose nor character lost by
+it; manners, possibly, improved.  Play, in good company, is only play,
+and not gaming; not deep, and consequently not dangerous nor
+dishonorable.  It is only the interacts of other amusements.
+
+This, I am sure, is not talking to you like an old man, though it is
+talking to you like an old friend; these are not hard conditions to ask
+of you.  I am certain you have sense enough to know how reasonable they
+are on my part, how advantageous they are on yours: but have you
+resolution enough to perform them?  Can you withstand the examples,
+and the invitations, of the profligate, and their infamous missionaries?
+For I have known many a young fellow seduced by a 'mauvaise honte', that
+made him ashamed to refuse.  These are resolutions which you must form,
+and steadily execute for yourself, whenever you lose the friendly care
+and assistance of your Mentor.  In the meantime, make a greedy use of
+him; exhaust him, if you can, of all his knowledge; and get the prophet's
+mantle from him, before he is taken away himself.
+
+You seem to like Rome.  How do you go on there?  Are you got into the
+inside of that extraordinary government?  Has your Abbate Foggini
+discovered many of those mysteries to you?  Have you made an acquaintance
+with some eminent Jesuits?  I know no people in the world more
+instructive.  You would do very well to take one or two such sort of
+people home with you to dinner every day.  It would be only a little
+'minestra' and 'macaroni' the more; and a three or four hours'
+conversation 'de suite' produces a thousand useful informations, which
+short meetings and snatches at third places do not admit of; and many of
+those gentlemen are by no means unwilling to dine 'gratis'.  Whenever you
+meet with a man eminent in any way, feed him, and feed upon him at the
+same time; it will not only improve you, but give you a reputation of
+knowledge, and of loving it in others.
+
+I have been lately informed of an Italian book, which I believe may be of
+use to you, and which, I dare say, you may get at Rome, written by one
+Alberti, about fourscore or a hundred years ago, a thick quarto.  It is
+a classical description of Italy; from whence, I am assured, that Mr.
+Addison, to save himself trouble, has taken most of his remarks and
+classical references.  I am told that it is an excellent book for a
+traveler in Italy.
+
+What Italian books have you read, or are you reading?  Ariosto.  I hope,
+is one of them.  Pray apply yourself diligently to Italian; it is so easy
+a language, that speaking it constantly, and reading it often, must, in
+six months more, make you perfect master of it: in which case you will
+never forget it; for we only forget those things of which we know but
+little.
+
+But, above all things, to all that you learn, to all that you say, and to
+all that you do, remember to join the Graces.  All is imperfect without
+them; with them everything is at least tolerable.  Nothing could hurt me
+more than to find you unattended by them.  How cruelly should I be
+shocked, if, at our first meeting, you should present yourself to me
+without them! Invoke them, and sacrifice to them every moment; they are
+always kind, where they are assiduously courted.  For God's sake, aim at
+perfection in everything: 'Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.
+Adieu.  Yours most tenderly.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVIII
+
+LONDON, March 19, O. S.  1750.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I acknowledge your last letter of the 24th February,
+N. S.  In return for your earthquake, I can tell you that we have had
+here more than our share of earthquakes; for we had two very strong ones
+in eight-and-twenty days.  They really do too much honor to our cold
+climate; in your warm one, they are compensated by favors from the sun,
+which we do not enjoy.
+
+I did not think that the present Pope was a sort of man to build seven
+modern little chapels at the expense of so respectable a piece of
+antiquity as the Coliseum.  However, let his Holiness's taste of 'virtu'
+be ever so bad, pray get somebody to present you to him before you leave
+Rome; and without hesitation kiss his slipper, or whatever else the
+etiquette of that Court requires.  I would have you see all those
+ceremonies; and I presume that you are, by this time, ready enough at
+Italian to understand and answer 'il Santo Padre' in that language.
+I hope, too, that you have acquired address and usage enough of the world
+to be presented to anybody, without embarrassment or disapprobation.
+If that is not yet quite perfect, as I cannot suppose it is entirely,
+custom will improve it daily, and habit at last complete it.  I have for
+some time told you, that the great difficulties are pretty well
+conquered.  You have acquired knowledge, which is the 'principium et
+fons'; but you have now a variety of lesser things to attend to, which
+collectively make one great and important object.  You easily guess that
+I mean the graces, the air, address, politeness, and, in short, the whole
+'tournure' and 'agremens' of a man of fashion; so many little things
+conspire to form that 'tournure', that though separately they seem too
+insignificant to mention, yet aggregately they are too material for me
+(who think for you down to the very lowest things) to omit.  For
+instance, do you use yourself to carve, eat and drink genteelly,
+and with ease?  Do you take care to walk, sit, stand, and present
+yourself gracefully?  Are you sufficiently upon your guard against
+awkward attitudes, and illiberal, ill-bred, and disgusting habits, such
+as scratching yourself, putting your fingers in your mouth, nose, and
+ears?  Tricks always acquired at schools, often too much neglected
+afterward; but, however, extremely ill-bred and nauseous.  For I do not
+conceive that any man has a right to exhibit, in company, any one
+excrement more than another.  Do you dress well, and think a little of
+the brillant in your person?  That, too, is necessary, because it is
+'prevenant'.  Do you aim at easy, engaging, but, at the same time, civil
+or respectful manners, according to the company you are in?  These, and a
+thousand other things, which you will observe in people of fashion better
+than I can describe them, are absolutely necessary for every man; but
+still more for you, than for almost any man living.  The showish, the
+shining, the engaging parts of the character of a fine gentleman, should
+(considering your destination) be the principal objects, of your present
+attention.
+
+When you return here, I am apt to think that you will find something
+better to do than to run to Mr. Osborne's at Gray's Inn, to pick up
+scarce books.  Buy good books and read them; the best books are the
+commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are
+not blockheads, for they may profit of the former.  But take care not to
+understand editions and title-pages too well.  It always smells of
+pedantry, and not always of learning.  What curious books I have--they
+are indeed but few--shall be at your service.  I have some of the old
+Collana, and the Machiavel of 1550.  Beware of the 'Bibliomanie'.
+
+In the midst of either your studies or your pleasures, pray never lose
+view of the object of your destination: I mean the political affairs of
+Europe.  Follow them politically, chronologically, and geographically,
+through the newspapers, and trace up the facts which you meet with there
+to their sources: as, for example, consult the treaties Neustadt and Abo,
+with regard to the disputes, which you read of every day in the public
+papers, between Russia and Sweden.  For the affairs of Italy, which are
+reported to be the objects of present negotiations, recur to the
+quadruple alliance of the year 1718, and follow them down through their
+several variations to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748; in which (by
+the bye) you will find the very different tenures by which the Infant Don
+Philip, your namesake, holds Parma and Placentia.  Consult, also, the
+Emperor Charles the Sixth's Act of Cession of the kingdoms of Naples and
+Sicily, being a point which, upon the death of the present King of Spain,
+is likely to occasion some disputes; do not lose the thread of these
+matters; which is carried on with great ease, but if once broken, is
+resumed with difficulty.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Harte, that I have sent his packet to Baron Firmian by
+Count Einsiedlen, who is gone from hence this day for Germany, and passes
+through Vienna in his way to Italy; where he is in hopes of crossing upon
+you somewhere or other.  Adieu, my friend.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIX
+
+LONDON, March 29, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are now, I suppose, at Naples, in a new scene of
+'Virtu', examining all the curiosities of Herculaneum, watching the
+eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, and surveying the magnificent churches and
+public buildings, by which Naples is distinguished.
+
+You have a court there into the bargain, which, I hope, you frequent and
+attend to.  Polite manners, a versatility of mind, a complaisance even to
+enemies, and the 'volto sciolto', with the 'pensieri stretti', are only
+to be learned at courts, and must be well learned by whoever would either
+shine or thrive in them.  Though they do not change the nature, they
+smooth and soften the manners of mankind.  Vigilance, dexterity, and
+flexibility supply the place of natural force; and it is the ablest mind,
+not the strongest body that prevails there.  Monsieur and Madame Fogliani
+will, I am sure, show you all the politeness of courts; for I know no
+better bred people than they are.  Domesticate yourself there while you
+stay at Naples, and lay aside the English coldness and formality.  You
+have also a letter to Comte Mahony, whose house I hope you frequent, as
+it is the resort of the best company.  His sister, Madame Bulkeley, is
+now here; and had I known of your going so soon to Naples, I would have
+got you, 'ex abundanti', a letter from her to her brother.  The
+conversation of the moderns in the evening is full as necessary for you,
+as that of the ancients in the morning.
+
+You would do well, while you are at Naples, to read some very short
+history of that kingdom.  It has had great variety of masters, and has
+occasioned many wars; the general history of which will enable you to ask
+many proper questions, and to receive useful informations in return.
+Inquire into the manner and form of that government; for constitution it
+has none, being an absolute one; but the most absolute governments have
+certain customs and forms, which are more or less observed by their
+respective tyrants.  In China it is the fashion for the emperors,
+absolute as they are, to govern with justice and equity; as in the other
+Oriental monarchies, it is the custom to govern by violence and cruelty.
+The King of France, as absolute, in fact, as any of them, is by custom
+only more gentle; for I know of no constitutional bar to his will.
+England is now, the only monarchy in the world, that can properly be said
+to have a constitution; for the people's rights and liberties are secured
+by laws; and I cannot reckon Sweden and Poland to be monarchies, those
+two kings having little more to say than the Doge of Venice.  I do not
+presume to say anything of the constitution of the empire to you, who are
+'jurisperitorum Germanicorum facile princeps'.
+
+When you write to me, which, by the way, you do pretty seldom, tell me
+rather whom you see, than what you see.  Inform me of your evening
+transactions and acquaintances; where, and how you pass your evenings;
+what people of learning you have made acquaintance with; and, if you will
+trust me with so important an affair, what belle passion inflames you.
+I interest myself most in what personally concerns you most; and this is
+a very critical year in your life.  To talk like a virtuoso, your canvas
+is, I think, a good one, and RAPHAEL HARTE has drawn the outlines
+admirably; nothing is now wanting but the coloring of Titian, and the
+Graces, the 'morbidezza' of Guido; but that is a great deal.  You must
+get them soon, or you will never get them at all.  'Per la lingua
+Italiana, sono sicuro ch'ella n'e adesso professore, a segno tale ch'io
+non ardisca dirle altra cosa in quela lingua se non.  Addio'.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CX
+
+LONDON, April 26, O. S.  1756.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  As your journey to Paris approaches, and as that period
+will, one way or another, be of infinite consequence to you, my letters
+will henceforward be principally calculated for that meridian.  You will
+be left there to your own discretion, instead of Mr. Harte's, and you
+will allow me, I am sure, to distrust a little the discretion of
+eighteen.  You will find in the Academy a number of young fellows much
+less discreet than yourself.  These will all be your acquaintances; but
+look about you first, and inquire into their respective characters,
+before you form any connections among them; and, 'caeteris paribus',
+single out those of the most considerable rank and family.  Show them a
+distinguishing attention; by which means you will get into their
+respective houses, and keep the best company.  All those French young
+fellows are excessively 'etourdis'; be upon your guard against scrapes
+and quarrels; have no corporal pleasantries with them, no 'jeux de
+mains', no 'coups de chambriere', which frequently bring on quarrels.
+Be as lively as they, if you please, but at the same time be a little
+wiser than they.  As to letters, you will find most of them ignorant;
+do not reproach them with that ignorance, nor make them feel your
+superiority.  It is not their faults, they are all bred up for the army;
+but, on the other, hand, do not allow their ignorance and idleness to
+break in upon those morning hours which you may be able to allot to your
+serious, studies.  No breakfastings with them, which consume a great deal
+of time; but tell them (not magisterially and sententiously) that you
+will read two or three hours in the morning, and that for the rest of the
+day you are very much at their service.  Though, by the way, I hope you
+will keep wiser company in the evenings.
+
+I must insist upon your never going to what is called the English coffee-
+house at Paris, which is the resort of all the scrub English, and also of
+the fugitive and attainted Scotch and Irish; party quarrels and drunken
+squabbles are very frequent there; and I do not know a more degrading
+place in all Paris.  Coffee-houses and taverns are by no means creditable
+at Paris.  Be cautiously upon your guard against the infinite number of
+fine-dressed and fine-spoken 'chevaliers d'industrie' and 'avanturiers'
+which swarm at Paris: and keep everybody civilly at arm's length, of
+whose real character or rank you are not previously informed.  Monsieur
+le Comte or Monsieur le Chevalier, in a handsome laced coat, 'et tres
+bien mis', accosts you at the play, or some other public place; he
+conceives at first sight an infinite regard for you: he sees that you are
+a stranger of the first distinction; he offers you his services, and
+wishes nothing more ardently than to contribute, as far as may be in his
+little power, to procure you 'les agremens de Paris'.  He is acquainted
+with some ladies of condition, 'qui prefrent une petite societe agreable,
+et des petits soupers aimables d'honnetes gens, au tumulte et a la
+dissipation de Paris'; and he will with the greatest pleasure imaginable
+have the honor of introducing you to those ladies of quality.  Well, if
+you were to accept of this kind offer, and go with him, you would find
+'au troisieme; a handsome, painted and p----d strumpet, in a tarnished
+silver or gold second-hand robe, playing a sham party at cards for
+livres, with three or four sharpers well dressed enough, and dignified by
+the titles of Marquis, Comte, and Chevalier.  The lady receives you in
+the most polite and gracious manner, and with all those 'complimens de
+routine' which every French woman has equally.  Though she loves
+retirement, and shuns 'le grande monde', yet she confesses herself
+obliged to the Marquis for having procured her so inestimable, so
+accomplished an acquaintance as yourself; but her concern is how to amuse
+you: for she never suffers play at her house for above a livre; if you
+can amuse yourself with that low play till supper, 'a la bonne heure'.
+Accordingly you sit down to that little play, at which the good company
+takes care that you shall win fifteen or sixteen livres, which gives them
+an opportunity of celebrating both your good luck and your good play.
+Supper comes up, and a good one it is, upon the strength of your being
+able to pay for it.  'La Marquise en fait les honneurs au mieux, talks
+sentiments, 'moeurs et morale', interlarded with 'enjouement', and
+accompanied with some oblique ogles, which bid you not despair in time.
+After supper, pharaoh, lansquenet, or quinze, happen accidentally to be
+mentioned: the Marquise exclaims against it, and vows she will not suffer
+it, but is at last prevailed upon by being assured 'que ce ne sera que
+pour des riens'.  Then the wished-for moment is come, the operation
+begins: you are cheated, at best, of all the money in your pocket, and if
+you stay late, very probably robbed of your watch and snuff-box, possibly
+murdered for greater security.  This I can assure you, is not an
+exaggerated, but a literal description of what happens every day to some
+raw and inexperienced stranger at Paris.  Remember to receive all these
+civil gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight, very
+coldly, and take care always to be previously engaged, whatever party
+they propose to you.  You may happen sometimes, in very great and good
+companies, to meet with some dexterous gentlemen, who may be very
+desirous, and also very sure, to win your money, if they can but engage
+you to play with them.  Therefore lay it down as an invariable rule never
+to play with men, but only with women of fashion, at low play, or with
+women and men mixed.  But, at the same time, whenever you are asked to
+play deeper than you would, do not refuse it gravely and sententiously,
+alleging the folly of staking what would be very inconvenient to one to
+lose, against what one does not want to win; but parry those invitations
+ludicrously, 'et en badinant'.  Say that, if you were sure to lose, you
+might possibly play, but that as you may as well win, you dread
+'l'embarras des richesses', ever since you have seen what an encumbrance
+they were to poor Harlequin, and that, therefore, you are determined
+never to venture the winning above two louis a-day; this sort of light
+trifling way of declining invitations to vice and folly, is more becoming
+your age, and at the same time more effectual, than grave philosophical
+refusals.  A young fellow who seems to have no will of his own, and who
+does everything that is asked of him, is called a very good-natured, but
+at the same time, is thought a very silly young fellow.  Act wisely, upon
+solid principles, and from true motives, but keep them to yourself, and
+never talk sententiously.  When you are invited to drink, say that you
+wish you could, but that so little makes you both drunk and sick, 'que le
+jeu me vaut pas la chandelle'.
+
+Pray show great attention, and make your court to Monsieur de la
+Gueriniere; he is well with Prince Charles and many people of the first
+distinction at Paris; his commendations will raise your character there,
+not to mention that his favor will be of use to you in the Academy
+itself.  For the reasons which I mentioned to you in my last, I would
+have you be interne in the Academy for the first six months; but after
+that, I promise you that you shall have lodgings of your own 'dans un
+hotel garni', if in the meantime I hear well of you, and that you
+frequent, and are esteemed in the best French companies.  You want
+nothing now, thank God, but exterior advantages, that last polish, that
+'tournure du monde', and those graces, which are so necessary to adorn,
+and give efficacy to, the most solid merit.  They are only to be acquired
+in the best companies, and better in the best French companies than in
+any other.  You will not want opportunities, for I shall send you letters
+that will establish you in the most distinguished companies, not only of
+the beau monde, but of the beaux esprits, too.  Dedicate, therefore, I
+beg of you, that whole year to your own advantage and final improvement,
+and do not be diverted from those objects by idle dissipations, low
+seduction, or bad example.  After that year, do whatever you please; I
+will interfere no longer in your conduct; for I am sure both you and I
+shall be safe then.  Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXI
+
+LONDON, April 30, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Mr. Harte, who in all his letters gives you some dash of
+panegyric, told me in his last a thing that pleases me extremely; which
+was that at Rome you had constantly preferred the established Italian
+assemblies to the English conventicles setup against them by dissenting
+English ladies.  That shows sense, and that you know what you are sent
+abroad for.  It is of much more consequence to know the 'mores multorem
+hominum' than the 'urbes'.  Pray continue this judicious conduct wherever
+you go, especially at Paris, where, instead of thirty, you will find
+above three hundred English, herding together and conversing with no one
+French body.
+
+The life of 'les Milords Anglois' is regularly, or, if you will,
+irregularly, this.  As soon as they rise, which is very late, they
+breakfast together, to the utter loss of two good morning hours.  Then
+they go by coachfuls to the Palais, the Invalides, and Notre-Dame; from
+thence to the English coffee-house, where they make up their tavern party
+for dinner.  From dinner, where they drink quick, they adjourn in
+clusters to the play, where they crowd up the stage, dressed up in very
+fine clothes, very ill-made by a Scotch or Irish tailor.  From the play
+to the tavern again, where they get very drunk, and where they either
+quarrel among themselves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the
+streets, and are taken up by the watch.  Those who do not speak French
+before they go, are sure to learn none there.  Their tender vows are
+addressed to their Irish laundress, unless by chance some itinerant
+Englishwoman, eloped from her husband, or her creditors, defrauds her of
+them.  Thus they return home, more petulant, but not more informed, than
+when they left it; and show, as they think, their improvement by
+affectedly both speaking and dressing in broken French:--
+
+                    "Hunc to Romane caveito."
+
+Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French;
+improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform
+cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to
+their vices.  Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for
+remonstrances do not suit with your age.  In French companies in general
+you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish
+yours in their faces.  People hate those who make them feel their own
+inferiority.  Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the
+company of les Gens d'Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them
+rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw it.  Your
+are then thought, from that seeming unwillingness, to have still more
+knowledge than it may be you really have, and with the additional merit
+of modesty into the bargain.  A man who talks of, or even hints at, his
+'bonnes fortunes', is seldom believed, or, if believed, much blamed;
+whereas a man who conceals with care is often supposed to have more than
+he has, and his reputation of discretion gets him others.  It is just so
+with a man of learning; if he affects to show it, it is questioned, and
+he is reckoned only superficial; but if afterward it appears that he
+really has it, he is pronounced a pedant.  Real merit of any kind, 'ubi
+est non potest diu celari'; it will be discovered, and nothing can
+depreciate it but a man's exhibiting it himself.  It may not always be
+rewarded as it ought, but it will always be known.  You will in general
+find the women of the beau monde at Paris more instructed than the men,
+who are bred up singly for the army, and thrown into it at twelve or
+thirteen years old; but then that sort of education, which makes them
+ignorant of books, gives them a great knowledge of the world, an easy
+address, and polite manners.
+
+Fashion is more tyrannical at Paris than in any other place in the world;
+it governs even more absolutely than their king, which is saying a great
+deal.  The least revolt against it is punished by proscription.  You must
+observe, and conform to all the 'minutiae' of it, if you will be in
+fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
+Get, therefore, at all events, into the company of those men and women
+'qui donnent le ton'; and though at first you should be admitted upon
+that shining theatre only as a 'persona muta', persist, persevere, and
+you will soon have a part given you.  Take great care never to tell in
+one company what you see or hear in another, much less to divert the
+present company at the expense of the last; but let discretion and
+secrecy be known parts of your character.  They will carry you much
+further, and much safer than more shining talents.  Be upon your guard
+against quarrels at Paris; honor is extremely nice there, though the
+asserting of it is exceedingly penal.  Therefore, 'point de mauvaises
+plaisanteries, point de jeux de main, et point de raillerie piquante'.
+
+Paris is the place in the world where, if you please, you may the best
+unite the 'utile' and the 'dulce'.  Even your pleasures will be your
+improvements, if you take them with the people of the place, and in high
+life.  From what you have hitherto done everywhere else, I have just
+reason to believe, that you will do everything that you ought at Paris.
+Remember that it is your decisive moment; whatever you do there will be
+known to thousands here, and your character there, whatever it is, will
+get before you here.  You will meet with it at London.  May you and I
+both have reason to rejoice at that meeting! Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXII
+
+LONDON, May 8, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: At your age the love of pleasures is extremely natural,
+and the enjoyment of them not unbecoming: but the danger, at your age,
+is mistaking the object, and setting out wrong in the pursuit.  The
+character of a man of pleasure dazzles young eyes; they do not see their
+way to it distinctly, and fall into vice and profligacy.  I remember a
+strong instance of this a great many years ago.  A young fellow,
+determined to shine as a man of pleasure, was at the play called the
+"Libertine Destroyed," a translation of 'Le Festin de Pierre' of
+Molieire's.  He was so struck with what he thought the fine character of
+the libertine, that he swore he would be the LIBERTINE DESTROYED.  Some
+friends asked him, whether he had not better content himself with being
+only the libertine, but without being DESTROYED? to which he answered
+with great warmth, "No, for that being destroyed was the perfection of
+the whole."  This, extravagant as it seems in this light, is really the
+case of many an unfortunate young fellow, who, captivated by the name of
+pleasures, rushes indiscriminately, and without taste, into them all, and
+is finally DESTROYED.  I am not stoically advising, nor parsonically
+preaching to you to be a Stoic at your age; far from it: I am pointing
+out to you the paths to pleasures, and am endeavoring only to quicken and
+heighten them for you.  Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and
+then you will taste them; but adopt none; trust to nature for genuine
+ones.  The pleasures that you would feel you must earn; the man who gives
+himself up to all, feels none sensibly.  Sardanapalus, I am convinced,
+never felt any in his life.  Those only who join serious occupations with
+pleasures, feel either as they should do.  Alcibiades, though addicted to
+the most shameful excesses, gave some time to philosophy, and some to
+business.  Julius Caesar joined business with pleasure so properly, that
+they mutually assisted each other; and though he was the husband of all
+the wives at Rome, he found time to be one of the best scholars, almost
+the best orator, and absolutely the best general there.  An uninterrupted
+life of pleasures is as insipid as contemptible.  Some hours given every
+day to serious business must whet both the mind and the senses, to enjoy
+those of pleasure.  A surfeited glutton, an emaciated sot, and an
+enervated rotten whoremaster, never enjoy the pleasures to which they
+devote themselves; but they are only so many human sacrifices to false
+gods.  The pleasures of low life are all of this mistaken, merely
+sensual, and disgraceful nature; whereas, those of high life, and in good
+company (though possibly in themselves not more moral) are more delicate,
+more refined, less dangerous, and less disgraceful; and, in the common
+course of things, not reckoned disgraceful at all.  In short, pleasure
+must not, nay, cannot, be the business of a man of sense and character;
+but it may be, and is, his relief, his reward.  It is particularly so
+with regard to the women; who have the utmost contempt for those men,
+that, having no character nor consideration with their own sex,
+frivolously pass their whole time in 'ruelles' and at 'toilettes'.  They
+look upon them as their lumber, and remove them whenever they can get
+better furniture.  Women choose their favorites more by the ear than by
+any other of their senses or even their understandings.  The man whom
+they hear the most commended by the men, will always be the best received
+by them.  Such a conquest flatters their vanity, and vanity is their
+universal, if not their strongest passion.  A distinguished shining
+character is irresistible with them; they crowd to, nay, they even
+quarrel for the danger in hopes of the triumph.  Though, by the way (to
+use a vulgar expression), she who conquers only catches a Tartar, and
+becomes the slave of her captive.  'Mais c'est la leur affaire'.  Divide
+your time between useful occupations and elegant pleasures.  The morning
+seems to belong to study, business, or serious conversations with men of
+learning and figure; not that I exclude an occasional hour at a toilette.
+From sitting down to dinner, the proper business of the day is pleasure,
+unless real business, which must never be postponed for pleasure, happens
+accidentally to interfere.  In good company, the pleasures of the table
+are always carried to a certain point of delicacy and gratification, but
+never to excess and riot.  Plays, operas, balls, suppers, gay
+conversations in polite and cheerful companies, properly conclude the
+evenings; not to mention the tender looks that you may direct and the
+sighs that you may offer, upon these several occasions, to some
+propitious or unpropitious female deity, whose character and manners will
+neither disgrace nor corrupt yours.  This is the life of a man of real
+sense and pleasure; and by this distribution of your time, and choice of
+your pleasures, you will be equally qualified for the busy, or the 'beau
+monde'.  You see I am not rigid, and do not require that you and I should
+be of the same age.  What I say to you, therefore, should have the more
+weight, as coming from a friend, not a father.  But low company, and
+their low vices, their indecent riots and profligacy, I never will bear
+nor forgive.
+
+I have lately received two volumes of treaties, in German and Latin, from
+Hawkins, with your orders, under your own hand, to take care of them for
+you, which orders I shall most dutifully and punctually obey, and they
+wait for you in my library, together with your great collection of rare
+books, which your Mamma sent me upon removing from her old house.
+
+I hope you not only keep up, but improve in your German, for it will be
+of great use to you when you cone into business; and the more so, as you
+will be almost the only Englishman who either can speak or understand it.
+Pray speak it constantly to all Germans, wherever you meet them, and you
+will meet multitudes of them at Paris.  Is Italian now become easy and
+familiar to you?  Can you speak it with the same fluency that you can
+speak German?  You cannot conceive what an advantage it will give you in
+negotiations to possess Italian, German, and French perfectly, so as to
+understand all the force and finesse of those three languages.  If two
+men of equal talents negotiate together, he who best understands the
+language in which the negotiation is carried on, will infallibly get the
+better of the other.  The signification and force of one single word is
+often of great consequence in a treaty, and even in a letter.
+
+Remember the GRACES, for without them 'ogni fatica e vana'.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIII
+
+LONDON, May 17, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your apprenticeship is near out, and you are soon to set
+up for yourself; that approaching moment is a critical one for you, and
+an anxious one for me.  A tradesman who would succeed in his way, must
+begin by establishing a character of integrity and good manners; without
+the former, nobody will go to his shop at all; without the latter, nobody
+will go there twice.  This rule does not exclude the fair arts of trade.
+He may sell his goods at the best price he can, within certain bounds.
+He may avail himself of the humor, the whims, and the fantastical tastes
+of his customers; but what he warrants to be good must be really so, what
+he seriously asserts must be true, or his first fraudulent profits will
+soon end in a bankruptcy.  It is the same in higher life, and in the
+great business of the world.  A man who does not solidly establish, and
+really deserve, a character of truth, probity, good manners, and good
+morals, at his first setting out in the world, may impose, and shine like
+a meteor for a very short time, but will very soon vanish, and be
+extinguished with contempt.  People easily pardon, in young men, the
+common irregularities of the senses: but they do not forgive the least
+vice of the heart.  The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather
+worse; always harder.  A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave
+will only be a greater knave as he grows older.  But should a bad young
+heart, accompanied with a good head (which, by the way, very seldom is
+the case), really reform in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of
+its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be
+thought prudential and political, but never sincere.  I hope in God, and
+I verily.  believe, that you want no moral virtue.  But the possession of
+all the moral virtues, in 'actu primo', as the logicians call it, is not
+sufficient; you must have them in 'actu secundo' too; nay, that is not
+sufficient neither--you must have the reputation of them also.  Your
+character in the world must be built upon that solid foundation, or it
+will soon fall, and upon your own head.  You cannot, therefore, be too
+careful, too nice, too scrupulous, in establishing this character at
+first, upon which your whole depends.  Let no conversation, no example,
+no fashion, no 'bon mot', no silly desire of seeming to be above, what
+most knaves, and many fools, call prejudices, ever tempt you to avow,
+excuse, extenuate, or laugh at the least breach of morality; but show
+upon all occasions, and take all occasions to show, a detestation and
+abhorrence of it.  There, though young, you ought to be strict; and there
+only, while young, it becomes you to be strict and severe.  But there,
+too, spare the persons while you lash the crimes.  All this relates, as
+you easily judge, to the vices of the heart, such as lying, fraud, envy,
+malice, detraction, etc., and I do not extend it to the little frailties
+of youth, flowing from high spirits and warm blood.  It would ill become
+you, at your age, to declaim against them, and sententiously censure a
+gallantry, an accidental excess of the table, a frolic, an inadvertency;
+no, keep as free from them yourself as you can: but say nothing against
+them in others.  They certainly mend by time, often by reason; and a
+man's worldly character is not affected by them, provided it be pure in
+all other respects.
+
+To come now to a point of much less, but yet of very great consequence at
+your first setting out.  Be extremely upon your guard against vanity, the
+common failing of inexperienced youth; but particularly against that kind
+of vanity that dubs a man a coxcomb; a character which, once acquired, is
+more indelible than that of the priesthood.  It is not to be imagined by
+how many different ways vanity defeats its own purposes.  One man decides
+peremptorily upon every subject, betrays his ignorance upon many, and
+shows a disgusting presumption upon the rest.  Another desires to appear
+successful among the women; he hints at the encouragement he has
+received, from those of the most distinguished rank and beauty, and
+intimates a particular connection with some one; if it is true, it is
+ungenerous; if false, it is infamous: but in either case he destroys the
+reputation he wants to get.  Some flatter their vanity by little
+extraneous objects, which have not the least relation to themselves; such
+as being descended from, related to, or acquainted with, people of
+distinguished merit and eminent characters.  They talk perpetually of
+their grandfather such-a-one, their uncle such-a-one, and their intimate
+friend Mr. Such-a-one, with whom, possibly, they are hardly acquainted.
+But admitting it all to be as they would have it, what then?  Have they
+the more merit for those accidents?  Certainly not.  On the contrary,
+their taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit; a
+rich man never borrows.  Take this rule for granted, as a never-failing
+one: That you must never seem to affect the character in which you have a
+mind to shine.  Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
+The affectation of courage will make even a brave man pass only for a
+bully; as the affectation of wit will make a man of parts pass for a
+coxcomb.  By this modesty I do not mean timidity and awkward bashfulness.
+On the contrary, be inwardly firm and steady, know your own value
+whatever it may be, and act upon that principle; but take great care to.
+let nobody discover that you do know your own value.  Whatever real merit
+you have, other people will discover, and people always magnify their own
+discoveries, as they lessen those of others.
+
+For God's sake, revolve all these things seriously in your thoughts,
+before you launch out alone into the ocean of Paris.  Recollect the
+observations that you have yourself made upon mankind, compare and
+connect them with my instructions, and then act systematically and
+consequentially from them; not 'au jour la journee'.  Lay your little
+plan now, which you will hereafter extend and improve by your own
+observations, and by the advice of those who can never mean to mislead
+you; I mean Mr. Harte and myself.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIV
+
+LONDON, May 24., O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 7th, N. S., from
+Naples, to which place I find you have traveled, classically, critically,
+and 'da virtuoso'.  You did right, for whatever is worth seeing at, all,
+is worth seeing well, and better than most people see it. It is a poor
+and frivolous excuse, when anything curious is talked of that one has
+seen, to say, I SAW IT, BUT REALLY I DID NOT MUCH MIND IT.  Why did they
+go to see it, if they would not mind it?  or why not mind it when they
+saw it?  Now that you are at Naples, you pass part of your time there
+'en honnete homme, da garbato cavaliere', in the court and the best
+companies.  I am told that strangers are received with the utmost
+hospitality at Prince -------'s, 'que lui il fait bonne chere, et que
+Madame la Princesse donne chere entire; mais que sa chair est plus que
+hazardee ou mortifiee meme'; which in plain English means, that she is
+not only tender, but rotten.  If this be true, as I am pretty sure it is,
+one may say to her in a little sense, 'juvenumque prodis, publics cura'.
+
+Mr. Harte informs me that you are clothed in sumptuous apparel; a young
+fellow should be so; especially abroad, where fine clothes are so
+generally the fashion.  Next to their being fine, they should be well
+made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat,
+if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as
+if it were a plain one.
+
+I thank you for your drawing, which I am impatient to see, and which I
+shall hang up in a new gallery that I am building at Blackheath, and very
+fond of; but I am still more impatient for another copy, which I wonder
+I have not yet received, I mean the copy of your countenance.  I believe,
+were that a whole length, it would still fall a good deal short of the
+dimensions of the drawing after Dominichino, which you say is about eight
+feet high; and I take you, as well as myself, to be of the family of the
+Piccolomini.  Mr. Bathurst tells me that he thinks you rather taller than
+I am; if so, you may very possibly get up to five feet eight inches,
+which I would compound for, though I would wish you five feet ten.  In
+truth, what do I not wish you, that has a tendency to perfection?  I say
+a tendency only, for absolute perfection is not in human nature, so that
+it would be idle to wish it.  But I am very willing to compound for your
+coming nearer to perfection than the generality of your contemporaries:
+without a compliment to you, I think you bid fair for that.  Mr. Harte
+affirms (and if it were consistent with his character would, I believe,
+swear) that you have no vices of the heart; you have undoubtedly a stock
+of both ancient and modern learning, which I will venture to say nobody
+of your age has, and which must now daily increase, do what you will.
+What, then, do you want toward that practicable degree of perfection
+which I wish you?  Nothing but the knowledge, the turn, and the manners
+of the world; I mean the 'beau monde'.  These it is impossible that you
+can yet have quite right; they are not given, they must be learned.  But
+then, on the other hand, it is impossible not to acquire them, if one has
+a mind to them; for they are acquired insensibly, by keeping good
+company, if one has but the least attention to their characters and
+manners.
+
+Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally
+converses with are.  He catches their air, their manners, and even their
+way of thinking.  If he observes with attention, he will catch them soon,
+but if he does not, he will at long run contract them insensibly.  I know
+nothing in the world but poetry that is not to be acquired by application
+and care.  The sum total of this is a very comfortable one for you, as it
+plainly amounts to this in your favor, that you now want nothing but what
+even your pleasures, if they are liberal ones, will teach you.  I
+congratulate both you and myself upon your being in such a situation,
+that, excepting your exercises, nothing is now wanting but pleasures to
+complete you.  Take them, but (as I am sure you will) with people of the
+first fashion, whereever you are, and the business is done; your
+exercises at Paris, which I am sure you will attend to, will supple and
+fashion your body; and the company you will keep there will, with some
+degree of observation on your part, soon give you their air, address,
+manners, in short, 'le ton de la bonne compagnie'.  Let not these
+considerations, however, make you vain: they are only between you and me
+but as they are very comfortable ones, they may justly give you a manly
+assurance, a firmness, a steadiness, without which a man can neither be
+well-bred, or in any light appear to advantage, or really what he is.
+They may justly remove all, timidity, awkward bashfulness, low diffidence
+of one's self, and mean abject complaisance to every or anybody's
+opinion.  La Bruyere says, very truly, 'on ne vaut dans ce monde, que ce
+que l'on veut valoir'.  It is a right principle to proceed upon in the
+world, taking care only to guard against the appearances and outward
+symptoms of vanity.  Your whole then, you see, turns upon the company you
+keep for the future.  I have laid you in variety of the best at Paris,
+where, at your arrival you will find a cargo of letters to very different
+sorts of people, as 'beaux esprils, savants, et belles dames'.  These, if
+you will frequent them, will form you, not only by their examples,
+advice, and admonitions in private, as I have desired them to do; and
+consequently add to what you have the only one thing now needful.
+
+Pray tell me what Italian books you have read, and whether that language
+is now become familiar to you.
+
+Read Ariosto and Tasso through, and then you will have read all the
+Italian poets who in my opinion are worth reading.  In all events, when
+you get to Paris, take a good Italian master to read Italian with you
+three times a week; not only to keep what you have already, which you
+would otherwise forget, but also to perfect you in the rest.  It is a
+great pleasure, as well as a great advantage, to be able to speak to
+people of all nations, and well, in their own language.  Aim at
+perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable;
+however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it,
+than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as
+unattainable.  'Magnis tamen excidit ausis' is a degree of praise which
+will always attend a noble and shining temerity, and a much better sign
+in a young fellow, than 'serpere humi, tutus nimium timidusque
+procellae'.  For men as well as women:
+
+               "---------born to be controlled,
+               Stoop to the forward and the bold."
+
+A man who sets out in the world with real timidity and diffidence has not
+an equal chance for it; he will be discouraged, put by, or trampled upon.
+But to succeed, a man, especially a young one, should have inward
+firmness, steadiness, and intrepidity, with exterior modesty and SEEMING
+diffidence.  He must modestly, but resolutely, assert his own rights and
+privileges.  'Suaviter in modo', but 'fortiter in re'.  He should have an
+apparent frankness and openness, but with inward caution and closeness.
+All these things will come to you by frequenting and observing good
+company.  And by good company, I mean that sort of company which is
+called good company by everybody of that place.  When all this is over,
+we shall meet; and then we will talk over, tete-a-tete, the various
+little finishing strokes which conversation and, acquaintance
+occasionally suggest, and which cannot be methodically written.
+
+Tell Mr. Harte that I have received his two letters of the 2d and 8th
+N. S., which, as soon as I have received a third, I will answer.  Adieu,
+my dear!  I find you will do.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXV
+
+LONDON, June 5, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your picture, which I have long waited
+for with impatience: I wanted to see your countenance from whence I am
+very apt, as I believe most people are, to form some general opinion of
+the mind.  If the painter has taken you as well as he has done Mr. Harte
+(for his picture is by far the most like I ever saw in my life), I draw
+good conclusions from your countenance, which has both spirit and finesse
+in it.  In bulk you are pretty well increased since I saw you; if your
+height has not increased in proportion, I desire that you will make haste
+to, complete it.  Seriously, I believe that your exercises at Paris will
+make you shoot up to a good size; your legs, by all accounts, seem to
+promise it.  Dancing excepted, the wholesome part is the best part of
+those academical exercises.  'Ils degraissent leur homme'.
+
+'A propos' of exercises, I have prepared everything for your reception at
+Monsieur de la Gueriniere's, and your room, etc., will be ready at your
+arrival.  I am sure you must be sensible how much better it will be for
+you to be interne in the Academy for the first six or seven months at
+least, than to be 'en hotel garni', at some distance from it, and obliged
+to go to it every morning, let the weather be what it will, not to
+mention the loss of time too; besides, by living and boarding in the
+Academy, you will make an acquaintance with half the young fellows of
+fashion at Paris; and in a very little while be looked upon as one of
+them in all French companies: an advantage that has never yet happened to
+any one Englishman that I have known.  I am sure you do not suppose that
+the difference of the expense, which is but a trifle, has any weight with
+me in this resolution.  You have the French language so perfectly, and
+you will acquire the French 'tournure' so soon, that I do not know
+anybody likely to pass their time so well at Paris as yourself.  Our
+young countrymen have generally too little French, and too bad address,
+either to present themselves, or be well received in the best French
+companies; and, as a proof of it, there is no one instance of an
+Englishman's having ever been suspected of a gallantry with a French
+woman of condition, though every French woman of condition is more than
+suspected of having a gallantry.  But they take up with the disgraceful
+and dangerous commerce of prostitutes, actresses, dancing-women, and that
+sort of trash; though, if they had common address, better achievements
+would be extremely easy.  'Un arrangement', which is in plain English a
+gallantry, is, at Paris, as necessary a part of a woman of fashion's
+establishment, as her house, stable, coach, etc.  A young fellow must
+therefore be a very awkward one, to be reduced to, or of a very singular
+taste, to prefer drabs and danger to a commerce (in the course of the
+world not disgraceful) with a woman of health, education, and rank.
+Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women and men, so
+surely as timidity and diffidence of himself.  If he thinks that he shall
+not, he may depend upon it he will not please.  But with proper endeavors
+to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain
+that he will.  How many people does one meet with everywhere, who, with
+very moderate parts, and very little knowledge, push themselves pretty
+far, simply by being sanguine, enterprising, and persevering?  They will
+take no denial from man or woman; difficulties do not discourage them;
+repulsed twice or thrice, they rally, they charge again, and nine times
+in ten prevail at last.  The same means will much sooner, and, more
+certainly, attain the same ends, with your parts and knowledge.  You have
+a fund to be sanguine upon, and good forces to rally.  In business
+(talents supposed) nothing is more effectual or successful, than a good,
+though concealed opinion of one's self, a firm resolution, and an
+unwearied perseverance.  None but madmen attempt impossibilities; and
+whatever is possible, is one way or another to be brought about.  If one
+method fails, try another, and suit your methods to the characters you
+have to do with.  At the treaty of the Pyrenees, which Cardinal Mazarin
+and Don Louis de Haro concluded, 'dans l'Isle des Faisans', the latter
+carried some very important points by his constant and cool perseverance.
+
+The Cardinal had all the Italian vivacity and impatience; Don Louis all
+the Spanish phlegm and tenaciousness.  The point which the Cardinal had
+most at heart was, to hinder the re-establishment of the Prince of Conde,
+his implacable enemy; but he was in haste to conclude, and impatient to
+return to Court, where absence is always dangerous.  Don Louis observed
+this, and never failed at every conference to bring the affair of the
+Prince of Conde upon the tapis.  The Cardinal for some time refused even
+to treat upon it.  Don Louis, with the same 'sang froid', as constantly
+persisted, till he at last prevailed: contrary to the intentions and the
+interest both of the Cardinal and of his Court.  Sense must distinguish
+between what is impossible, and what is only difficult; and spirit and
+perseverance will get the better of the latter.  Every man is to be had
+one way or another, and every woman almost any way.  I must not omit one
+thing, which is previously necessary to this, and, indeed, to everything
+else; which is attention, a flexibility of attention; never to be wholly
+engrossed by any past or future object, but instantly directed to the
+present one, be it what it will.  An absent man can make but few
+observations; and those will be disjointed and imperfect ones, as half
+the circumstance must necessarily escape him.  He can pursue nothing
+steadily, because his absences make him lose his way.  They are very
+disagreeable, and hardly to be tolerated in old age; but in youth they
+cannot be forgiven.  If you find that you have the least tendency to
+them, pray watch yourself very carefully, and you may prevent them now;
+but if you let them grow into habit, you will find it very difficult to
+cure them hereafter, and a worse distemper I do not know.
+
+I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been
+lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies
+than yourself.  The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris;
+where they are particularly kind to all strangers, who will be civil to
+them, and show a desire of pleasing.  But they must be flattered a
+little, not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their
+country, their manners, and their customs; which is but a very small
+price to pay for a very good reception.  Were I in Africa, I would pay it
+to a negro for his goodwill.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVI
+
+LONDON, June 11, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The President Montesquieu (whom you will be acquainted
+with at Paris), after having laid down in his book, 'De l'Esprit des
+Lois', the nature and principles of the three different kinds of
+government, viz, the democratical, the monarchical, and the despotic,
+treats of the education necessary for each respective form.  His chapter
+upon the education proper for the monarchical I thought worth
+transcribing and sending to you.  You will observe that the monarchy
+which he has in his eye is France:--
+
+"In monarchies, the principal branch of education is not taught in
+colleges or academies.  It commences, in some measure, at our setting out
+in the world; for this is the school of what we call honor, that
+universal preceptor, which ought everywhere to be our guide.
+
+"Here it is that we constantly hear three rules or maxims, viz : That we
+should have a certain nobleness in our virtues, a kind of frankness in
+our morals, and a particular politeness in our behavior.
+
+"The virtues we are here taught, are less what we owe to others, than to
+ourselves; they are not so much what draws us toward society, as what
+distinguishes us from our fellow-citizens.
+
+"Here the actions of men are judged, not as virtuous, but as shining; not
+as just, but as great; not as reasonable, but as extraordinary.
+
+"When honor here meets with anything noble in our actions, it is either a
+judge that approves them, or a sophister by whom they are excused.
+
+"It allows of gallantry, when united with the idea of sensible affection,
+or with that of conquest; this is the reason why we never meet with so
+strict a purity of morals in monarchies as in republican governments.
+
+"It allows of cunning and craft, when joined with the notion of greatness
+of soul or importance of affairs; as, for instance, in politics, with
+whose finenesses it is far from being offended.
+
+"It does not forbid adulation, but when separate from the idea of a large
+fortune, and connected only with the sense of our mean condition.
+
+"With regard to morals, I have observed, that the education of monarchies
+ought to admit of a certain frankness and open carriage.  Truth,
+therefore, in conversation, is here a necessary point.  But is it for the
+sake of truth.  By no means.  Truth is requisite only, because a person
+habituated to veracity has an air of boldness and freedom.  And, indeed,
+a man of this stamp seems to lay a stress only on the things themselves,
+not on the manner in which they are received.
+
+"Hence it is, that in proportion as this kind of frankness is commended,
+that of the common people is despised, which has nothing but truth and
+simplicity for its object.
+
+"In fine, the education of monarchies requires a certain politeness of
+behavior.  Man, a sociable animal, is formed to please in society; and a
+person that would break through the rules of decency, so as to shock
+those he conversed with, would lose the public esteem, and become
+incapable of doing any good.
+
+"But politeness, generally speaking, does not derive its original from so
+pure a source.  It arises from a desire of distinguishing ourselves.  It
+is pride that renders us polite; we are flattered with being taken notice
+of for a behavior that shows we are not of a mean condition, and that we
+have not been bred up with those who in all ages are considered as the
+scum of the people.
+
+"Politeness, in monarchies, is naturalized at court.  One man excessively
+great renders everybody else little.  Hence that regard which is paid to
+our fellow-subjects; hence that politeness, equally pleasing to those by
+whom, as to those toward whom, it is practiced; because it gives people
+to understand that a person actually belongs, or at least deserves to
+belong, to the court.
+
+"A court air consists in quitting a real for a borrowed greatness.  The
+latter pleases the courtier more than the former.  It inspires him with a
+certain disdainful modesty, which shows itself externally, but whose
+pride insensibly diminishes in proportion to his distance from the source
+of this greatness.
+
+"At court we find a delicacy of taste in everything; a delicacy arising
+from the constant use of the superfluities of life; from the variety, and
+especially the satiety of pleasures; from the multiplicity and even
+confusion of fancies, which, if they are not agreeable, are sure of being
+well received.
+
+"These are the things which properly fall within the province of
+education, in order to form what we call a man of honor, a man possessed
+of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of government.
+
+"Here it is that honor interferes with everything, mixing even with
+people's manner of thinking, and directing their very principles.
+
+"To this whimsical honor it is owing that the virtues are only just what
+it pleases; it adds rules of its own invention to everything prescribed
+to us; it extends or limits our duties according to its own fancy,
+whether they proceed from religion, politics, or morality.
+
+"There is nothing so strongly inculcated in monarchies, by the laws, by
+religion, and honor, as submission to the Prince's will, but this very
+honor tells us, that the Prince never ought to command a dishonorable
+action, because this would render us incapable of serving him.
+
+"Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but offered to fight
+him.  After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX., having sent
+orders to the governors in the several provinces for the Huguenots to be
+murdered, Viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the
+King: 'Sire, Among the inhabitants of this town, and your Majesty's
+troops, I could not find so much as one executioner; they are honest
+citizens and brave soldiers.  We jointly, therefore, beseech your Majesty
+to command our arms and lives in things that are practicable.' This great
+and generous soul looked upon a base action as a thing impossible.
+
+"There is nothing that honor more strongly recommends to the nobility,
+than to serve their Prince in a military capacity.  And indeed this is
+their favorite profession, because its dangers, its success, and even its
+miscarriages, are the road to grandeur.  Yet this very law, of its own
+making, honor chooses to explain; and in case of any affront, it requires
+or permits us to retire.
+
+"It insists also, that we should be at liberty either to seek or to
+reject employments; a liberty which it prefers even to an ample fortune.
+
+"Honor, therefore, has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to
+conform.  The chief of these are, that we are permitted to set a value
+upon our fortune, but are absolutely forbidden to set any upon our lives.
+
+"The second is, that when we are raised to a post or preferment, we
+should never do or permit anything which may seem to imply that we look
+upon ourselves as inferior to the rank we hold.
+
+"The third is, that those things which honor forbids are more rigorously
+forbidden, when the laws do not concur in the prohibition; and those it
+commands are more strongly insisted upon, when they happen not to be
+commanded by law."
+
+
+Though our government differs considerably from the French, inasmuch as
+we have fixed laws and constitutional barriers for the security of our
+liberties and properties, yet the President's observations hold pretty
+near as true in England as in France.  Though monarchies may differ a
+good deal, kings differ very little.  Those who are absolute desire to
+continue so, and those who are not, endeavor to become so; hence the same
+maxims and manners almost in all courts: voluptuousness and profusion
+encouraged, the one to sink the people into indolence, the other into
+poverty--consequently into dependence.  The court is called the world
+here as well as at Paris; and nothing more is meant by saying that a man
+knows the world, than that he knows courts.  In all courts you must
+expect to meet with connections without friendship, enmities without
+hatred, honor without virtue, appearances saved, and realities
+sacrificed; good manners with bad morals; and all vice and virtues so
+disguised, that whoever has only reasoned upon both would know neither
+when he first met them at court.  It is well that you should know the map
+of that country, that when you come to travel in it, you may do it with
+greater safety.
+
+From all this you will of yourself draw this obvious conclusion: That you
+are in truth but now going to the great and important school, the world;
+to which Westminster and Leipsig were only the little preparatory
+schools, as Marylebone, Windsor, etc., are to them.  What you have
+already acquired will only place you in the second form of this new
+school, instead of the first.  But if you intend, as I suppose you do, to
+get into the shell, you have very different things to learn from Latin
+and Greek: and which require much more sagacity and attention than those
+two dead languages; the language of pure and simple nature; the language
+of nature variously modified and corrupted by passions, prejudices, and
+habits; the language of simulation and dissimulation: very hard, but very
+necessary to decipher.  Homer has not half so many, nor so difficult
+dialects, as the great book of the school you are now going to.  Observe,
+therefore, progressively, and with the greatest attention, what the best
+scholars in the form immediately above you do, and so on, until you get
+into the shell yourself.  Adieu.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Harte that I have received his letter of the 27th May,
+N. S., and that I advise him never to take the English newswriters
+literally, who never yet inserted any one thing quite right.  I have both
+his patent and his mandamus, in both which he is Walter, let the
+newspapers call him what they please.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVII
+
+LONDON, July 9, O. S.  1750.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I should not deserve that appellation in return from you,
+if I did not freely and explicitly inform you of every corrigible defect
+which I may either hear of, suspect, or at any time discover in you.
+Those who, in the common course of the world, will call themselves your
+friends; or whom, according to the common notions of friendship, you may
+possibly think such, will never tell you of your faults, still less of
+your weaknesses.  But, on the contrary, more desirous to make you their
+friend, than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter both, and, in
+truth, not be sorry for either.  Interiorly, most people enjoy the
+inferiority of their best friends.  The useful and essential part of
+friendship, to you, is reserved singly for Mr. Harte and myself: our
+relations to you stand pure and unsuspected of all private views.
+In whatever we say to you, we can have no interest but yours.  We are
+therefore authorized to represent, advise, and remonstrate; and your
+reason must tell you that you ought to attend to and believe us.
+
+I am credibly informed, that there is still a considerable hitch or
+hobble in your enunciation; and that when you speak fast you sometimes
+speak unintelligibly.  I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts
+before you so fully upon this subject, that I can say nothing new upon it
+now.  I must therefore only repeat, that your whole depends upon it.
+Your trade is to speak well, both in public and in private.  The manner
+of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have
+ears to be tickled, than understandings to judge.  Be your productions
+ever so good, they will be of no use, if you stifle and strangle them in
+their birth.  The best compositions of Corelli, if ill executed and
+played out of tune, instead of touching, as they do when well performed,
+would only excite the indignation of the hearer's, when murdered by an
+unskillful performer.  But to murder your own productions, and that
+'coram Populo', is a MEDEAN CRUELTY, which Horace absolutely forbids.
+Remember of what importance Demosthenes, and one of the Gracchi, thought
+ENUNCIATION; and read what stress Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it; even
+the herb-women at Athens were correct judges of it.  Oratory, with all
+its graces, that of enunciation in particular, is full as necessary in
+our government as it ever was in Greece or Rome.  No man can make a
+fortune or a figure in this country, without speaking, and speaking well
+in public.  If you will persuade, you must first please; and if you will
+please, you must tune your voice to harmony, you must articulate every
+syllable distinctly, your emphasis and cadences must be strongly and
+properly marked; and the whole together must be graceful and engaging: If
+you do not speak in that manner, you had much better not speak at all.
+All the learning you have, or ever can have, is not worth one groat
+without it.  It may be a comfort and an amusement to you in your closet,
+but can be of no use to you in the world.  Let me conjure you, therefore,
+to make this your only object, till you have absolutely conquered it,
+for that is in your power; think of nothing else, read and speak for
+nothing else.  Read aloud, though alone, and read articulately and
+distinctly, as if you were reading in public, and on the most important
+occasion.  Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim scenes of tragedies to Mr.
+Harte, as if he were a numerous audience.  If there is any particular
+consonant which you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had
+with the R, utter it millions and millions of times, till you have
+uttered it right.  Never speak quick, till you have first learned to
+speak well.  In short, lay aside every book, and every thought, that does
+not directly tend to this great object, absolutely decisive of your
+future fortune and figure.
+
+The next thing necessary in your destination, is writing correctly,
+elegantly, and in a good hand too; in which three particulars, I am sorry
+to tell you, that you hitherto fail.  Your handwriting is a very bad one,
+and would make a scurvy figure in an office-book of letters, or even in a
+lady's pocket-book.  But that fault is easily cured by care, since every
+man, who has the use of his eyes and of his right hand, can write
+whatever hand he pleases.  As to the correctness and elegance of your
+writing, attention to grammar does the one, and to the best authors the
+other.  In your letter to me of the 27th June, N. S., you omitted the
+date of the place, so that I only conjectured from the contents that you
+were at Rome.
+
+Thus I have, with the truth and freedom of the tenderest affection, told
+you all your defects, at least all that I know or have heard of.  Thank
+God, they are all very curable; they must be cured, and I am sure, you
+will cure them.  That once done, nothing remains for you to acquire, or
+for me to wish you, but the turn, the manners, the address, and the
+GRACES, of the polite world; which experience, observation, and good
+company; will insensibly give you.  Few people at your age have read,
+seen, and known, so much as you have; and consequently few are so near as
+yourself to what I call perfection, by which I only, mean being very near
+as well as the best.  Far, therefore, from being discouraged by what you
+still want, what you already have should encourage you to attempt, and
+convince you that by attempting you will inevitably obtain it.  The
+difficulties which you have surmounted were much greater than any you
+have now to encounter.  Till very lately, your way has been only through
+thorns and briars; the few that now remain are mixed with roses.
+Pleasure is now the principal remaining part of your education.  It will
+soften and polish your manners; it will make you pursue and at last
+overtake the GRACES.  Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal; no one feels,
+who does not at the same time give it.  To be pleased one must please.
+What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.  Paris is
+indisputably the seat of the GRACES; they will even court you, if you are
+not too coy.  Frequent and observe the best companies there, and you will
+soon be naturalized among them; you will soon find how particularly
+attentive they are to the correctness and elegance of their language,
+and to the graces of their enunciation: they would even call the
+understanding of a man in question, who should neglect or not know the
+infinite advantages arising from them.  'Narrer, reciter, declamer bien',
+are serious studies among them, and well deserve to be so everywhere.
+The conversations, even among the women, frequently turn upon the
+elegancies and minutest delicacies of the French language.  An
+'enjouement', a gallant turn, prevails in all their companies, to women,
+with whom they neither are, nor pretend to be, in love; but should you
+(as may very possibly happen) fall really in love there with some woman
+of fashion and sense (for I do not suppose you capable of falling in love
+with a strumpet), and that your rival, without half your parts or
+knowledge, should get the better of you, merely by dint of manners,
+'enjouement, badinage', etc., how would you regret not having
+sufficiently attended to those accomplishments which you despised as
+superficial and trifling, but which you would then find of real
+consequence in the course of the world!  And men, as well as women,
+are taken by those external graces.  Shut up your books, then, now as a
+business, and open them only as a pleasure; but let the great book of the
+world be your serious study; read it over and over, get it by heart,
+adopt its style, and make it your own.
+
+When I cast up your account as it now stands, I rejoice to see the
+balance so much in your favor; and that the items per contra are so few,
+and of such a nature, that they may be very easily cancelled.  By way of
+debtor and creditor, it stands thus:
+
+Creditor.   By French                   Debtor. To English
+               German                              Enunciation
+               Italian                             Manners
+               Latin
+               Greek
+               Logic
+               Ethics
+               History
+               |Naturae
+           Jus |Gentium
+               |Publicum
+
+This, my dear friend, is a very true account; and a very encouraging one
+for you.  A man who owes so little can clear it off in a very little
+time, and, if he is a prudent man, will; whereas a man who, by long
+negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay; and
+therefore never looks into his account at all.
+
+When you go to Genoa, pray observe carefully all the environs of it, and
+view them with somebody who can tell you all the situations and
+operations of the Austrian army, during that famous siege, if it deserves
+to be called one; for in reality the town never was besieged, nor had the
+Austrians any one thing necessary for a siege.  If Marquis Centurioni,
+who was last winter in England, should happen to be there, go to him with
+my compliments, and he will show you all imaginable civilities.
+
+I could have sent you some letters to Florence, but that I knew Mr. Mann
+would be of more use to you than all of them.  Pray make him my
+compliments.  Cultivate your Italian, while you are at Florence, where it
+is spoken in its utmost purity, but ill pronounced.
+
+Pray save me the seed of some of the best melons you eat, and put it up
+dry in paper.  You need not send it me; but Mr. Harte will bring it in
+his pocket when he comes over.  I should likewise be glad of some
+cuttings of the best figs, especially la Pica gentile and the Maltese;
+but as this is not the season for them, Mr. Mann will, I dare say,
+undertake that commission, and send them to me at the proper time by
+Leghorn.  Adieu.  Endeavor to please others, and divert yourself as much
+as ever you can, in 'honnete et galant homme'.
+
+P.  S.  I send you the inclosed to deliver to Lord Rochford, upon your
+arrival at Turin.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVIII.
+
+LONDON, August 6, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Since your letter from Sienna, which gave me a very
+imperfect account both of your illness and your recovery, I have not
+received one word either from you or Mr. Harte.  I impute this to the
+carelessness of the post simply: and the great distance between us at
+present exposes our letters to those accidents.  But when you come to
+Paris, from whence the letters arrive here very regularly, I shall insist
+upon you writing to me constantly once a week; and that upon the same
+day, for instance, every Thursday, that I may know by what mail to expect
+your letter.  I shall also require you to be more minute in your account
+of yourself than you have hitherto been, or than I have required, because
+of the informations which I receive from time to time from Mr. Harte.
+At Paris you will be out of your time, and must set up for yourself; it
+is then that I shall be very solicitous to know how you carry on your
+business.  While Mr. Harte was your partner, the care was his share, and
+the profit yours.  But at Paris, if you will have the latter, you must
+take the former along with it.  It will be quite a new world to you; very
+different from the little world that you have hitherto seen; and you will
+have much more to do in it.  You must keep your little accounts
+constantly every morning, if you would not have them run into confusion,
+and swell to a bulk that would frighten you from ever looking into them
+at all.  You must allow some time for learning what you do not know, and
+some for keeping what you do know; and you must leave a great deal of
+time for your pleasures; which (I repeat it, again) are now become the
+most necessary part of your education.  It is by conversations, dinners,
+suppers, entertainments, etc., in the best companies, that you must be
+formed for the world.  'Les manieres les agremens, les graces' cannot be
+learned by theory; they are only to be got by use among those who have
+them; and they are now the main object of your life, as they are the
+necessary steps to your fortune.  A man of the best parts, and the
+greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience
+and observation, will be very absurd; and consequently very unwelcome in
+company.  He may say very good things; but they will probably be so ill-
+timed, misplaced, or improperly addressed, that he had much better hold
+his tongue.  Full of his own matter, and uninformed of; or inattentive
+to, the particular circumstances and situations of the company, he vents
+it indiscriminately; he puts some people out of countenance; he shocks
+others; and frightens all, who dread what may come out next.  The most
+general rule that I can give you for the world, and which your experience
+will convince you of the truth of, is, Never to give the tone to the
+company, but to take it from them; and to labor more to put them in
+conceit with themselves, than to make them admire you.  Those whom you
+can make like themselves better, will, I promise you, like you very well.
+
+A system-monger, who, without knowing anything of the world by
+experience, has formed a system, of it in his dusty cell, lays it down,
+for example, that (from the general nature of mankind) flattery is
+pleasing.  He will therefore flatter.  But how?  Why, indiscriminately.
+And instead of repairing and heightening the piece judiciously, with soft
+colors and a delicate pencil,--with a coarse brush and a great deal of
+whitewash, he daubs and besmears the piece he means to adorn.  His
+flattery offends even his patron; and is almost too gross for his
+mistress.  A man of the world knows the force of flattery as well as he
+does; but then he knows how, when, and where to give it; he proportions
+his dose to the constitution of the patient.  He flatters by application,
+by inference, by comparison, by hint, and seldom directly.  In the course
+of the world, there is the same difference in everything between system
+and practice.
+
+I long to have you at Paris, which is to be your great school; you will
+be then in a manner within reach of me.
+
+Tell me, are you perfectly recovered, or do you still find any remaining
+complaint upon your lungs?  Your diet should be cooling, and at the same
+time nourishing.  Milks of all kinds are proper for you; wines of all
+kinds bad.  A great deal of gentle, and no violent exercise, is good for
+you.  Adieu.  'Gratia, fama, et valetudo, contingat, abunde!'
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIX
+
+LONDON, October 22, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  This letter will, I am persuaded, find you, and I hope
+safely, arrived at Montpelier;  from whence I trust that Mr. Harte's
+indisposition will, by being totally removed, allow you to get to Paris
+before Christmas.  You will there find two people who, though both
+English, I recommend in the strongest manner possible to your attention;
+and advise you to form the most intimate connections with them both, in
+their, different ways.  The one is a man whom you already know something
+of, but not near enough: it is the Earl of Huntingdon; who, next to you,
+is the truest object of my affection and esteem; and who (I am proud to
+say it) calls me, and considers me as his adopted father.  His parts are
+as quick as his knowledge is extensive; and if quality were worth putting
+into an account, where every other item is so much more valuable, he is
+the first almost in this country: the figure he will make in it, soon
+after he returns to it, will, if I am not more mistaken than ever I was
+in my life, equal his birth and my hopes.  Such a connection will be of
+infinite advantage to you; and, I can assure you, that he is extremely
+disposed to form it upon my account; and will, I hope and believe, desire
+to improve and cement it upon your own.
+
+In our parliamentary government, connections are absolutely necessary;
+and, if prudently formed and ably maintained, the success of them is
+infallible.  There are two sorts of connections, which I would always
+advise you to have in view.  The first I will call equal ones; by which I
+mean those, where the two connecting parties reciprocally find their
+account, from pretty near an equal degree of parts and abilities.  In
+those, there must be a freer communication; each must see that the other
+is able, and be convinced that he is willing to be of use to him.  Honor
+must be the principle of such connections; and there must be a mutual
+dependence, that present and separate interest shall not be able to break
+them.  There must be a joint system of action; and, in case of different
+opinions, each must recede a little, in order at last to form an
+unanimous one.  Such, I hope, will be your connection with Lord
+Huntingdon.  You will both come into parliament at the same time; and if
+you have an equal share of abilities and application, you and he, with
+other young people, with whom you will naturally associate, may form a
+band which will be respected by any administration, and make a figure in
+the public.  The other sort of connections I call unequal ones; that is,
+where the parts are all on one side, and the rank and fortune on the
+other.  Here, the advantage is all on one side; but that advantage must
+be ably and artfully concealed.  Complaisance, an engaging manner, and a
+patient toleration of certain airs of superiority, must cement them.
+The weaker party must be taken by the heart, his head giving no hold;
+and he must be governed by being made to believe that he governs.
+These people, skillfully led, give great weight to their leader.
+I have formerly pointed out to you a couple that I take to be proper
+objects for your skill; and you will meet with twenty more, for they are
+very rife.
+
+The other person whom I recommended to you is a woman; not as a woman,
+for that is not immediately my business; besides, I fear that she is
+turned of fifty.  It is Lady Hervey, whom I directed you to call upon at
+Dijon, but who, to my great joy, because to your great advantage, passes
+all this winter at Paris.  She has been bred all her life at courts; of
+which she has acquired all the easy good-breeding and politeness, without
+the frivolousness.  She has all the reading that a woman should have; and
+more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well,
+though she wisely conceals it.  As she will look upon you as her son,
+I desire that you will look upon her as my delegate: trust, consult,
+and apply to her without reserve.  No woman ever had more than she has,
+'le ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manieres engageantes, et
+le je ne sais quoi qui plait'.  Desire her to reprove and correct any,
+and every, the least error and in-, accuracy in your manners, air,
+address, etc.  No woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more
+willingly, or in a more proper and obliging manner.  In such a case she
+will not put you out of countenance, by telling you of it in company;
+but either intimate it by some sign, or wait for an opportunity when you
+are alone together.  She is also in the best French company, where she
+will not only introduce but PUFF you, if I may use so low a word.  And I
+can assure you that it is no little help, in the 'beau monde', to be
+puffed there by a fashionable woman.  I send you the inclosed billet to
+carry her, only as a certificate of the identity of your person, which I
+take it for granted she could not know again.
+
+You would be so much surprised to receive a whole letter from me without
+any mention of the exterior ornaments necessary for a gentleman, as
+manners, elocution, air, address, graces, etc., that, to comply with your
+expectations, I will touch upon them; and tell you, that when you come to
+England, I will show you some people, whom I do not now care to name,
+raised to the highest stations singly by those exterior and adventitious
+ornaments, whose parts would never have entitled them to the smallest
+office in the excise.  Are they then necessary, and worth acquiring, or
+not?  You will see many instances of this kind at Paris, particularly a
+glaring one, of a person --[M. le Marechal de Richelieu]-- raised to the
+highest posts and dignities in France, as well as to be absolute
+sovereign of the 'beau monde', simply by the graces of his person and
+address; by woman's chit-chat, accompanied with important gestures; by an
+imposing air and pleasing abord.  Nay, by these helps, he even passes for
+a wit, though he hath certainly no uncommon share of it.  I will not name
+him, because it would be very imprudent in you to do it.  A young fellow,
+at his first entrance into the 'beau monde', must not offend the king 'de
+facto' there.  It is very often more necessary to conceal contempt than
+resentment, the former forgiven, but the latter sometimes forgot.
+
+There is a small quarto book entitled, 'Histoire Chronologique de la
+France', lately published by Le President Henault, a man of parts and
+learning, with whom you will probably get acquainted at Paris.  I desire
+that it may always lie upon your table, for your recourse as often as you
+read history.  The chronology, though chiefly relative to the history of
+France, is not singly confined to it; but the most interesting events of
+all the rest of Europe are also inserted, and many of them adorned by
+short, pretty, and just reflections.  The new edition of 'Les Memoires de
+Sully', in three quarto volumes, is also extremely well worth your
+reading, as it will give you a clearer, and truer notion of one of the
+most interesting periods of the French history, than you can yet have
+formed from all the other books you may have read upon the subject.  That
+prince, I mean Henry the Fourth, had all the accomplishments and virtues
+of a hero, and of a king, and almost of a man.  The last are the most
+rarely seen.  May you possess them all!  Adieu.
+
+Pray make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and let him know that I have this
+moment received his letter of the 12th, N. S., from Antibes.  It requires
+no immediate answer; I shall therefore delay mine till I have another
+from him.  Give him the inclosed, which I have received from Mr. Eliot.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXX
+
+LONDON, November 1, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I hope that this letter will not find you still at
+Montpelier, but rather be sent after you from thence to Paris, where,
+I am persuaded, that Mr. Harte could find as good advice for his leg as
+at Montpelier, if not better; but if he is of a different opinion, I am
+sure you ought to stay there, as long as he desires.
+
+While you are in France, I could wish that the hours you allot for
+historical amusement should be entirely devoted to the history of France.
+One always reads history to most advantage in that country to which it is
+relative; not only books, but persons being ever at hand to solve doubts
+and clear up difficulties.  I do by no means advise you to throw away
+your time in ransacking, like a dull antiquarian, the minute and
+unimportant parts of remote and fabulous times.  Let blockheads read what
+blockheads wrote.  And a general notion of the history of France, from
+the conquest of that country by the Franks, to the reign of Louis the
+Eleventh, is sufficient for use, consequently sufficient for you.  There
+are, however, in those remote times, some remarkable eras that deserve
+more particular attention; I mean those in which some notable alterations
+happened in the constitution and form of government.  As, for example,
+in the settlement of Clovis in Gaul, and the form of government which he
+then established; for, by the way; that form of government differed in
+this particular from all the other Gothic governments, that the people,
+neither collectively nor by representatives, had any share in it.  It was
+a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy: and what were called the States
+General of France consisted only of the nobility and clergy till the time
+of Philip le Bel, in the very beginning of the fourteenth century, who
+first called the people to those assemblies, by no means for the good of
+the people, who were only amused by this pretended honor, but, in truth,
+to check the nobility and clergy, and induce them to grant the money he
+wanted for his profusion; this was a scheme of Enguerrand de Marigny, his
+minister, who governed both him and his kingdom to such a degree as to,
+be called the coadjutor and governor of the kingdom.  Charles Martel laid
+aside these assemblies, and governed by open force.  Pepin restored them,
+and attached them to him, and with them the nation; by which means he
+deposed Childeric and mounted the throne.  This is a second period worth
+your attention.  The third race of kings, which begins with Hugues Capet,
+is a third period.  A judicious reader of history will save himself a
+great deal of time and trouble by attending with care only to those
+interesting periods of history which furnish remarkable events, and make
+eras, and going slightly over the, common run of events.  Some people
+read history as others read the "Pilgrim's Progress"; giving equal
+attention to, and indiscriminately loading their memories with every part
+alike.  But I would have you read it in a different manner; take the
+shortest general history you can find of every country; and mark down in
+that history the most important periods, such as conquests, changes of
+kings, and alterations of the form of government; and then have recourse
+to more extensive histories or particular treatises, relative to those
+great points.  Consider them well, trace up their causes, and follow
+their consequences.  For instance, there is a most excellent, though very
+short history of France, by Le Gendre.  Read that with attention, and you
+will know enough of the general history; but when you find there such
+remarkable periods as are above mentioned, consult Mezeray, and other of
+the best and minutest historians, as well as political treatises upon
+those subjects.  In later times, memoirs, from those of Philip de
+Commines, down to the innumerble ones in the reign of Louis the
+Fourteenth, have been of great use, and thrown great light upon
+particular parts of history.
+
+Conversation in France, if you have the address and dexterity to turn it
+upon useful subjects, will exceedingly improve your historical knowledge;
+for people there, however classically ignorant they may be, think it a
+shame to be ignorant of the history of their own country: they read that,
+if they read nothing else, and having often read nothing else, are proud
+of having read that, and talk of it willingly; even the women are well
+instructed in that sort of reading.  I am far from meaning by this that
+you should always be talking wisely in company, of books, history, and
+matters of knowledge.  There are many companies which you will, and ought
+to keep, where such conversations would be misplaced and ill-timed; your
+own good sense must distinguish the company and the time.  You must
+trifle only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious, but
+dance to those who pipe.  'Cur in theatrum Cato severs venisti?'  was
+justly said to an old man: how much more so would it be to one of your
+age?  From the moment that you are dressed and go out, pocket all your
+knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless
+desired: the producing of the one unasked, implies that you are weary of
+the company; and the producing of the other unrequired, will make the
+company weary of you.  Company is a republic too jealous of its
+liberties, to suffer a dictator even for a quarter of an hour; and yet in
+that, as in republics, there are some few who really govern; but then it
+is by seeming to disclaim, instead of attempting to usurp the power; that
+is the occasion in which manners, dexterity, address, and the undefinable
+'je ne sais quoi' triumph; if properly exerted, their conquest is sure,
+and the more lasting for not being perceived.  Remember, that this is not
+only your first and greatest, but ought to be almost your only object,
+while you are in France.
+
+I know that many of your countrymen are apt to call the freedom and
+vivacity of the French petulancy and illbreeding; but, should you think
+so, I desire upon many accounts that you will not say so; I admit that it
+may be so in some instances of 'petits maitres Etourdis', and in some
+young people unbroken to the world; but I can assure you, that you will
+find it much otherwise with people of a certain rank and age, upon whose
+model you will do very well to form yourself.  We call their steady
+assurance, impudence why?  Only because what we call modesty is awkward
+bashfulness and 'mauvaise honte'.  For my part, I see no impudence, but,
+on the contrary, infinite utility and advantage in presenting one's self
+with the same coolness and unconcern in any and every company.  Till one
+can do that, I am very sure that one can never present one's self well.
+Whatever is done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done, and,
+till a man is absolutely easy and unconcerned in every company, he will
+never be thought to have kept good company, nor be very welcome in it.
+A steady assurance, with seeming modesty, is possibly the most useful
+qualification that a man can have in every part of life.  A man would
+certainly make a very considerable fortune and figure in the world, whose
+modesty and timidity should often, as bashfulness always does (put him in
+the deplorable and lamentable situation of the pious AEneas, when
+'obstupuit, steteruntque comae; et vox faucibus haesit!).  Fortune (as
+well as women)--
+
+               "---------born to be controlled,
+               Stoops to the forward and the bold."
+
+Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty,
+clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by
+difficulties in its journey; whereas barefaced impudence is the noisy and
+blustering harbinger of a worthless and senseless usurper.
+
+You will think that I shall never have done recommending to you these
+exterior worldly accomplishments, and you will think right, for I never
+shall; they are of too great consequence to you for me to be indifferent
+or negligent about them: the shining part of your future figure and
+fortune depends now wholly upon them.  These are the acquisitions which
+must give efficacy and success to those you have already made.  To have
+it said and believed that you are the most learned man in England, would
+be no more than was said and believed of Dr. Bentley; but to have it
+said, at the same time, that you are also the best-bred, most polite, and
+agreeable man in the kingdom, would be such a happy composition of a
+character as I never yet knew any one man deserve; and which I will
+endeavor, as well as ardently wish, that you may.  Absolute perfection
+is, I well know, unattainable; but I know too, that a man of parts may be
+unweariedly aiming at it, and arrive pretty near it.  Try, labor,
+persevere.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXI
+
+LONDON, November 8, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Before you get to Paris, where you will soon be left to
+your own discretion, if you have any, it is necessary that we should
+understand one another thoroughly; which is the most probable way of
+preventing disputes.  Money, the cause of much mischief in the world, is
+the cause of most quarrels between fathers and sons; the former commonly
+thinking that they cannot give too little, and the latter, that they
+cannot have enough; both equally in the wrong.  You must do me the
+justice to acknowledge, that I have hitherto neither stinted nor grudged
+any expense that could be of use or real pleasure to you; and I can
+assure you, by the way, that you have traveled at a much more
+considerable expense than I did myself; but I never so much as thought of
+that, while Mr. Harte was at the head of your finances; being very sure
+that the sums granted were scrupulously applied to the uses for which
+they were intended.  But the case will soon be altered, and you will be
+your own receiver and treasurer.  However, I promise you, that we will
+not quarrel singly upon the quantum, which shall be cheerfully and freely
+granted: the application and appropriation of it will be the material
+point, which I am now going to clear up and finally settle with you.
+I will fix, or even name, no settled allowance; though I well know in my
+own mind what would be the proper one; but I will first try your
+draughts, by which I can in a good degree judge of your conduct.  This
+only I tell you in general, that if the channels through which my money
+is to go are the proper ones, the source shall not be scanty; but should
+it deviate into dirty, muddy, and obscure ones (which by the bye, it
+cannot do for a week without my knowing it); I give you fair and timely
+notice, that the source will instantly be dry.  Mr. Harte,
+in establishing you at Paris, will point out to you those proper
+channels; he will leave you there upon the foot of a man of fashion, and
+I will continue you upon the same; you will have your coach, your valet
+de chambre, your own footman, and a valet de place; which, by the way, is
+one servant more than I had.  I would have you very well dressed, by
+which I mean dressed as the generality of people of fashion are; that is,
+not to be taken notice of, for being either more or less fine than other
+people: it is by being well dressed, not finely dressed, that a gentleman
+should be distinguished.  You must frequent 'les spectacles', which
+expense I shall willingly supply.  You must play 'a des petits jeux de
+commerce' in mixed companies; that article is trifling; I shall pay it
+cheerfully.  All the other articles of pocket-money are very
+inconsiderable at Paris, in comparison of what they are here, the silly
+custom of giving money wherever one dines or sups, and the expensive
+importunity of subscriptions, not being yet introduced there.  Having
+thus reckoned up all the decent expenses of a gentleman, which I will
+most readily defray, I come now to those which I will neither bear nor
+supply.  The first of these is gaming, of which, though I have not the
+least reason to suspect you, I think it necessary eventually to assure
+you, that no consideration in the world shall ever make me pay your play
+debts; should you ever urge to me that your honor is pawned, I should
+most immovably answer you, that it was your honor, not mine, that was
+pawned; and that your creditor might e'en take the pawn for the debt.
+
+Low company, and low pleasures, are always much more costly than liberal
+and elegant ones.  The disgraceful riots of a tavern are much more
+expensive, as well as dishonorable, than the sometimes pardonable
+excesses in good company.  I must absolutely hear of no tavern scrapes
+and squabbles.
+
+I come now to another and very material point; I mean women; and I will
+not address myself to you upon this subject, either in a religious, a
+moral, or a parental style.  I will even lay aside my age, remember
+yours, and speak to you as one man of pleasure, if he had parts too,
+would speak to another.  I will by no means pay for whores, and their
+never-failing consequences, surgeons; nor will I, upon any account, keep
+singers, dancers, actresses, and 'id genus omne'; and, independently of
+the expense, I must tell you, that such connections would give me,
+and all sensible people, the utmost contempt for your parts and address;
+a young fellow must have as little sense as address, to venture, or more
+properly to sacrifice, his health and ruin his fortune, with such sort of
+creatures; in such a place as Paris especially, where gallantry is both
+the profession and the practice of every woman of fashion.  To speak
+plainly, I will not forgive your understanding c--------s and p-------s;
+nor will your constitution forgive them you.  These distempers, as well
+as their cures, fall nine times in ten upon the lungs.  This argument,
+I am sure, ought to have weight with you: for I protest to you, that if
+you meet with any such accident, I would not give one year's purchase for
+your life.  Lastly, there is another sort of expense that I will not
+allow, only because it is a silly one; I mean the fooling away your money
+in baubles at toy shops.  Have one handsome snuff-box (if you take
+snuff), and one handsome sword; but then no more pretty and very useless
+things.
+
+By what goes before, you will easily perceive that I mean to allow you
+whatever is necessary, not only for the figure, but for the pleasures of
+a gentleman, and not to supply the profusion of a rake.  This, you must
+confess, does not savor of either the severity or parsimony of old age.
+I consider this agreement between us, as a subsidiary treaty on my part,
+for services to be performed on yours.  I promise you, that I will be as
+punctual in the payment of the subsidies, as England has been during the
+last war; but then I give you notice at the same time, that I require a
+much more scrupulous execution of the treaty on your part, than we met
+with on that of our allies; or else that payment will be stopped.  I hope
+all that I have now said was absolutely unnecessary, and that sentiments
+more worthy and more noble than pecuniary ones, would of themselves have
+pointed out to you the conduct I recommend; but, at all events, I
+resolved to be once for all explicit with you, that, in the worst that
+can happen, you may not plead ignorance, and complain that I had not
+sufficiently explained to you my intentions.
+
+Having mentioned the word rake, I must say a word or two more on that
+subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt
+to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there
+are not in the world two characters more different.  A rake is a
+composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful
+vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character, and to ruin his
+fortune; while wine and the p-------s contend which shall soonest and
+most effectually destroy his constitution.  A dissolute, flagitious
+footman, or porter, makes full as good a rake as a man of the first
+quality.  By the bye, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my
+youth, I never was a rake, but, on the contrary, always detested and
+despised that character.
+
+A man of pleasure, though not always so scrupulous as he should be, and
+as one day he will wish he had been, refines at least his pleasures by
+taste, accompanies them with decency, and enjoys them with dignity.
+Few men can be men of pleasure, every man may be a rake.  Remember that
+I shall know everything you say or do at Paris, as exactly as if, by the
+force of magic, I could follow you everywhere, like a sylph or a gnome,
+invisible myself.  Seneca says, very prettily, that one should ask
+nothing of God, but what one should be willing that men should know; nor
+of men, but what one should be willing that God should know.  I advise
+you to say and do nothing at Paris, but what you would be willing that
+I should know.  I hope, nay, I believe, that will be the case.  Sense,
+I dare say, you do not want; instruction, I am sure, you have never
+wanted: experience you are daily gaining: all which together must
+inevitably (I should think) make you both 'respectable et aimable', the
+perfection of a human character.  In that case nothing shall be wanting
+on my part, and you shall solidly experience all the extent and
+tenderness of my affection for you; but dread the reverse of both! Adieu!
+
+P. S.  When you get to Paris, after you have been to wait on Lord
+Albemarle, go to see Mr. Yorke, whom I have particular reasons for
+desiring that you should be well with, as I shall hereafter explain to
+you.  Let him know that my orders, and your own inclinations, conspired
+to make you desire his friendship and protection.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXII
+
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have sent you so many preparatory letters for Paris,
+that this, which will meet you there, shall only be a summary of them
+all.
+
+You have hitherto had more liberty than anybody of your age ever had;
+and I must do you the justice to own, that you have made a better use of
+it than most people of your age would have done; but then, though you had
+not a jailer, you had a friend with you.  At Paris, you will not only be
+unconfined, but unassisted.  Your own good sense must be your only guide:
+I have great confidence in it, and am convinced that I shall receive just
+such accounts of your conduct at Paris as I could wish; for I tell you
+beforehand, that I shall be most minutely informed of all that you do,
+and almost of all that you say there.  Enjoy the pleasures of youth,
+you cannot do better: but refine and dignify them like a man, of parts;
+let them raise, and not sink; let them adorn and not vilify your
+character; let them, in short, be the pleasures of a gentleman, and taken
+with your equals at least, but rather with your superiors, and those
+chiefly French.
+
+Inquire into the characters of the several Academicians, before you form
+a connection with any of them; and be most upon your guard against those
+who make the most court to you.
+
+You cannot study much in the Academy; but you may study usefully there,
+if you are an economist of your time, and bestow only upon good books
+those quarters and halves of hours, which occur to everybody in the
+course of almost every day; and which, at the year's end, amount to a
+very considerable sum of time.  Let Greek, without fail, share some part
+of every day; I do not mean the Greek poets, the catches of Anacreon, or
+the tender complaints of Theocritus, or even the porter-like language of
+Homer's heroes; of whom all smatterers in Greek know a little, quote
+often, and talk of always; but I mean Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes,
+and Thucydides, whom none but adepts know.  It is Greek that must
+distinguish you in the learned world, Latin alone will not: and Greek
+must be sought to be retained, for it never occurs like Latin.  When you
+read history or other books of amusement, let every language you are
+master of have its turn, so that you may not only retain, but improve in
+everyone.  I also desire that you will converse in German and Italian,
+with all the Germans and the Italians with whom you converse at all.
+This will be a very agreeable and flattering thing to them, and a very
+useful one to you.
+
+Pray apply yourself diligently to your exercises; for though the doing
+them well is not supremely meritorious, the doing them ill is illiberal,
+vulgar, and ridiculous.
+
+I recommend theatrical representations to you; which are excellent at
+Paris.  The tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the comedies of
+Moliere, well attended to, are admirable lessons, both for the heart and
+the head.  There is not, nor ever was, any theatre comparable to the
+French.  If the music of the French operas does not please your Italian
+ear, the words of them, at least, are sense and poetry, which is much
+more than I can, say of any Italian opera that I ever read or heard in my
+life.
+
+I send you the inclosed letter of recommendation to Marquis Matignon,
+which I would have you deliver to him as soon as you can; you will, I am
+sure, feel the good effects of his warm friendship for me and Lord
+Bolingbroke, who has also wrote to him upon your subject.  By that, and
+by the other letters which I have sent you, you will be at once so
+thoroughly introduced into the best French company, that you must take
+some pains if you will keep bad; but that is what I do not suspect you
+of.  You have, I am sure, too much right ambition to prefer low and
+disgraceful company to that of your superiors, both in rank and age.
+Your character, and consequently your fortune, absolutely depends upon
+the company you keep, and the turn you take at Paris.  I do not in the
+least mean a grave turn; on the contrary, a gay, a sprightly, but, at the
+same time, an elegant and liberal one.
+
+Keep carefully out of all scrapes and quarrels.  They lower a character
+extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France; where a man is
+dishonored by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting
+it.  The young Frenchmen are hasty, giddy, and petulant; extremely
+national, and 'avantageux'.  Forbear from any national jokes or
+reflections, which are always improper, and commonly unjust.  The colder
+northern nations generally look upon France as a whistling, singing,
+dancing, frivolous nation; this notion is very far from being a true one,
+though many 'Petits maitres' by their behavior seem to justify it; but
+those very 'petits maltres', when mellowed by age and experience, very
+often turn out very able men.  The number of great generals and
+statesmen, as well as excellent authors, that France has produced, is an
+undeniable proof, that it is not that frivolous, unthinking, empty nation
+that northern prejudices suppose it.  Seem to like and approve of
+everything at first, and I promise you that you will like and approve of
+many things afterward.
+
+I expect that you will write to me constantly, once every week, which I
+desire may be every Thursday; and that your letters may inform me of your
+personal transactions: not of what you see, but of whom you see, and what
+you do.
+
+Be your own monitor, now that you will have no other.  As to enunciation,
+I must repeat it to you again and again, that there is no one thing so
+necessary: all other talents, without that, are absolutely useless,
+except in your own closet.
+
+It sounds ridiculously to bid you study with your dancing-master; and yet
+I do.  The bodily-carriage and graces are of infinite consequence to
+everybody, and more particularly to you.
+
+Adieu for this time, my dear child.  Yours tenderly.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXIII
+
+LONDON, November 12, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You will possibly think, that this letter turns upon
+strange, little, trifling objects; and you will think right, if you
+consider them separately; but if you take them aggregately, you will be
+convinced that as parts, which conspire to form that whole, called the
+exterior of a man of fashion, they are of importance.  I shall not dwell
+now upon these personal graces, that liberal air, and that engaging
+address, which I have so often recommended to you; but descend still
+lower, to your dress, cleanliness, and care of your person.
+
+When you come to Paris, you may take care to be extremely well dressed;
+that is, as the fashionable people are; this does by no means consist in
+the finery, but in the taste, fitness, and manner of wearing your
+clothes; a fine suit ill-made, and slatternly or stiffly worn, far from
+adorning, only exposes the awkwardness of the wearer.  Get the best
+French tailor to make your clothes, whatever they are, in the fashion,
+and to fit you: and then wear them, button them, or unbutton them, as the
+genteelest people you see do.  Let your man learn of the best friseur to
+do your hair well, for that is a very material part of your dress.  Take
+care to have your stockings well gartered up, and your shoes well
+buckled; for nothing gives a more slovenly air to a man than ill-dressed
+legs.  In your person you must be accurately clean; and your teeth,
+hands, and nails, should be superlatively so; a dirty mouth has real ill
+consequences to the owner, for it infallibly causes the decay, as well as
+the intolerable pain of the teeth, and it is very offensive to his
+acquaintance, for it will most inevitably stink.  I insist, therefore,
+that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a
+soft sponge and swarm water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your
+mouth five or six times.  Mouton, whom I desire you will send for upon
+your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used
+sometimes.  Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, than
+dirty hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails: I do not suspect you of
+that shocking, awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough:
+you must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not tipped with black,
+as the ordinary people's always are.  The ends of your nails should be
+small segments of circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting,
+they are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your hands, rub
+the skin round your nails backward, that it may not grow up, and shorten
+your nails too much.  The cleanliness of the rest of your person, which,
+by the way, will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to
+time to the bagnio.  My mentioning these particulars arises (I freely
+own) from some suspicion that the hints are not unnecessary; for, when
+you were a schoolboy, you were slovenly and dirty above your fellows.
+I must add another caution, which is that upon no account whatever, you
+put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears.
+It is the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness, that can be offered to
+company; it disgusts one, it turns one's stomach; and, for my own part,
+I would much rather know that a man's fingers were actually in his
+breech, than see them in his nose.  Wash your ears well every morning,
+and blow your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion; but,
+by the way, without looking at it , afterward.  There should be in the
+least, as well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, 'les manieres
+nobles'.  Sense will teach you some, observation others; attend carefully
+to the manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion,
+and form your own upon them.  On the other hand, observe a little those
+of the vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things which they
+say or do may be the same, the manner is always totally different: and in
+that, and nothing else, consists the characteristic of a man of fashion.
+The lowest peasant speaks, moves, dresses, eats, and drinks, as much as a
+man of the first fashion, but does them all quite differently; so that by
+doing and saying most things in a manner opposite to that of the vulgar,
+you have a great chance of doing and saying them right.  There are
+gradations in awkwardness and vulgarism, as there are in everything else.
+'Les manieres de robe', though not quite right, are still better than
+'les manieres bourgeoises'; and these, though bad, are still better than
+'les manieres de campagne'.  But the language, the air, the dress, and
+the manners of the court, are the only true standard 'des manieres
+nobles, et d'un honnete homme.  Ex pede Herculem' is an old and true
+saying, and very applicable to our present subject; for a man of parts,
+who has been bred at courts, and used to keep the best company, will
+distinguish himself, and is to be known from the vulgar by every word,
+attitude, gesture, and even look.  I cannot leave these seeming
+'minutiae', without repeating to you the necessity of your carving well;
+which is an article, little as it is, that is useful twice every day of
+one's life; and the doing it ill is very troublesome to one's self, and
+very disagreeable, often ridiculous, to others.
+
+Having said all this, I cannot help reflecting, what a formal dull
+fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would say, if they were to see this
+letter: they would look upon it with the utmost contempt, and say that
+surely a father might find much better topics for advice to a son.
+I would admit it, if I had given you, or that you were capable of
+receiving, no better; but if sufficient pains have been taken to form
+your heart and improve your mind, and, as I hope, not without success,
+I will tell those solid gentlemen, that all these trifling things,
+as they think them, collectively, form that pleasing 'je ne sais quoi',
+that ensemble, which they are utter strangers to both in themselves and
+others.  The word aimable is not known in their language, or the thing in
+their manners.  Great usage of the world, great attention, and a great
+desire of pleasing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle.  It is from
+old people's looking upon these things as trifles, or not thinking of
+them at all, that so many young people are so awkward and so ill-bred.
+Their parents, often careless and unmindful of them, give them only the
+common run of education, as school, university, and then traveling;
+without examining, and very often without being able to judge, if they
+did examine, what progress they make in any one of these stages.  Then,
+they carelessly comfort themselves, and say, that their sons will do like
+other people's sons; and so they do, that is, commonly very ill.  They
+correct none of the childish nasty tricks, which they get at school;
+nor the illiberal manners which they contract at the university; nor the
+frivolous and superficial pertness, which is commonly all that they
+acquire by their travels.  As they do not tell them of these things,
+nobody else can; so they go on in the practice of them, without ever
+hearing, or knowing, that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking.
+For, as I have often formerly observed to you, nobody but a father can
+take the liberty to reprove a young fellow, grown up, for those kinds of
+inaccuracies and improprieties of behavior.  The most intimate
+friendship, unassisted by the paternal superiority, will not authorize
+it.  I may truly say, therefore, that you are happy in having me for a
+sincere, friendly, and quick-sighted monitor.  Nothing will escape me:
+I shall pry for your defects, in order to correct them, as curiously as
+I shall seek for your perfections, in order to applaud and reward them,
+with this difference only, that I shall publicly mention the latter, and
+never hint at the former, but in a letter to, or a tete-d-tete with you.
+I will never put you out of countenance before company; and I hope you
+will never give me reason to be out of countenance for you, as any one of
+the above-mentioned defects would make me.  'Praetor non, curat de
+minimis', was a maxim in the Roman law; for causes only of a certain
+value were tried by him but there were inferior jurisdictions, that took
+cognizance of the smallest.  Now I shall try you, not only as 'praetor'
+in the greatest, but as 'censor' in lesser, and as the lowest magistrate
+in the least cases.
+
+I have this moment received Mr. Harte's letter of the 1st November,
+N. S., by which I am very glad to find that he thinks of moving toward
+Paris, the end of this month, which looks as if his leg were better;
+besides, in my opinion, you both of you only lose time at Montpelier;
+he would find better advice, and you better company, at Paris.  In the
+meantime, I hope you go into the best company there is at Montpelier;
+and there always is some at the Intendant's, or the Commandant's.  You
+will have had full time to learn 'les petites chansons Languedociennes',
+which are exceedingly pretty ones, both words and tunes.  I remember,
+when I was in those parts, I was surprised at the difference which I
+found between the people on one side, and those on the other side of the
+Rhone.  The Provencaux were, in general, surly, ill-bred, ugly, and
+swarthy; the Languedocians the very reverse: a cheerful, well-bred,
+handsome people.  Adieu! Yours most affectionately.
+
+P. S.  Upon reflection, I direct this letter to Paris; I think you must
+have left Montpelier before it could arrive there.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXIV
+
+LONDON, November 19, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I was very glad to find by your letter of the 12th,
+N. S., that you had informed yourself so well of the state of the French
+marine at Toulon, and of the commerce at Marseilles; they are objects
+that deserve the inquiry and attention of every man who intends to be
+concerned in public affairs.  The French are now wisely attentive to
+both; their commerce is incredibly increased within these last thirty
+years; they have beaten us out of great part of our Levant trade; their
+East India trade has greatly affected ours; and, in the West Indies,
+their Martinico establishment supplies, not only France itself, but the
+greatest part of Europe, with sugars whereas our islands, as Jamaica,
+Barbadoes, and the Leeward, have now no other market for theirs but
+England.  New France, or Canada, has also greatly lessened our fur and
+skin trade.  It is true (as you say) that we have no treaty of commerce
+subsisting (I do not say WITH MARSEILLES) but with France.  There was a
+treaty of commerce made between England and France, immediately after the
+treaty of Utrecht; but the whole treaty was conditional, and to depend
+upon the parliament's enacting certain things which were stipulated in
+two of the articles; the parliament, after a very famous debate, would
+not do it; so the treaty fell to the ground: however, the outlines of
+that treaty are, by mutual and tacit consent, the general rules of our
+present commerce with France.  It is true, too, that our commodities
+which go to France, must go in our bottoms; the French having imitated in
+many respects our famous Act of Navigation, as it is commonly called.
+This act was made in the year 1652, in the parliament held by Oliver
+Cromwell.  It forbids all foreign ships to bring into England any
+merchandise or commodities whatsoever, that were not of the growth and
+produce of that country to which those ships belonged, under penalty of
+the forfeiture of such ships.  This act was particularly leveled at the
+Dutch, who were at that time the carriers of almost all Europe, and got
+immensely by freight.  Upon this principle, of the advantages arising
+from freight, there is a provision in the same act, that even the growth
+and produce of our own colonies in America shall not be carried from
+thence to any other country in Europe, without first touching in England;
+but this clause has lately been repealed, in the instances of some
+perishable commodities, such as rice, etc., which are allowed to be
+carried directly from our American colonies to other countries.  The act
+also provides, that two-thirds, I think, of those who navigate the said
+ships shall be British subjects.  There is an excellent, and little book,
+written by the famous Monsieur Huet Ev6que d'Avranches, 'Sur le Commerce
+des Anciens', which is very well worth your reading, and very soon read.
+It will give you a clear notion of the rise and progress of commerce.
+There are many other books, which take up the history of commerce where
+Monsieur d'Avranches leaves it, and bring it down to these times.  I
+advise you to read some of them with care; commerce being a very
+essential part of political knowledge in every country; but more
+particularly in that which owes all its riches and power to it.
+
+I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I
+may call bad spelling ORTHOGRAPHY.  You spell induce, ENDUCE; and
+grandeur, you spell grandURE; two faults of which few of my housemaids
+would have been guilty.  I must tell you that orthography, in the true
+sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters; or a
+gentleman, that one false spelling may fix ridicule upon him for the rest
+of his life; and I know a man of quality, who never recovered the
+ridicule of having spelled WHOLESOME without the w.
+
+Reading with care will secure everybody from false spelling; for books
+are always well spelled, according to the orthography of the times.  Some
+words are indeed doubtful, being spelled differently by different authors
+of equal authority; but those are few; and in those cases every man has
+his option, because he may plead his authority either way; but where
+there is but one right way, as in the two words above mentioned, it is
+unpardonable and ridiculous for a gentleman to miss it; even a woman of a
+tolerable education would despise and laugh, at ,a lover, who should send
+her an ill-spelled billet-doux.  I fear and suspect, that you have taken
+it into your head, in most cases, that the matter is all, and the manner
+little or nothing.  If you have, undeceive yourself, and be convinced
+that, in everything, the manner is full as important as the matter.  If
+you speak the sense of an angel, in bad words and with a disagreeable
+utterance, nobody will hear you twice, who can help it.  If you write
+epistles as well as Cicero, but in a very bad hand, and very ill-spelled,
+whoever receives will laugh at them; and if you had the figure of Adonis,
+with an awkward air and motions, it will disgust instead of pleasing.
+Study manner, therefore, in everything, if you would be anything.  My
+principal inquiries of my friends at Paris, concerning you, will be
+relative to your manner of doing whatever you do.  I shall not inquire
+whether you understand Demosthenes, Tacitus, or the 'Jus Publicum
+Imperii'; but I shall inquire, whether your utterance is pleasing, your
+style not only pure, but elegant, your manners noble and easy, your air
+and address engaging in short, whether you are a gentleman, a man of
+fashion, and fit to keep good company, or not; for, till I am satisfied
+in these particulars, you and I must by no means meet; I could not
+possibly stand it.  It is in your power to become all this at Paris, if
+you please.  Consult with Lady Hervey and Madame Monconseil upon all
+these matters; and they will speak to you, and advise you freely.  Tell
+them, that 'bisogna compatire ancora', that you are utterly new in the
+world; that you are desirous to form yourself; that you beg they will
+reprove, advise, and correct you; that you know that none can do it so
+well; and that you will implicitly follow their directions.  This,
+together with your careful observation of the manners of the best
+company, will really form you.
+
+Abbe Guasco, a friend of mine, will come to you as soon as he knows of
+your arrival at Paris; he is well received in the best companies there,
+and will introduce you to them.  He will be desirous to do you any
+service he can; he is active and curious, and can give you information
+upon most things.  He is a sort of 'complaisant' of the President
+Montesquieu, to whom you have a letter.
+
+I imagine that this letter will not wait for you very long at Paris,
+where I reckon you will be in about a fortnight.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXV
+
+LONDON, December 24, 1750
+
+DEAR FRIEND: At length you are become a Parisian, and consequently must
+be addressed in French; you will also answer me in the same language,
+that I may be able to judge of the degree in which you possess the
+elegance, the delicacy, and the orthography of that language which is,
+in a manner, become the universal one of Europe.  I am assured that you
+speak it well, but in that well there are gradations.  He, who in the
+provinces might be reckoned to speak correctly, would at Paris be looked
+upon as an ancient Gaul.  In that country of mode, even language is
+subservient to fashion, which varies almost as often as their clothes.
+
+The AFFECTED, the REFINED, the NEOLOGICAL, OR NEW FASHIONABLE STYLE are
+at present too much in vogue at Paris.  Know, observe, and occasionally
+converse (if you please) according to those different styles; but do not
+let your taste be infected by them.  Wit, too, is there subservient to
+fashion; and actually, at Paris, one must have wit, even in despite of
+Minerva.  Everybody runs after it; although if it does not come naturally
+and of itself; it never can be overtaken.  But, unfortunately for those
+who pursue, they seize upon what they take for wit, and endeavor to pass
+it for such upon others.  This is, at best, the lot of Ixion, who
+embraced a cloud instead of the goddess he pursued.  Fine sentiments,
+which never existed, false and unnatural thoughts, obscure and far-sought
+expressions, not only unintelligible, but which it is even impossible to
+decipher, or to guess at, are all the consequences of this error; and
+two-thirds of the new French books which now appear are made up of those
+ingredients.  It is the new cookery of Parnassus, in which the still is
+employed instead of the pot and the spit, and where quintessences and
+extracts ate chiefly used.  N. B.  The Attic salt is proscribed.
+
+You will now and then be obliged to eat of this new cookery, but do not
+suffer your taste to be corrupted by it.  And when you, in your turn, are
+desirous of treating others, take the good old cookery of Lewis XIV.'s
+reign for your rule.  There were at that time admirable head cooks, such
+as Corneille, Boileau, Racine, and La Fontaine.  Whatever they prepared
+was simple, wholesome, and solid.  But laying aside all metaphors, do not
+suffer yourself to be dazzled by false brilliancy, by unnatural
+expressions, nor by those antitheses so much in fashion: as a protection
+against such innovations, have a recourse to your own good sense, and to
+the ancient authors.  On the other hand, do not laugh at those who give
+into such errors; you are as yet too young to act the critic, or to stand
+forth a severe avenger of the violated rights of good sense.  Content
+yourself with not being perverted, but do not think of converting others;
+let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste, as well as in religion.
+Within the course of the last century and a half, taste in France has
+(as well as that kingdom itself) undergone many vicissitudes.  Under the
+reign of I do not say Lewis XIII. but of Cardinal de Richelieu, good
+taste first began to make its way.  It was refined under that of Lewis
+XIV., a great king, at least, if not a great man.  Corneille was the
+restorer of true taste, and the founder of the French theatre; although
+rather inclined to the Italian 'Concetti' and the Spanish 'Agudeze'.
+Witness those epigrams which he makes Chimene utter in the greatest
+excess of grief.
+
+Before his time, those kind of itinerant authors, called troubadours or
+romanciers, were a species of madmen who attracted the admiration of
+fools.  Toward the end of Cardinal de Richelieu's reign, and the
+beginning of Lewis XIV.'s, the Temple of Taste was established at the
+Hotel of Rambouillet; but that taste was not judiciously refined this
+Temple of Taste might more properly have been named a Laboratory of Wit,
+where good sense was put to the torture, in order to extract from it the
+most subtile essence.  There it was that Voiture labored hard and
+incessantly to create wit.  At length, Boileau and Moliere fixed the
+standard of true taste.  In spite of the Scuderys, the Calprenedes, etc.,
+they defeated and put to flight ARTAMENES, JUBA, OROONDATES, and all
+those heroes of romance, who were, notwithstanding (each of them), as
+good as a whole Army.  Those madmen then endeavored to obtain an asylum
+in libraries; this they could not accomplish, but were under a necessity
+of taking shelter in the chambers of some few ladies.  I would have you
+read one volume of "Cleopatra," and one of "Clelia"; it will otherwise be
+impossible for you to form any idea of the extravagances they contain;
+but God keep you from ever persevering to the twelfth.
+
+During almost the whole reign of Lewis XIV., true taste remained in its
+purity, until it received some hurt, although undesignedly, from a very
+fine genius, I mean Monsieur de Fontenelle; who, with the greatest sense
+and the most solid learning, sacrificed rather too much to the Graces,
+whose most favorite child and pupil he was.  Admired with reason, others
+tried to imitate him; but, unfortunately for us, the author of the
+"Pastorals," of the "History of Oracles," and of the "French Theatre,"
+found fewer imitators than the Chevalier d'Her did mimics.  He has since
+been taken off by a thousand authors: but never really imitated by anyone
+that I know of.
+
+At this time, the seat of true taste in France seems to me not well
+established.  It exists, but torn by factions.  There is one party of
+petits maitres, one of half-learned women, another of insipid authors
+whose works are 'verba et voces, et praeterea nihil'; and, in short, a
+numerous and very fashionable party of writers, who, in a metaphysical
+jumble, introduce their false and subtle reasonings upon the movements
+and the sentiments of THE SOUL, THE HEART, and THE MIND.
+
+Do not let yourself be overpowered by fashion, nor by particular sets of
+people with whom you may be connected; but try all the different coins
+before you receive any in payment.  Let your own good sense and reason
+judge of the value of each; and be persuaded, that NOTHING CAN BE
+BEAUTIFUL UNLESS TRUE: whatever brilliancy is not the result of the
+solidity and justness of a thought, it is but a false glare.  The Italian
+saying upon a diamond is equally just with regard to thoughts, 'Quanto
+Piu sodezza, tanto piu splendore'.
+
+All this ought not to hinder you from conforming externally to the modes
+and tones of the different companies in which you may chance to be.  With
+the 'petits maitres' speak epigrams; false sentiments, with frivolous
+women; and a mixture of all these together, with professed beaux esprits.
+I would have you do so; for at your age you ought not to aim at changing
+the tone of the company, but conform to it.  Examine well, however; weigh
+all maturely within yourself; and do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for
+the gold of Virgil.
+
+You will find at Paris good authors, and circles distinguished by the
+solidity of their reasoning.  You will never hear TRIFLING, AFFECTED, and
+far-sought conversations, at Madame de Monconseil's, nor at the hotels of
+Matignon and Coigni, where she will introduce you.  The President
+Montesquieu will not speak to you in the epigrammatic style.  His book,
+the "Spirit of the Laws," written in the vulgar tongue, will equally
+please and instruct you.
+
+Frequent the theatre whenever Corneille, Racine, and Moliere's pieces are
+played.  They are according to nature and to truth.  I do not mean by
+this to give an exclusion to several admirable modern plays, particularly
+"Cenie," --[Imitated in English by Mr. Francis, in a play called
+"Eugenia."]--  replete with sentiments that are true, natural, and
+applicable to one's self.  If you choose to know the characters of people
+now in fashion, read Crebillon the younger, and Marivaux's works.  The
+former is a most excellent painter; the latter has studied, and knows the
+human heart, perhaps too well.  Crebillon's 'Egaremens du Coeur et de
+l'Esprit is an excellent work in its kind; it will be of infinite
+amusement to you, and not totally useless.  The Japanese history of
+"Tanzar and Neadarne," by the same author, is an amiable extravagancy,
+interspersed with the most just reflections.  In short, provided you do
+not mistake the objects of your attention, you will find matter at Paris
+to form a good and true taste.
+
+As I shall let you remain at Paris without any person to direct your
+conduct, I flatter myself that you will not make a bad use of the
+confidence I repose in you.  I do not require that you should lead the
+life of a Capuchin friar; quite the contrary: I recommend pleasures to
+you; but I expect that they shall be the pleasures of a gentleman.  Those
+add brilliancy to a young man's character; but debauchery vilifies and
+degrades it.  I shall have very true and exact accounts of your conduct;
+and, according to the informations I receive, shall be more, or less, or
+not at all, yours.  Adieu.
+
+P. S.  Do not omit writing to me once a-week; and let your answer to this
+letter be in French.  Connect yourself as much as possible with the
+foreign ministers; which is properly traveling into different countries,
+without going from one place.  Speak Italian to all the Italians, and
+German to all the Germans you meet, in order not to forget those two
+languages.
+
+I wish you, my dear friend, as many happy new years as you deserve, and
+not one more.  May you deserve a great number!
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITORS BOOKMARKS:
+
+
+Absurd romances of the two last centuries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue. . . . . . . . . . .
+Ariosto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Assurance and intrepidity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Attention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Author is obscure and difficult in his own language. . . . . . . . . .
+Characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed. . . . . . . .
+Collana. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence. . . .
+Complaisance to every or anybody's opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Conceal all your learning carefully. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Contempt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Court mores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Dance to those who pipe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Dante. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Decides peremptorily upon every subject. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Desire to please, and that is the main point . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Desirous to make you their friend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Despairs of ever being able to pay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Difference in everything between system and practice.. . . . . . . . .
+Dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business . . . . . .
+Distinction between simulation and dissimulation . . . . . . . . . . .
+Do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for the gold of Virgil. . . . . . .
+Doing what may deserve to be written . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done . . . . . . . .
+Dressed as the generality of people of fashion are . . . . . . . . . .
+Economist of your time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Economists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Establishing a character of integrity and good manners . . . . . . . .
+Feed him, and feed upon him at the same time . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Flattery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Fortune stoops to the forward and the bold . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Frivolous and superficial pertness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight . . . . . . . .
+Guard against those who make the most court to you . . . . . . . . . .
+Have no pleasures but your own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+If you will persuade, you must first please. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young. . . . .
+Indiscriminately loading their memories with every part alike. . . . .
+Insipid in his pleasures, as inefficient in everything else. . . . . .
+Labor more to put them in conceit with themselves. . . . . . . . . . .
+Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it inviolably . . . . .
+Leo the Tenth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Let nobody discover that you do know your own value. . . . . . . . . .
+Let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Lying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Man is dishonored by not resenting an affront. . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Manner is full as important as the matter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise. . . . . . . .
+Money, the cause of much mischief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Montesquieu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+More people have ears to be tickled, than understandings to judg . . .
+Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends. . . . . . . .
+Necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances . . . . . . . . .
+Never affect the character in which you have a mind to shine . . . . .
+Never put you out of countenance before company. . . . . . . . . . . .
+Never read history without having maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+No one feels pleasure, who does not at the same time give it.. . . . .
+Not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife, unsuspected. . . . . . . . . .
+Often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment . . . . . . .
+Passes for a wit, though he hath certainly no uncommon share . . . . .
+Patient toleration of certain airs of superiority. . . . . . . . . . .
+People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority . . . . . .
+People lose a great deal of time by reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Pleased with him, by making them first pleased with themselves . . . .
+Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Pocket all your knowledge with your watch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Put out your time, but to good interest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Real merit of any kind will be discovered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Resentment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Respect without timidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Rich man never borrows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Same coolness and unconcern in any and every company . . . . . . . . .
+Seem to like and approve of everything at first. . . . . . . . . . . .
+Sentiments that were never felt, pompously described . . . . . . . . .
+Shall be more, or less, or not at all, yours.. . . . . . . . . . . . .
+She has all the reading that a woman should have . . . . . . . . . . .
+She who conquers only catches a Tartar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Silence in love betrays more woe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Spare the persons while you lash the crimes. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Steady assurance, with seeming modesty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgive . . .
+Take the hue of the company you are with.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit . . . . .
+Tasso. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+The present moments are the only ones we are sure of . . . . . . . . .
+Those whom you can make like themselves better . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Timidity and diffidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+To be heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure. . . . . . .
+To be pleased one must please. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Trifle only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious. . . .
+Trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. . . . . . . . .
+Unwilling and forced; it will never please . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Well dressed, not finely dressed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+What is impossible, and what is only difficult . . . . . . . . . . . .
+What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you . . . .
+Whatever real merit you have, other people will discover . . . . . . .
+Wish you, my dear friend, as many happy new years as you deserve . . .
+Women choose their favorites more by the ear . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Words are the dress of thoughts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Writing what may deserve to be read. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+You must be respectable, if you will be respected. . . . . . . . . . .
+Your character there, whatever it is, will get before you here . . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1750
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1750
+#4 in our series by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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+Title: Letters to His Son, 1750
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: August, 2002  [Etext #3354]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 03/03/01]
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+Edition: 11
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+
+
+                           LETTERS TO HIS SON													
+                                 1750
+
+                      By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+                     on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                            MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                                 and a
+
+                               GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+LETTER C
+
+LONDON, January 8, O. S.  1750
+
+DEAR BOY: I have seldom or never written to you upon the subject of
+religion and morality; your own reason, I am persuaded, has given you
+true notions of both; they speak best for themselves; but if they wanted
+assistance, you have Mr. Harte at hand, both for precept and example; to
+your own reason, therefore, and to Mr. Harte, shall I refer you for the
+reality of both, and confine myself in this letter to the decency, the
+utility, and the necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances of
+both.  When I say the appearances of religion, I do not mean that you
+should talk or act like a missionary or an enthusiast, nor that you
+should take up a controversial cudgel against whoever attacks the sect
+you are of; this would be both useless and unbecoming your age; but I
+mean that you should by no means seem to approve, encourage, or applaud,
+those libertine notions, which strike at religions equally, and which are
+the poor threadbare topics of halfwits and minute philosophers.  Even
+those who are silly enough to laugh at their jokes, are still wise enough
+to distrust and detest their characters; for putting moral virtues at the
+highest, and religion at the lowest, religion must still be allowed to be
+a collateral security, at least, to virtue, and every prudent man will
+sooner trust to two securities than to one.  Whenever, therefore, you
+happen to be in company with those pretended 'Esprits forts', or with
+thoughtless libertines, who laugh at all religion to show their wit, or
+disclaim it, to complete their riot, let no word or look of yours
+intimate the least approbation; on the contrary, let a silent gravity
+express your dislike: but enter not into the subject and decline such
+unprofitable and indecent controversies.  Depend upon this truth, that
+every man is the worse looked upon, and the less trusted for being
+thought to have no religion; in spite of all the pompous and specious
+epithets he may assume, of 'Esprit fort', freethinker, or moral
+philosopher; and a wise atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his
+own interest and character in this world, pretend to some religion.
+
+Your moral character must be not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife,
+unsuspected.  The least speck or blemish upon it is fatal.  Nothing
+degrades and vilifies more, for it excites and unites detestation and
+contempt.  There are, however, wretches in the world profligate enough to
+explode all notions of moral good and evil; to maintain that they are
+merely local, and depend entirely upon the customs and fashions of
+different countries; nay, there are still, if possible, more
+unaccountable wretches; I mean those who affect to preach and propagate
+such absurd and infamous notions without believing them themselves.
+These are the devil's hypocrites.  Avoid, as much as possible, the
+company of such people; who reflect a degree of discredit and infamy upon
+all who converse with them.  But as you may, sometimes, by accident, fall
+into such company, take great care that no complaisance, no good-humor,
+no warmth of festal mirth, ever make you seem even to acquiesce, much
+less to approve or applaud, such infamous doctrines.  On the other hand,
+do not debate nor enter into serious argument upon a subject so much
+below it: but content yourself with telling these APOSTLES that you know
+they are not, serious; that you have a much better opinion of them than
+they would have you have; and that, you are very sure, they would not
+practice the doctrine they preach.  But put your private mark upon them,
+and shun them forever afterward.
+
+There is nothing so delicate as your moral character, and nothing which
+it is your interest so much to preserve pure.  Should you be suspected of
+injustice, malignity, perfidy, lying, etc., all the parts and knowledge
+in the world will never procure you esteem, friendship, or respect.
+A strange concurrence of circumstances has sometimes raised very bad men
+to high stations, but they have been raised like criminals to a pillory,
+where their persons and their crimes, by being more conspicuous, are only
+the more known, the more detested, and the more pelted and insulted.
+If, in any case whatsoever, affectation and ostentation are pardonable,
+it is in the case of morality; though even there, I would not advise you
+to a pharisaical pomp of virtue.  But I will recommend to you a most
+scrupulous tenderness for your moral character, and the utmost care not
+to say or do the least thing that may ever so slightly taint it.  Show
+yourself, upon all occasions, the advocate, the friend, but not the bully
+of virtue.  Colonel Chartres, whom you have certainly heard of (who was,
+I believe, the most notorious blasted rascal in the world, and who had,
+by all sorts of crimes, amassed immense wealth), was so sensible of the
+disadvantage of a bad character, that I heard him once say, in his
+impudent, profligate manner, that though he would not give one farthing
+for virtue, he would give ten thousand pounds for a character; because he
+should get a hundred thousand pounds by it; whereas, he was so blasted,
+that he had no longer an opportunity of cheating people.  Is it possible,
+then, that an honest man can neglect what a wise rogue would purchase so
+dear?
+
+There is one of the vices above mentioned, into which people of good
+education, and, in the main, of good principles, sometimes fall, from
+mistaken notions of skill, dexterity, and self-defense, I mean lying;
+though it is inseparably attended with more infamy and loss than any
+other.  The prudence and necessity of often concealing the truth,
+insensibly seduces people to violate it.  It is the only art of mean
+capacities, and the only refuge of mean spirits.  Whereas, concealing the
+truth, upon proper occasions, is as prudent and as innocent, as telling a
+lie, upon any occasion, is infamous and foolish.  I will state you a case
+in your own department.  Suppose you are employed at a foreign court, and
+that the minister of that court is absurd or impertinent enough to ask
+you what your instructions are? will you tell him a lie, which as soon as
+found out (and found out it certainly will be) must destroy your credit,
+blast your character, and render you useless there?  No.  Will you tell
+him the truth then, and betray your trust?  As certainly, No.  But you
+will answer with firmness, That you are surprised at such a question,
+that you are persuaded he does not expect an answer to it; but that, at
+all events, he certainly will not have one.  Such an answer will give him
+confidence in you; he will conceive an opinion of your veracity, of which
+opinion you may afterward make very honest and fair advantages.  But if,
+in negotiations, you are looked upon as a liar and a trickster, no
+confidence will be placed in you, nothing will be communicated to you,
+and you will be in the situation of a man who has been burned in the
+cheek; and who, from that mark, cannot afterward get an honest livelihood
+if he would, but must continue a thief.
+
+Lord Bacon, very justly, makes a distinction between simulation and
+dissimulation; and allows the latter rather than the former; but still
+observes, that they are the weaker sort of politicians who have recourse
+to either.  A man who has strength of mind and strength of parts, wants
+neither of them.  Certainly (says he) the ablest men that ever were, have
+all had an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and
+veracity; but then, they were like horses well managed; for they could
+tell, passing well, when to stop or turn; and at such times, when they
+thought the case indeed required some dissimulation, if then they used
+it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good
+faith and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible.
+
+There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they
+reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurts nobody but
+themselves.  This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity,
+begotten upon folly: these people deal in the marvelous; they have seen
+some things that never existed; they have seen other things which they
+never really saw, though they did exist, only because they were thought
+worth seeing.  Has anything remarkable been said or done in any place,
+or in any company? they immediately present and declare themselves eye or
+ear witnesses of it.  They have done feats themselves, unattempted, or at
+least unperformed by others.  They are always the heroes of their own
+fables; and think that they gain consideration, or at least present
+attention, by it.  Whereas, in truth, all that they get is ridicule and
+contempt, not without a good degree of distrust; for one must naturally
+conclude, that he who will tell any lie from idle vanity, will not
+scruple telling a greater for interest.  Had I really seen anything so
+very extraordinary as to be almost incredible I would keep it to myself,
+rather than by telling it give anybody room to doubt, for one minute, of
+my veracity.  It is most certain, that the reputation of chastity is not
+so necessary for a women, as that of veracity is for a man; and with
+reason; for it is possible for a woman to be virtuous, though not
+strictly chaste, but it is not possible for a man to be virtuous without
+strict veracity.  The slips of the poor women are sometimes mere bodily
+frailties; but a lie in a man is a vice of the mind and of the heart.
+For God's sake be scrupulously jealous of the purity of your moral
+character; keep it immaculate, unblemished, unsullied; and it will be
+unsuspected.  Defamation and calumny never attack, where there is no weak
+place; they magnify, but they do not create.
+
+There is a very great difference between the purity of character, which I
+so earnestly recommend to you, and the stoical gravity and austerity of
+character, which I do by no means recommend to you.  At your, age,
+I would no more wish you to be a Cato than a Clodius.  Be, and be
+reckoned, a man of pleasure as well as a man of business.  Enjoy this
+happy and giddy time of your life; shine in the pleasures, and in the
+company of people of your own age.  This is all to be done, and indeed
+only can be done, without the least taint to the purity of your moral
+character; for those mistaken young fellows, who think to shine by an
+impious or immoral licentiousness, shine only from their stinking, like
+corrupted flesh, in the dark.  Without this purity, you can have no
+dignity of character; and without dignity of character it is impossible
+to rise in the world.  You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
+I have known people slattern away their character, without really
+polluting it; the consequence of which has been, that they have become
+innocently contemptible; their merit has been dimmed, their pretensions
+unregarded, and all their views defeated.  Character must be kept bright,
+as well as clean.  Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing.  In
+purity of character and in politeness of manners labor to excel all, if
+you wish to equal many.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CI
+
+LONDON, January 11, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Harte, of the 31st
+December, N. S., which I will answer soon; and for which I desire you to
+return him my thanks now.  He tells me two things that give me great
+satisfaction: one is that there are very few English at Rome; the other
+is, that you frequent the best foreign companies.  This last is a very
+good symptom; for a man of sense is never desirous to frequent those
+companies, where he is not desirous to please, or where he finds that he
+displeases; it will not be expected in those companies, that, at your
+age, you should have the 'Garbo', the 'Disinvoltura', and the
+'Leggiadria' of a man of five-and-twenty, who has been long used to keep
+the best companies; and therefore do not be discouraged, and think
+yourself either slighted or laughed at, because you see others, older and
+more used to the world, easier, more familiar, and consequently rather
+better received in those companies than yourself.  In time your turn will
+come; and if you do but show an inclination, a desire to please, though
+you should be embarrassed or even err in the means, which must
+necessarily happen to you at first, yet the will (to use a vulgar
+expression) will be taken for the deed; and people, instead of laughing
+at you, will be glad to instruct you.  Good sense can only give you the
+great outlines of good-breeding; but observation and usage can alone give
+you the delicate touches, and the fine coloring.  You will naturally
+endeavor to show the utmost respect to people of certain ranks and
+characters, and consequently you will show it; but the proper, the
+delicate manner of showing that respect, nothing but observation and time
+can give.
+
+I remember that when, with all the awkwardness and rust of Cambridge
+about me, I was first introduced into good company, I was frightened out
+of my wits.  I was determined to be, what I thought, civil; I made fine
+low bows, and placed myself below everybody; but when I was spoken to,
+or attempted to speak myself, 'obstupui, steteruntque comae, et vox
+faucibus haesit'.  If I saw people whisper, I was sure it was at me; and
+I thought myself the sole object of either the ridicule or the censure of
+the whole company, who, God knows, did not trouble their heads about me.
+In this way I suffered, for some time, like a criminal at the bar; and
+should certainly have renounced all polite company forever, if I had not
+been so convinced of the absolute necessity of forming my manners upon
+those of the best companies, that I determined to persevere and suffer
+anything, or everything, rather than not compass that point.  Insensibly
+it grew easier to me; and I began not to bow so ridiculously low, and to
+answer questions without great hesitation or stammering: if, now and
+then, some charitable people, seeing my embarrassment, and being
+'desoevre' themselves, came and spoke to me, I considered them as angels
+sent to comfort me, and that gave me a little courage.  I got more soon
+afterward, and was intrepid enough to go up to a fine woman, and tell her
+that I thought it a warm day; she answered me, very civilly, that she
+thought so too; upon which the conversation ceased, on my part, for some
+time, till she, good-naturedly resuming it, spoke to me thus: "I see your
+embarrassment, and I am sure that the few words you said to me cost you a
+great deal; but do not be discouraged for that reason, and avoid good
+company.  We see that you desire to please, and that is the main point;
+you want only the manner, and you think that you want it still more than
+you do.  You must go through your noviciate before you can profess good-
+breeding: and, if you will be my novice, I will present you my
+acquaintance as such."
+
+You will easily imagine how much this speech pleased me, and how
+awkwardly I answered it; I hemmed once or twice (for it gave me a bur in
+my throat) before I could tell her that I was very much obliged to her;
+that it was true, that I had a great deal of reason to distrust my own
+behavior, not being used to fine company; and that I should be proud of
+being her novice, and receiving her instructions.
+
+As soon as I had fumbled out this answer, she called up three or four
+people to her, and said: Savez-vous (for she was a foreigner, and I was
+abroad) que j'ai entrepris ce jeune homme, et qu'il le faut rassurer?
+Pour moi, je crois en avoir fait---- [Do you know that I have undertaken
+this young man, and he must be encouraged?  As for me, I think I have
+made a conquest of him; for he just now ventured to tell me, although
+tremblingly, that it is warm.  You will assist me in polishing him.  He
+must necessarily have a passion for somebody; if he does not think me
+worthy of being the object, he will seek out some other.  However, my
+novice, do not disgrace yourself by frequenting opera girls and
+actresses; who will not require of you sentiments and politeness, but
+will be your ruin in every respect.  I repeat it to you, my, friend, if
+you should get into low, mean company, you will be undone.  Those
+creatures will destroy your fortune and your health, corrupt your morals,
+and you will never acquire the style of good company.]
+
+The company laughed at this lecture, and I was stunned with it.  I did
+not know whether she was serious or in jest.  By turns I was pleased,
+ashamed, encouraged, and dejected.  But when I found afterward, that both
+she, and those to whom she had presented me, countenanced and protected
+me in company, I gradually got more assurance, and began not to be
+ashamed of endeavoring to be civil.  I copied the best masters, at first
+servilely, afterward more freely, and at last I joined habit and
+invention.
+
+All this will happen to you, if you persevere in the desire of pleasing
+and shining as a man of the world; that part of your character is the
+only one about which I have at present the least doubt.  I cannot
+entertain the least suspicion of your moral character; your learned
+character is out of question.  Your polite character is now the only
+remaining object that gives me the least anxiety; and you are now in the
+right way of finishing it.  Your constant collision with good company
+will, of course, smooth and polish you.  I could wish that you would say,
+to the five or six men or women with whom you are the most acquainted,
+that you are sensible that, from youth and inexperience, you must make
+many mistakes in good-breeding; that you beg of them to correct you,
+without reserve, wherever they see you fail; and that you shall take such
+admonition as the strongest proofs of their friendship.  Such a
+confession and application will be very engaging to those to whom you
+make them.  They will tell others of them, who will be pleased with that
+disposition, and, in a friendly manner, tell you of any little slip or
+error.  The Duke de Nivernois--[At that time Ambassador from the Court
+of France to Rome.]--would, I am sure, be charmed, if you dropped such a
+thing to him; adding, that you loved to address yourself always to the
+best masters.  Observe also the different modes of good-breeding of
+several nations, and conform yourself to them respectively.  Use an easy
+civility with the French, more ceremony with the Italians, and still more
+with the Germans; but let it be without embarrassment and with ease.
+Bring it by use to be habitual to you; for, if it seems unwilling and
+forced; it will never please.  'Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et res'.
+Acquire an easiness and versatility of manners, as well as of mind; and,
+like the chameleon, take the hue of the company you are with.
+
+There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who having lived always in
+the 'grande monde', and having possibly had some gallantries, together
+with the experience of five-and-twenty, or thirty years, form a young
+fellow better than all the rules that can be given him.  These women,
+being past their bloom, are extremely flattered by the least attention
+from a young fellow; and they will point out to him those manners and
+ATTENTIONS that pleased and engaged them, when they were in the pride of
+their youth and beauty.  Wherever you go, make some of those women your
+friends; which a very little matter will do.  Ask their advice, tell them
+your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not
+to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age; and the
+suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives.  I
+long for your picture, which Mr. Harte tells me is now drawing.  I want
+to see your countenance, your air, and even your dress; the better they
+all three are, the better I am not wise enough to despise any one of
+them.  Your dress, at least, is in your own power, and I hope that you
+mind it to a proper degree.  Yours, Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CII
+
+LONDON, January 18, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I consider the solid part of your little edifice as so
+near being finished and completed, that my only remaining care is about
+the embellishments; and that must now be your principal care too. Adorn
+yourself with all those graces and accomplishments, which, without
+solidity, are frivolous; but without which solidity is, to a great
+degree, useless.  Take one man, with a very moderate degree of knowledge,
+but with a pleasing figure, a prepossessing address, graceful in all that
+he says and does, polite, 'liant', and, in short, adorned with all the
+lesser talents: and take another man, with sound sense and profound
+knowledge, but without the above-mentioned advantages; the former will
+not only get the better of the latter, in every pursuit of every KIND,
+but in truth there will be no sort of competition between them.  But can
+every man acquire these advantages?  I say, Yes, if he please, suppose he
+is in a situation and in circumstances to frequent good company.
+Attention, observation, and imitation, will most infallibly do it.
+
+When you see a man whose first 'abord' strikes you, prepossesses you in
+his favor, and makes you entertain a good opinion of him, you do not know
+why, analyze that 'abord', and examine, within yourself, the several
+parts that composed it; and you will generally find it to be the result,
+the happy assemblage of modesty unembarrassed, respect without timidity,
+a genteel, but unaffected attitude of body and limbs, an open, cheerful,
+but unsmirking countenance, and a dress, by no means negligent, and yet
+not foppish.  Copy him, then, not servilely, but as some of the greatest
+masters of painting have copied others; insomuch that their copies have
+been equal to the originals, both as to beauty and freedom.  When you see
+a man who is universally allowed to shine as an agreeable, well-bred man,
+and a fine gentleman (as, for example, the Duke de Nivernois), attend to
+him, watch him carefully; observe in what manner he addresses himself to
+his superiors, how he lives with his equals, and how he treats his
+inferiors.  Mind his turn of conversation in the several situations of
+morning visits, the table, and the evening amusements.  Imitate, without
+mimicking him; and be his duplicate, but not his ape. You will find that
+he takes care never to say or do any thing that can be construed into a
+slight, or a negligence; or that can, in any degree, mortify people's
+vanity and self-love; on the contrary, you will perceive that he makes
+people pleased with him, by making them first pleased with themselves: he
+shows respect, regard, esteem and attention, where they are severally
+proper: he sows them with care, and he reaps them in plenty.
+
+These amiable accomplishments are all to be acquired by use and
+imitation; for we are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation.
+The great point is, to choose good models and to study them with care.
+People insensibly contract, not only the air, the manners, and the vices,
+of those with whom they commonly converse, but their virtues too, and
+even their way of thinking.  This is so true, that I have known very
+plain understandings catch a certain degree of wit, by constantly
+conversing with those who had a great deal.  Persist, therefore, in
+keeping the best company, and you will insensibly become like them; but
+if you add attention and observation, you will very soon become one of
+them.  The inevitable contagion of company shows you the necessity of
+keeping the best, and avoiding all other; for in everyone, something will
+stick.  You have hitherto, I confess, had very few opportunities of
+keeping polite company.  Westminster school is, undoubtedly, the seat of
+illiberal manners and brutal behavior.  Leipsig, I suppose, is not the
+seat of refined and elegant manners.  Venice, I believe, has done
+something; Rome, I hope, will do a great deal more; and Paris will, I
+dare say, do all that you want; always supposing that you frequent the
+best companies, and in the intention of improving and forming yourself;
+for without that intention nothing will do.
+
+I here subjoin a list of all those necessary, ornamental accomplishments
+(without which, no man living can either please, or rise in the world)
+which hitherto I fear you want, and which only require your care and
+attention to possess.
+
+To speak elegantly, whatever language you speak in; without which nobody
+will hear you with pleasure, and consequently you will speak to very
+little purpose.
+
+An agreeable and distinct elocution; without which nobody will hear you
+with patience: this everybody may acquire, who is not born with some
+imperfection in the organs of speech.  You are not; and therefore it is
+wholly in your power.  You need take much less pains for it than
+Demosthenes did.
+
+A distinguished politeness of manners and address; which common sense,
+observation, good company, and imitation, will infallibly give you if you
+will accept it.
+
+A genteel carriage and graceful motions, with the air of a man of
+fashion: a good dancing-master, with some care on your part, and some
+imitation of those who excel, will soon bring this about.
+
+To be extremely clean in your person, and perfectly well dressed,
+according to the fashion, be that what it will: Your negligence of your
+dress while you were a schoolboy was pardonable, but would not be so now.
+
+Upon the whole, take it for granted, that without these accomplishments,
+all you know, and all you can do, will avail you very little.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIII
+
+LONDON, January 25, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have heard from you, that I suppose
+Rome engrosses every moment of your time; and if it engrosses it in the
+manner I could wish, I willingly give up my share of it.  I would rather
+'prodesse quam conspici'.  Put out your time, but to good interest; and I
+do not desire to borrow much of it.  Your studies, the respectable
+remains of antiquity, and your evening amusements cannot, and indeed
+ought not, to leave you much time to write.  You will, probably, never
+see Rome again; and therefore you ought to see it well now; by seeing it
+well, I do not mean only the buildings, statues, and paintings, though
+they undoubtedly deserve your attention: but I mean seeing into the
+constitution and government of it.  But these things certainly occur to
+your own common sense.
+
+How go, your pleasures at Rome?  Are you in fashion there? that is, do
+you live with the people who are?--the only way of being so yourself, in
+time.  Are you domestic enough in any considerable house to be called 'le
+petit Stanhope'?  Has any woman of fashion and good-breeding taken the
+trouble of abusing and laughing at you amicably to your face?  Have you
+found a good 'decrotteuse'.   For those are the steps by which you must
+rise to politeness.  I do not presume to ask if you have any attachment,
+because I believe you will not make me your confident; but this I will
+say, eventually, that if you have one, 'il faut bien payer d'attentions
+et de petits soin', if you would have your sacrifice propitiously
+received.  Women are not so much taken by beauty as men are, but prefer
+those men who show them the most attention.
+
+               Would you engage the lovely fair?
+               With gentlest manners treat her;
+               With tender looks and graceful air,
+               In softest accents greet her.
+
+               Verse were but vain, the Muses fail,
+               Without the Graces' aid;
+               The God of Verse could not prevail
+               To stop the flying maid.
+
+               Attention by attentions gain,
+               And merit care by cares;
+               So shall the nymph reward your pain;
+               And Venus crown your prayers.
+                                        Probatum est.
+
+
+A man's address and manner weigh much more with them than his beauty;
+and, without them, the Abbati and Monsignori will get the better of you.
+This address and manner should be exceedingly respectful, but at the same
+time easy and unembarrassed.  Your chit-chat or 'entregent' with them
+neither can, nor ought to be very solid; but you should take care to turn
+and dress up your trifles prettily, and make them every now and then
+convey indirectly some little piece of flattery.  A fan, a riband, or a
+head-dress, are great materials for gallant dissertations, to one who has
+got 'le ton leger et aimable de la bonne compagnie'.  At all events, a
+man had better talk too much to women, than too little; they take silence
+for dullness, unless where they think that the passion they have inspired
+occasions it; and in that case they adopt the notion, that
+
+                    Silence in love betrays more woe
+                    Than words, though ne'er so witty;
+                    The beggar that is dumb, we know,
+                    Deserves a double pity.
+
+'A propos' of this subject: what progress do you make in that language,
+in which Charles the Fifth said that he would choose to speak to his
+mistress?  Have you got all the tender diminutives, in 'etta, ina', and
+'ettina', which, I presume, he alluded to?  You already possess, and, I
+hope, take care not to forget, that language which he reserved for his
+horse.  You are absolutely master, too, of that language in which he said
+he would converse with men; French.  But, in every language, pray attend
+carefully to the choice of your words, and to the turn of your
+expression.  Indeed, it is a point of very great consequence.  To be
+heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure: words are the dress
+of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and
+dirt, than your person should.  By the way, do you mind your person and
+your dress sufficiently?  Do you take great care of your teeth?  Pray
+have them put in order by the best operator at Rome.  Are you be-laced,
+bepowdered, and be-feathered, as other young fellows are, and should be?
+At your age, 'il faut du brillant, et meme un peu de fracas, mais point
+de mediocre; il faut un air vif, aise et noble.  Avec les hommes, un
+maintien respectueux et en meme tems respectable; avec les femmes, un
+caquet leger, enjoue, et badin, mais toujours fort poli'.
+
+To give you an opportunity of exerting your talents, I send you, here
+inclosed, a letter of recommendation from Monsieur Villettes to Madame de
+Simonetti at Milan; a woman of the first fashion and consideration there;
+and I shall in my next send you another from the same person to Madame
+Clerici, at the same place.  As these two ladies' houses are the resort
+of all the people of fashion at Milan, those two recommendations will
+introduce you to them all.  Let me know, in due time, if you have
+received these two letters, that I may have them renewed, in case of
+accidents.
+
+Adieu, my dear friend! Study hard; divert yourself heartily; distinguish
+carefully between the pleasures of a man of fashion, and the vices of a
+scoundrel; pursue the former, and abhor the latter, like a man of sense.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIV
+
+LONDON, February 5, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Very few people are good economists of their fortune,
+and still fewer of their time; and yet of the two, the latter is the most
+precious.  I heartily wish you to be a good economist of both: and you
+are now of an age to begin to think seriously of those two important
+articles.  Young people are apt to think that they have so much time
+before them, that they may squander what they please of it, and yet have
+enough left; as very great fortunes have frequently seduced people to a
+ruinous profusion.  Fatal mistakes, always repented of, but always too
+late!  Old Mr. Lowndes, the famous Secretary of the Treasury in the
+reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to
+say,--TAKE CARE OF THE PENCE, AND THE POUNDS WILL TAKE CARE OF
+THEMSELVES.
+To this maxim, which he not only preached but practiced, his two grandsons
+at this time owe the very considerable fortunes that he left them.
+
+This holds equally true as to time; and I most earnestly recommend to you
+the care of those minutes and quarters of hours, in the course of the
+day, which people think too short to deserve their attention; and yet, if
+summed up at the end of the year, would amount to a very considerable
+portion of time.  For example: you are to be at such a place at twelve,
+by appointment; you go out at eleven, to make two or three visits first;
+those persons are not at home, instead of sauntering away that
+intermediate time at a coffeehouse, and possibly alone, return home,
+write a letter, beforehand, for the ensuing post, or take up a good book,
+I do not mean Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, or Newton, by way of
+dipping; but some book of rational amusement and detached pieces, as
+Horace, Boileau, Waller, La Bruyere, etc.  This will be so much time
+saved, and by no means ill employed.  Many people lose a great deal of
+time by reading: for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the
+absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never
+existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt,
+pompously described: the Oriental ravings and extravagances of the
+"Arabian Nights," and Mogul tales; or, the new flimsy brochures that now
+swarm in France, of fairy tales, 'Reflections sur le coeur et l'esprit,
+metaphysique de l'amour, analyse des beaux sentimens', and such sort of
+idle frivolous stuff, that nourishes and improves the mind just as much
+as whipped cream would the body.  Stick to the best established books in
+every language; the celebrated poets, historians, orators, or
+philosophers.  By these means (to use a city metaphor) you will make
+fifty PER CENT.  Of that time, of which others do not make above three or
+four, or probably nothing at all.
+
+Many people lose a great deal of their time by laziness; they loll and
+yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin
+anything then, and that it will do as well another time.  This is a most
+unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge
+and business.  At your age, you have no right nor claim to laziness; I
+have, if I please, being emeritus.  You are but just listed in the world,
+and must be active, diligent, indefatigable.  If ever you propose
+commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence.  Never
+put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.
+
+Dispatch is the soul of business; and nothing contributes more to
+dispatch than method.  Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it
+inviolably, as far as unexpected incidents may allow.  Fix one certain
+hour and day in the week for your accounts, and keep them together in
+their proper order; by which means they will require very little time,
+and you can never be much cheated.  Whatever letters and papers you keep,
+docket and tie them up in their respective classes, so that you may
+instantly have recourse to any one.  Lay down a method also for your
+reading, for which you allot a certain share of your mornings; let it be
+in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and
+unmethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different
+authors, upon different subjects.  Keep a useful and short commonplace
+book of what you read, to help your memory only, and not for pedantic
+quotations.  Never read history without having maps and a chronological
+book, or tables, lying by you, and constantly recurred to; without which
+history is only a confused heap of facts.  One method more I recommend to
+you, by which I have found great benefit, even in the most dissipated
+part of my life; that is, to rise early, and at the same hour every
+morning, how late soever you may have sat up the night before.  This
+secures you an hour or two, at least, of reading or reflection before the
+common interruptions of the morning begin; and it will save your
+constitution, by forcing you to go to bed early, at least one night in
+three.
+
+You will say, it may be, as many young people would, that all this order
+and method is very troublesome, only fit for dull people, and a
+disagreeable restraint upon the noble spirit and fire of youth.  I deny
+it; and assert, on the contrary, that it will procure you both more time
+and more taste for your pleasures; and, so far from being troublesome to
+you, that after you have pursued it a month, it would be troublesome to
+you to lay it aside.  Business whets the appetite, and gives a taste to
+pleasure, as exercise does to food; and business can never be done
+without method; it raises the spirits for pleasures; and a SPECTACLE, a
+ball, an assembly, will much more sensibly affect a man who has employed,
+than a man who has lost, the preceding part of the day; nay, I will
+venture to say, that a fine lady will seem to have more charms to a man
+of study or business, than to a saunterer.  The same listlessness runs
+through his whole conduct, and he is as insipid in his pleasures, as
+inefficient in everything else.
+
+I hope you earn your pleasures, and consequently taste them; for, by the
+way, I know a great many men, who call themselves men of pleasure, but
+who, in truth, have none.  They adopt other people's indiscriminately,
+but without any taste of their own.  I have known them often inflict
+excesses upon themselves because they thought them genteel; though they
+sat as awkwardly upon them as other people's clothes would have done.
+Have no pleasures but your own, and then you will shine in them.  What
+are yours?  Give me a short history of them.  'Tenez-vous votre coin a
+table, et dans les bonnes compagnies? y brillez-vous du cote de la
+politesse, de d'enjouement, du badinage?  Etes-vous galant?  Filex-vous
+le parfait amour?  Est-il question de flechir par vos soins et par vos
+attentions les rigueurs de quelque fiere Princesse'?  You may safely
+trust me; for though I am a severe censor of vice and folly, I am a
+friend and advocate for pleasures, and will contribute all in my power to
+yours.
+
+There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in
+business.  In love, a man may lose his heart with dignity; but if he
+loses his nose, he loses his character into the bargain.  At table, a man
+may with decency have a distinguishing palate; but indiscriminate
+voraciousness degrades him to a glutton.  A man may play with decency;
+but if he games, he is disgraced.  Vivacity and wit make a man shine in
+company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. [see
+Mark Twain's identical advice in his 'Speeches'  D.W.]  Every virtue,
+they say, has its kindred vice; every pleasure, I am sure, has its
+neighboring disgrace.  Mark carefully, therefore, the line that separates
+them, and rather stop a yard short, than step an inch beyond it.
+
+I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I
+have in giving it you! and you may the more easily have it, as I give you
+none that is inconsistent with your pleasure.  In all that I say to you,
+it is your interest alone that I consider: trust to my experience; you
+know you may to my affection.  Adieu.
+
+I have received no letter yet from you or Mr. Harte.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CV
+
+LONDON, February 8, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You have, by this time, I hope and believe, made such a
+progress in the Italian language, that you can read it with ease; I mean,
+the easy books in it; and indeed, in that, as well as in every other
+language, the easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author
+is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think
+clearly.  This is, in my opinion, the case of a celebrated Italian
+author; to whom the Italians, from the admiration they have of him, have
+given the epithet of il divino; I mean Dante.  Though I formerly knew
+Italian extremely well, I could never understand him; for which reason I
+had done with him, fully convinced that he was not worth the pains
+necessary to understand him.
+
+The good Italian authors are, in my mind, but few; I mean, authors of
+invention; for there are, undoubtedly, very good historians and excellent
+translators.  The two poets worth your reading, and, I was going to say,
+the only two, are Tasso and Ariosto.  Tasso's 'Gierusalemme Liberata' is
+altogether unquestionably a fine poem, though--it has some low, and many
+false thoughts in it: and Boileau very justly makes it the mark of a bad
+taste, to compare 'le Clinquant Tasse a l' Or de Virgile'.  The image,
+with which he adorns the introduction of his epic poem, is low and
+disgusting; it is that of a froward, sick, puking child, who is deceived
+into a dose of necessary physic by 'du bon-bon'.  These verses are these:
+
+          "Cosi all'egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi
+          Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso:
+          Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,
+          E dall' inganno suo vita riceve."
+
+However, the poem, with all its faults about it, may justly be called a
+fine one.
+
+If fancy, imagination, invention, description, etc., constitute a poet,
+Ariosto is, unquestionably, a great one.  His "Orlando," it is true, is a
+medley of lies and truths--sacred and profane--wars, loves, enchantments,
+giants, madheroes, and adventurous damsels, but then, he gives it you
+very fairly for what it is, and does not pretend to put it upon you for
+the true 'epopee', or epic poem.  He says:
+
+          "Le Donne, i Cavalier, l'arme, gli amori
+          Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese, io canto."
+
+The connections of his stories are admirable, his reflections just, his
+sneers and ironies incomparable, and his painting excellent.  When
+Angelica, after having wandered over half the world alone with Orlando,
+pretends, notwithstanding,
+
+          "--- ch'el fior virginal cosi avea salvo,
+          Come selo porto dal matern' alvo."
+
+The author adds, very gravely,--
+
+          "Forse era ver, ma non pero credibile
+          A chi del senso suo fosse Signore."
+
+Astolpho's being carried to the moon by St. John, in order to look for
+Orlando's lost wits, at the end of the 34th book, and the many lost
+things that he finds there, is a most happy extravagancy, and contains,
+at the same time, a great deal of sense.  I would advise you to read this
+poem with attention.  It is, also, the source of half the tales, novels,
+and plays, that have been written since.
+
+The 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini is so celebrated, that you should read it;
+but in reading it, you will judge of the great propriety of the
+characters.  A parcel of shepherds and shepherdesses, with the TRUE
+PASTORAL' SIMPLICITY, talk metaphysics, epigrams, 'concetti', and
+quibbles, by the hour to each other.
+
+The Aminto del Tasso, is much more what it is intended to be, a pastoral:
+the shepherds, indeed, have their 'concetti' and their antitheses; but
+are not quite so sublime and abstracted as those in Pastor Fido.  I think
+that you will like it much the best of the two.
+
+Petrarca is, in my mind, a sing-song, love-sick poet; much admired,
+however, by the Italians: but an Italian who should think no better of
+him than I do, would certainly say that he deserved his 'Laura' better
+than his 'Lauro'; and that wretched quibble would be reckoned an
+excellent piece of Italian wit.
+
+The Italian prose-writers (of invention I mean) which I would recommend
+to your acquaintance, are Machiavello and Boccacio; the former, for the
+established reputation which he has acquired, of a consummate politician
+(whatever my own private sentiments may be of either his politics or his
+morality): the latter, for his great invention, and for his natural and
+agreeable manner of telling his stories.
+
+Guicciardini, Bentivoglio, Davila, etc., are excellent historians, and
+deserved being read with attention.  The nature of history checks, a
+little, the flights of Italian imaginations; which, in works of
+invention, are very high indeed.  Translations curb them still more: and
+their translations of the classics are incomparable; particularly the
+first ten, translated in the time of Leo the Tenth, and inscribed to him,
+under the title of Collana.  That original Collana has been lengthened
+since; and if I mistake not, consist now of one hundred and ten volumes.
+
+From what I have said, you will easily guess that I meant to put you upon
+your guard; and not let your fancy be dazzled and your taste corrupted by
+the concetti, the quaintnesses, and false thoughts, which are too much
+the characteristics of the Italian and Spanish authors.  I think you are
+in no great danger, as your taste has been formed upon the best ancient
+models, the Greek and Latin authors of the best ages, who indulge
+themselves in none of the puerilities I have hinted at.  I think I may
+say, with truth; that true wit, sound taste, and good sense, are now, as
+it were, engrossed by France and England.  Your old acquaintances, the
+Germans, I fear, are a little below them; and your new acquaintances, the
+Italians, are a great deal too much above them.  The former, I doubt,
+crawl a little; the latter, I am sure, very often fly out of sight.
+
+I recommended to you a good many years ago, and I believe you then read,
+La maniere de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit par le Pere
+Bouhours; and I think it is very well worth your reading again, now that
+you can judge of it better.  I do not know any book that contributes more
+to form a true taste; and you find there, into the bargain, the most
+celebrated passages, both of the ancients and the moderns, which refresh
+your memory with what you have formerly read in them separately.  It is
+followed by a book much of the same size, by the same author, entitled,
+'Suite des Pensees ingenieuses'.
+
+To do justice to the best English and French authors, they have not given
+into that false taste; they allow no thoughts to be good, that are not
+just and founded upon truth.  The age of Lewis XIV. was very like the
+Augustan; Boileau, Moliere, La Fontaine, Racine, etc., established the
+true, and exposed the false taste.  The reign of King Charles II.
+(meritorious in no other respect) banished false taste out of England,
+and proscribed puns, quibbles, acrostics, etc.  Since that, false wit has
+renewed its attacks, and endeavored to recover its lost empire, both in
+England and France; but without success; though, I must say, with more
+success in France than in England.  Addison, Pope, and Swift, have
+vigorously defended the rights of good sense, which is more than can be
+said of their contemporary French authors, who have of late had a great
+tendency to 'le faux brillant', 'le raffinement, et l'entortillement'.
+And Lord Roscommon would be more in the right now, than he was then, in
+saying, that,
+
+          "The English bullion of one sterling line,
+          Drawn to French wire, would through whole pages shine."
+
+Lose no time, my dear child, I conjure you, in forming your taste, your
+manners, your mind, your everything; you have but two years' time to do
+it in; for whatever you are, to a certain degree, at twenty, you will be,
+more or less, all the rest of your life.  May it be a long and happy one.
+Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVI
+
+LONDON, February 22, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: If the Italian of your letter to Lady Chesterfield was
+all your own, I am very well satisfied with the progress which you have
+made in that language in so short a time; according to that gradation,
+you will, in a very little time more, be master of it.  Except at the
+French Ambassador's, I believe you hear only Italian spoke; for the
+Italians speak very little French, and that little generally very ill.
+The French are even with them, and generally speak Italian as ill; for I
+never knew a Frenchman in my life who could pronounce the Italian ce, ci,
+or ge, gi.  Your desire of pleasing the Roman ladies will of course give
+you not only the desire, but the means of speaking to them elegantly in
+their own language.  The Princess Borghese, I am told, speaks French both
+ill and unwillingly; and therefore you should make a merit to her of your
+application to her language.  She is, by a kind of prescription (longer
+than she would probably wish), at the head of the 'beau monde' at Rome;
+and can, consequently, establish or destroy a young fellow's fashionable
+character.  If she declares him 'amabile e leggiadro', others will think
+him so, or at least those who do not will not dare to say so.  There are
+in every great town some such women, whose rank, beauty, and fortune have
+conspired to place them at the head of the fashion.  They have generally
+been gallant, but within certain decent bounds.  Their gallantries have
+taught, both them and their admirers, good-breeding; without which they
+could keep up no dignity, but would be vilified by those very gallantries
+which put them in vogue.  It is with these women, as with ministers and
+favorites at court; they decide upon fashion and characters, as these do
+of fortunes and preferments.  Pay particular court, therefore, wherever
+you are, to these female sovereigns of the 'beau monde'; their
+recommendation is a passport through all the realms of politeness.
+But then, remember that they require minute officious attentions.  You
+should, if possible, guess at and anticipate all their little fancies and
+inclinations; make yourself familiarly and domestically useful to them,
+by offering yourself for all their little commissions, and assisting in
+doing the honors of their houses, and entering with seeming unction into
+all their little grievances, bustles, and views; for they are always
+busy.  If you are once 'ben ficcato' at the Palazzo Borghese, you twill
+soon be in fashion at Rome; and being in fashion will soon fashion you;
+for that is what you must now think of very seriously.
+
+I am sorry that there is no good dancing-master at Rome, to form your
+exterior air and carriage; which, I doubt, are not yet the genteelest in
+the world.  But you may, and I hope you will, in the meantime, observe
+the air and carriage of those who are reckoned to have the best, and form
+your own upon them.  Ease, gracefulness, and dignity, compose the air and
+address of a man of fashion; which is as unlike the affected attitudes
+and motions of a 'petit maitre', as it is to the awkward, negligent,
+clumsy, and slouching manner of a booby.
+
+I am extremely pleased with the account Mr. Harte has given me of the
+allotment of your time at Rome.  Those five hours every morning, which
+you employ in serious studies with Mr. Harte, are laid out with great
+interest, and will make you rich all the rest of your life.  I do not
+look upon the subsequent morning hours, which you pass with your
+Ciceroni, to be ill-disposed of; there is a kind of connection between
+them; and your evening diversions in good company are, in their way, as
+useful and necessary.  This is the way for you to have both weight and
+lustre in the world; and this is the object which I always had in view in
+your education.
+
+Adieu, my friend! go on and prosper.
+
+Mr. Grevenkop has just received Mr. Harte's letter of the 19th N. S.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVII
+
+LONDON, March 8, O. S.  1750
+
+Young as you are, I hope you are in haste to live; by living, I mean
+living with lustre and honor to yourself, with utility to society; doing
+what may deserve to be written, or writing what may deserve to be read; I
+should wish both.  Those who consider life in that light, will not idly
+lavish one moment.  The present moments are the only ones we are sure of,
+and as such the most valuable; but yours are doubly so at your age; for
+the credit, the dignity, the comfort, and the pleasure of all your future
+moments, depend upon the use you make of your present ones.
+
+I am extremely satisfied with your present manner of employing your time;
+but will you always employ it as well?  I am far from meaning always in
+the same way; but I mean as well in proportion, in the variation of age
+and circumstances.  You now, study five hours every morning; I neither
+suppose that you will, nor desire that you should do so for the rest of
+your life.  Both business and pleasure will justly and equally break in
+upon those hours.  But then, will you always employ the leisure they
+leave you in useful studies?  If you have but an hour, will you improve
+that hour, instead of idling it away?  While you have such a friend and
+monitor with you as Mr. Harte, I am sure you will.  But suppose that
+business and situations should, in six or seen months, call Mr. Harte
+away from you; tell me truly, what may I expect and depend upon from you,
+when left to yourself?  May I be sure that you will employ some part of
+every day, in adding something to that stock of knowledge which he will
+have left you?  May I hope that you will allot one hour in the week to
+the care of your own affairs, to keep them in that order and method which
+every prudent man does?  But, above all, may I be convinced that your
+pleasures, whatever they may be, will be confined within the circle of
+good company, and people of fashion?  Those pleasures I recommend to you;
+I will promote them I will pay for them; but I will neither pay for, nor
+suffer, the unbecoming, disgraceful, and degrading pleasures (they should
+not be called pleasures), of low and profligate company.  I confess the
+pleasures of high life are not always strictly philosophical; and I
+believe a Stoic would blame, my indulgence; but I am yet no Stoic, though
+turned of five-and-fifty; and I am apt to think that you are rather less
+so, at eighteen.  The pleasures of the table, among people of the first
+fashion, may indeed sometimes, by accident, run into excesses: but they
+will never sink into a continued course of gluttony and drunkenness.
+The gallantry of high life, though not strictly justifiable, carries,
+at least, no external marks of infamy about it.  Neither the heart nor
+the constitution is corrupted by it; neither nose nor character lost by
+it; manners, possibly, improved.  Play, in good company, is only play,
+and not gaming; not deep, and consequently not dangerous nor
+dishonorable.  It is only the interacts of other amusements.
+
+This, I am sure, is not talking to you like an old man, though it is
+talking to you like an old friend; these are not hard conditions to ask
+of you.  I am certain you have sense enough to know how reasonable they
+are on my part, how advantageous they are on yours: but have you
+resolution enough to perform them?  Can you withstand the examples,
+and the invitations, of the profligate, and their infamous missionaries?
+For I have known many a young fellow seduced by a 'mauvaise honte', that
+made him ashamed to refuse.  These are resolutions which you must form,
+and steadily execute for yourself, whenever you lose the friendly care
+and assistance of your Mentor.  In the meantime, make a greedy use of
+him; exhaust him, if you can, of all his knowledge; and get the prophet's
+mantle from him, before he is taken away himself.
+
+You seem to like Rome.  How do you go on there?  Are you got into the
+inside of that extraordinary government?  Has your Abbate Foggini
+discovered many of those mysteries to you?  Have you made an acquaintance
+with some eminent Jesuits?  I know no people in the world more
+instructive.  You would do very well to take one or two such sort of
+people home with you to dinner every day.  It would be only a little
+'minestra' and 'macaroni' the more; and a three or four hours'
+conversation 'de suite' produces a thousand useful informations, which
+short meetings and snatches at third places do not admit of; and many of
+those gentlemen are by no means unwilling to dine 'gratis'.  Whenever you
+meet with a man eminent in any way, feed him, and feed upon him at the
+same time; it will not only improve you, but give you a reputation of
+knowledge, and of loving it in others.
+
+I have been lately informed of an Italian book, which I believe may be of
+use to you, and which, I dare say, you may get at Rome, written by one
+Alberti, about fourscore or a hundred years ago, a thick quarto.  It is
+a classical description of Italy; from whence, I am assured, that Mr.
+Addison, to save himself trouble, has taken most of his remarks and
+classical references.  I am told that it is an excellent book for a
+traveler in Italy.
+
+What Italian books have you read, or are you reading?  Ariosto.  I hope,
+is one of them.  Pray apply yourself diligently to Italian; it is so easy
+a language, that speaking it constantly, and reading it often, must, in
+six months more, make you perfect master of it: in which case you will
+never forget it; for we only forget those things of which we know but
+little.
+
+But, above all things, to all that you learn, to all that you say, and to
+all that you do, remember to join the Graces.  All is imperfect without
+them; with them everything is at least tolerable.  Nothing could hurt me
+more than to find you unattended by them.  How cruelly should I be
+shocked, if, at our first meeting, you should present yourself to me
+without them! Invoke them, and sacrifice to them every moment; they are
+always kind, where they are assiduously courted.  For God's sake, aim at
+perfection in everything: 'Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.
+Adieu.  Yours most tenderly.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CVIII
+
+LONDON, March 19, O. S.  1750.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I acknowledge your last letter of the 24th February,
+N. S.  In return for your earthquake, I can tell you that we have had
+here more than our share of earthquakes; for we had two very strong ones
+in eight-and-twenty days.  They really do too much honor to our cold
+climate; in your warm one, they are compensated by favors from the sun,
+which we do not enjoy.
+
+I did not think that the present Pope was a sort of man to build seven
+modern little chapels at the expense of so respectable a piece of
+antiquity as the Coliseum.  However, let his Holiness's taste of 'virtu'
+be ever so bad, pray get somebody to present you to him before you leave
+Rome; and without hesitation kiss his slipper, or whatever else the
+etiquette of that Court requires.  I would have you see all those
+ceremonies; and I presume that you are, by this time, ready enough at
+Italian to understand and answer 'il Santo Padre' in that language.
+I hope, too, that you have acquired address and usage enough of the world
+to be presented to anybody, without embarrassment or disapprobation.
+If that is not yet quite perfect, as I cannot suppose it is entirely,
+custom will improve it daily, and habit at last complete it.  I have for
+some time told you, that the great difficulties are pretty well
+conquered.  You have acquired knowledge, which is the 'principium et
+fons'; but you have now a variety of lesser things to attend to, which
+collectively make one great and important object.  You easily guess that
+I mean the graces, the air, address, politeness, and, in short, the whole
+'tournure' and 'agremens' of a man of fashion; so many little things
+conspire to form that 'tournure', that though separately they seem too
+insignificant to mention, yet aggregately they are too material for me
+(who think for you down to the very lowest things) to omit.  For
+instance, do you use yourself to carve, eat and drink genteelly,
+and with ease?  Do you take care to walk, sit, stand, and present
+yourself gracefully?  Are you sufficiently upon your guard against
+awkward attitudes, and illiberal, ill-bred, and disgusting habits, such
+as scratching yourself, putting your fingers in your mouth, nose, and
+ears?  Tricks always acquired at schools, often too much neglected
+afterward; but, however, extremely ill-bred and nauseous.  For I do not
+conceive that any man has a right to exhibit, in company, any one
+excrement more than another.  Do you dress well, and think a little of
+the brillant in your person?  That, too, is necessary, because it is
+'prevenant'.  Do you aim at easy, engaging, but, at the same time, civil
+or respectful manners, according to the company you are in?  These, and a
+thousand other things, which you will observe in people of fashion better
+than I can describe them, are absolutely necessary for every man; but
+still more for you, than for almost any man living.  The showish, the
+shining, the engaging parts of the character of a fine gentleman, should
+(considering your destination) be the principal objects, of your present
+attention.
+
+When you return here, I am apt to think that you will find something
+better to do than to run to Mr. Osborne's at Gray's Inn, to pick up
+scarce books.  Buy good books and read them; the best books are the
+commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are
+not blockheads, for they may profit of the former.  But take care not to
+understand editions and title-pages too well.  It always smells of
+pedantry, and not always of learning.  What curious books I have--they
+are indeed but few--shall be at your service.  I have some of the old
+Collana, and the Machiavel of 1550.  Beware of the 'Bibliomanie'.
+
+In the midst of either your studies or your pleasures, pray never lose
+view of the object of your destination: I mean the political affairs of
+Europe.  Follow them politically, chronologically, and geographically,
+through the newspapers, and trace up the facts which you meet with there
+to their sources: as, for example, consult the treaties Neustadt and Abo,
+with regard to the disputes, which you read of every day in the public
+papers, between Russia and Sweden.  For the affairs of Italy, which are
+reported to be the objects of present negotiations, recur to the
+quadruple alliance of the year 1718, and follow them down through their
+several variations to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748; in which (by
+the bye) you will find the very different tenures by which the Infant Don
+Philip, your namesake, holds Parma and Placentia.  Consult, also, the
+Emperor Charles the Sixth's Act of Cession of the kingdoms of Naples and
+Sicily, being a point which, upon the death of the present King of Spain,
+is likely to occasion some disputes; do not lose the thread of these
+matters; which is carried on with great ease, but if once broken, is
+resumed with difficulty.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Harte, that I have sent his packet to Baron Firmian by
+Count Einsiedlen, who is gone from hence this day for Germany, and passes
+through Vienna in his way to Italy; where he is in hopes of crossing upon
+you somewhere or other.  Adieu, my friend.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CIX
+
+LONDON, March 29, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are now, I suppose, at Naples, in a new scene of
+'Virtu', examining all the curiosities of Herculaneum, watching the
+eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, and surveying the magnificent churches and
+public buildings, by which Naples is distinguished.
+
+You have a court there into the bargain, which, I hope, you frequent and
+attend to.  Polite manners, a versatility of mind, a complaisance even to
+enemies, and the 'volto sciolto', with the 'pensieri stretti', are only
+to be learned at courts, and must be well learned by whoever would either
+shine or thrive in them.  Though they do not change the nature, they
+smooth and soften the manners of mankind.  Vigilance, dexterity, and
+flexibility supply the place of natural force; and it is the ablest mind,
+not the strongest body that prevails there.  Monsieur and Madame Fogliani
+will, I am sure, show you all the politeness of courts; for I know no
+better bred people than they are.  Domesticate yourself there while you
+stay at Naples, and lay aside the English coldness and formality.  You
+have also a letter to Comte Mahony, whose house I hope you frequent, as
+it is the resort of the best company.  His sister, Madame Bulkeley, is
+now here; and had I known of your going so soon to Naples, I would have
+got you, 'ex abundanti', a letter from her to her brother.  The
+conversation of the moderns in the evening is full as necessary for you,
+as that of the ancients in the morning.
+
+You would do well, while you are at Naples, to read some very short
+history of that kingdom.  It has had great variety of masters, and has
+occasioned many wars; the general history of which will enable you to ask
+many proper questions, and to receive useful informations in return.
+Inquire into the manner and form of that government; for constitution it
+has none, being an absolute one; but the most absolute governments have
+certain customs and forms, which are more or less observed by their
+respective tyrants.  In China it is the fashion for the emperors,
+absolute as they are, to govern with justice and equity; as in the other
+Oriental monarchies, it is the custom to govern by violence and cruelty.
+The King of France, as absolute, in fact, as any of them, is by custom
+only more gentle; for I know of no constitutional bar to his will.
+England is now, the only monarchy in the world, that can properly be said
+to have a constitution; for the people's rights and liberties are secured
+by laws; and I cannot reckon Sweden and Poland to be monarchies, those
+two kings having little more to say than the Doge of Venice.  I do not
+presume to say anything of the constitution of the empire to you, who are
+'jurisperitorum Germanicorum facile princeps'.
+
+When you write to me, which, by the way, you do pretty seldom, tell me
+rather whom you see, than what you see.  Inform me of your evening
+transactions and acquaintances; where, and how you pass your evenings;
+what people of learning you have made acquaintance with; and, if you will
+trust me with so important an affair, what belle passion inflames you.
+I interest myself most in what personally concerns you most; and this is
+a very critical year in your life.  To talk like a virtuoso, your canvas
+is, I think, a good one, and RAPHAEL HARTE has drawn the outlines
+admirably; nothing is now wanting but the coloring of Titian, and the
+Graces, the 'morbidezza' of Guido; but that is a great deal.  You must
+get them soon, or you will never get them at all.  'Per la lingua
+Italiana, sono sicuro ch'ella n'e adesso professore, a segno tale ch'io
+non ardisca dirle altra cosa in quela lingua se non.  Addio'.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CX
+
+LONDON, April 26, O. S.  1756.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  As your journey to Paris approaches, and as that period
+will, one way or another, be of infinite consequence to you, my letters
+will henceforward be principally calculated for that meridian.  You will
+be left there to your own discretion, instead of Mr. Harte's, and you
+will allow me, I am sure, to distrust a little the discretion of
+eighteen.  You will find in the Academy a number of young fellows much
+less discreet than yourself.  These will all be your acquaintances; but
+look about you first, and inquire into their respective characters,
+before you form any connections among them; and, 'caeteris paribus',
+single out those of the most considerable rank and family.  Show them a
+distinguishing attention; by which means you will get into their
+respective houses, and keep the best company.  All those French young
+fellows are excessively 'etourdis'; be upon your guard against scrapes
+and quarrels; have no corporal pleasantries with them, no 'jeux de
+mains', no 'coups de chambriere', which frequently bring on quarrels.
+Be as lively as they, if you please, but at the same time be a little
+wiser than they.  As to letters, you will find most of them ignorant;
+do not reproach them with that ignorance, nor make them feel your
+superiority.  It is not their faults, they are all bred up for the army;
+but, on the other, hand, do not allow their ignorance and idleness to
+break in upon those morning hours which you may be able to allot to your
+serious, studies.  No breakfastings with them, which consume a great deal
+of time; but tell them (not magisterially and sententiously) that you
+will read two or three hours in the morning, and that for the rest of the
+day you are very much at their service.  Though, by the way, I hope you
+will keep wiser company in the evenings.
+
+I must insist upon your never going to what is called the English coffee-
+house at Paris, which is the resort of all the scrub English, and also of
+the fugitive and attainted Scotch and Irish; party quarrels and drunken
+squabbles are very frequent there; and I do not know a more degrading
+place in all Paris.  Coffee-houses and taverns are by no means creditable
+at Paris.  Be cautiously upon your guard against the infinite number of
+fine-dressed and fine-spoken 'chevaliers d'industrie' and 'avanturiers'
+which swarm at Paris: and keep everybody civilly at arm's length, of
+whose real character or rank you are not previously informed.  Monsieur
+le Comte or Monsieur le Chevalier, in a handsome laced coat, 'et tres
+bien mis', accosts you at the play, or some other public place; he
+conceives at first sight an infinite regard for you: he sees that you are
+a stranger of the first distinction; he offers you his services, and
+wishes nothing more ardently than to contribute, as far as may be in his
+little power, to procure you 'les agremens de Paris'.  He is acquainted
+with some ladies of condition, 'qui prefrent une petite societe agreable,
+et des petits soupers aimables d'honnetes gens, au tumulte et a la
+dissipation de Paris'; and he will with the greatest pleasure imaginable
+have the honor of introducing you to those ladies of quality.  Well, if
+you were to accept of this kind offer, and go with him, you would find
+'au troisieme; a handsome, painted and p----d strumpet, in a tarnished
+silver or gold second-hand robe, playing a sham party at cards for
+livres, with three or four sharpers well dressed enough, and dignified by
+the titles of Marquis, Comte, and Chevalier.  The lady receives you in
+the most polite and gracious manner, and with all those 'complimens de
+routine' which every French woman has equally.  Though she loves
+retirement, and shuns 'le grande monde', yet she confesses herself
+obliged to the Marquis for having procured her so inestimable, so
+accomplished an acquaintance as yourself; but her concern is how to amuse
+you: for she never suffers play at her house for above a livre; if you
+can amuse yourself with that low play till supper, 'a la bonne heure'.
+Accordingly you sit down to that little play, at which the good company
+takes care that you shall win fifteen or sixteen livres, which gives them
+an opportunity of celebrating both your good luck and your good play.
+Supper comes up, and a good one it is, upon the strength of your being
+able to pay for it.  'La Marquise en fait les honneurs au mieux, talks
+sentiments, 'moeurs et morale', interlarded with 'enjouement', and
+accompanied with some oblique ogles, which bid you not despair in time.
+After supper, pharaoh, lansquenet, or quinze, happen accidentally to be
+mentioned: the Marquise exclaims against it, and vows she will not suffer
+it, but is at last prevailed upon by being assured 'que ce ne sera que
+pour des riens'.  Then the wished-for moment is come, the operation
+begins: you are cheated, at best, of all the money in your pocket, and if
+you stay late, very probably robbed of your watch and snuff-box, possibly
+murdered for greater security.  This I can assure you, is not an
+exaggerated, but a literal description of what happens every day to some
+raw and inexperienced stranger at Paris.  Remember to receive all these
+civil gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight, very
+coldly, and take care always to be previously engaged, whatever party
+they propose to you.  You may happen sometimes, in very great and good
+companies, to meet with some dexterous gentlemen, who may be very
+desirous, and also very sure, to win your money, if they can but engage
+you to play with them.  Therefore lay it down as an invariable rule never
+to play with men, but only with women of fashion, at low play, or with
+women and men mixed.  But, at the same time, whenever you are asked to
+play deeper than you would, do not refuse it gravely and sententiously,
+alleging the folly of staking what would be very inconvenient to one to
+lose, against what one does not want to win; but parry those invitations
+ludicrously, 'et en badinant'.  Say that, if you were sure to lose, you
+might possibly play, but that as you may as well win, you dread
+'l'embarras des richesses', ever since you have seen what an encumbrance
+they were to poor Harlequin, and that, therefore, you are determined
+never to venture the winning above two louis a-day; this sort of light
+trifling way of declining invitations to vice and folly, is more becoming
+your age, and at the same time more effectual, than grave philosophical
+refusals.  A young fellow who seems to have no will of his own, and who
+does everything that is asked of him, is called a very good-natured, but
+at the same time, is thought a very silly young fellow.  Act wisely, upon
+solid principles, and from true motives, but keep them to yourself, and
+never talk sententiously.  When you are invited to drink, say that you
+wish you could, but that so little makes you both drunk and sick, 'que le
+jeu me vaut pas la chandelle'.
+
+Pray show great attention, and make your court to Monsieur de la
+Gueriniere; he is well with Prince Charles and many people of the first
+distinction at Paris; his commendations will raise your character there,
+not to mention that his favor will be of use to you in the Academy
+itself.  For the reasons which I mentioned to you in my last, I would
+have you be interne in the Academy for the first six months; but after
+that, I promise you that you shall have lodgings of your own 'dans un
+hotel garni', if in the meantime I hear well of you, and that you
+frequent, and are esteemed in the best French companies.  You want
+nothing now, thank God, but exterior advantages, that last polish, that
+'tournure du monde', and those graces, which are so necessary to adorn,
+and give efficacy to, the most solid merit.  They are only to be acquired
+in the best companies, and better in the best French companies than in
+any other.  You will not want opportunities, for I shall send you letters
+that will establish you in the most distinguished companies, not only of
+the beau monde, but of the beaux esprits, too.  Dedicate, therefore, I
+beg of you, that whole year to your own advantage and final improvement,
+and do not be diverted from those objects by idle dissipations, low
+seduction, or bad example.  After that year, do whatever you please; I
+will interfere no longer in your conduct; for I am sure both you and I
+shall be safe then.  Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXI
+
+LONDON, April 30, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Mr. Harte, who in all his letters gives you some dash of
+panegyric, told me in his last a thing that pleases me extremely; which
+was that at Rome you had constantly preferred the established Italian
+assemblies to the English conventicles setup against them by dissenting
+English ladies.  That shows sense, and that you know what you are sent
+abroad for.  It is of much more consequence to know the 'mores multorem
+hominum' than the 'urbes'.  Pray continue this judicious conduct wherever
+you go, especially at Paris, where, instead of thirty, you will find
+above three hundred English, herding together and conversing with no one
+French body.
+
+The life of 'les Milords Anglois' is regularly, or, if you will,
+irregularly, this.  As soon as they rise, which is very late, they
+breakfast together, to the utter loss of two good morning hours.  Then
+they go by coachfuls to the Palais, the Invalides, and Notre-Dame; from
+thence to the English coffee-house, where they make up their tavern party
+for dinner.  From dinner, where they drink quick, they adjourn in
+clusters to the play, where they crowd up the stage, dressed up in very
+fine clothes, very ill-made by a Scotch or Irish tailor.  From the play
+to the tavern again, where they get very drunk, and where they either
+quarrel among themselves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the
+streets, and are taken up by the watch.  Those who do not speak French
+before they go, are sure to learn none there.  Their tender vows are
+addressed to their Irish laundress, unless by chance some itinerant
+Englishwoman, eloped from her husband, or her creditors, defrauds her of
+them.  Thus they return home, more petulant, but not more informed, than
+when they left it; and show, as they think, their improvement by
+affectedly both speaking and dressing in broken French:--
+
+                    "Hunc to Romane caveito."
+
+Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French;
+improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform
+cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to
+their vices.  Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for
+remonstrances do not suit with your age.  In French companies in general
+you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish
+yours in their faces.  People hate those who make them feel their own
+inferiority.  Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the
+company of les Gens d'Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them
+rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw it.  Your
+are then thought, from that seeming unwillingness, to have still more
+knowledge than it may be you really have, and with the additional merit
+of modesty into the bargain.  A man who talks of, or even hints at, his
+'bonnes fortunes', is seldom believed, or, if believed, much blamed;
+whereas a man who conceals with care is often supposed to have more than
+he has, and his reputation of discretion gets him others.  It is just so
+with a man of learning; if he affects to show it, it is questioned, and
+he is reckoned only superficial; but if afterward it appears that he
+really has it, he is pronounced a pedant.  Real merit of any kind, 'ubi
+est non potest diu celari'; it will be discovered, and nothing can
+depreciate it but a man's exhibiting it himself.  It may not always be
+rewarded as it ought, but it will always be known.  You will in general
+find the women of the beau monde at Paris more instructed than the men,
+who are bred up singly for the army, and thrown into it at twelve or
+thirteen years old; but then that sort of education, which makes them
+ignorant of books, gives them a great knowledge of the world, an easy
+address, and polite manners.
+
+Fashion is more tyrannical at Paris than in any other place in the world;
+it governs even more absolutely than their king, which is saying a great
+deal.  The least revolt against it is punished by proscription.  You must
+observe, and conform to all the 'minutiae' of it, if you will be in
+fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
+Get, therefore, at all events, into the company of those men and women
+'qui donnent le ton'; and though at first you should be admitted upon
+that shining theatre only as a 'persona muta', persist, persevere, and
+you will soon have a part given you.  Take great care never to tell in
+one company what you see or hear in another, much less to divert the
+present company at the expense of the last; but let discretion and
+secrecy be known parts of your character.  They will carry you much
+further, and much safer than more shining talents.  Be upon your guard
+against quarrels at Paris; honor is extremely nice there, though the
+asserting of it is exceedingly penal.  Therefore, 'point de mauvaises
+plaisanteries, point de jeux de main, et point de raillerie piquante'.
+
+Paris is the place in the world where, if you please, you may the best
+unite the 'utile' and the 'dulce'.  Even your pleasures will be your
+improvements, if you take them with the people of the place, and in high
+life.  From what you have hitherto done everywhere else, I have just
+reason to believe, that you will do everything that you ought at Paris.
+Remember that it is your decisive moment; whatever you do there will be
+known to thousands here, and your character there, whatever it is, will
+get before you here.  You will meet with it at London.  May you and I
+both have reason to rejoice at that meeting! Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXII
+
+LONDON, May 8, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: At your age the love of pleasures is extremely natural,
+and the enjoyment of them not unbecoming: but the danger, at your age,
+is mistaking the object, and setting out wrong in the pursuit.  The
+character of a man of pleasure dazzles young eyes; they do not see their
+way to it distinctly, and fall into vice and profligacy.  I remember a
+strong instance of this a great many years ago.  A young fellow,
+determined to shine as a man of pleasure, was at the play called the
+"Libertine Destroyed," a translation of 'Le Festin de Pierre' of
+Molieire's.  He was so struck with what he thought the fine character of
+the libertine, that he swore he would be the LIBERTINE DESTROYED.  Some
+friends asked him, whether he had not better content himself with being
+only the libertine, but without being DESTROYED? to which he answered
+with great warmth, "No, for that being destroyed was the perfection of
+the whole."  This, extravagant as it seems in this light, is really the
+case of many an unfortunate young fellow, who, captivated by the name of
+pleasures, rushes indiscriminately, and without taste, into them all, and
+is finally DESTROYED.  I am not stoically advising, nor parsonically
+preaching to you to be a Stoic at your age; far from it: I am pointing
+out to you the paths to pleasures, and am endeavoring only to quicken and
+heighten them for you.  Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and
+then you will taste them; but adopt none; trust to nature for genuine
+ones.  The pleasures that you would feel you must earn; the man who gives
+himself up to all, feels none sensibly.  Sardanapalus, I am convinced,
+never felt any in his life.  Those only who join serious occupations with
+pleasures, feel either as they should do.  Alcibiades, though addicted to
+the most shameful excesses, gave some time to philosophy, and some to
+business.  Julius Caesar joined business with pleasure so properly, that
+they mutually assisted each other; and though he was the husband of all
+the wives at Rome, he found time to be one of the best scholars, almost
+the best orator, and absolutely the best general there.  An uninterrupted
+life of pleasures is as insipid as contemptible.  Some hours given every
+day to serious business must whet both the mind and the senses, to enjoy
+those of pleasure.  A surfeited glutton, an emaciated sot, and an
+enervated rotten whoremaster, never enjoy the pleasures to which they
+devote themselves; but they are only so many human sacrifices to false
+gods.  The pleasures of low life are all of this mistaken, merely
+sensual, and disgraceful nature; whereas, those of high life, and in good
+company (though possibly in themselves not more moral) are more delicate,
+more refined, less dangerous, and less disgraceful; and, in the common
+course of things, not reckoned disgraceful at all.  In short, pleasure
+must not, nay, cannot, be the business of a man of sense and character;
+but it may be, and is, his relief, his reward.  It is particularly so
+with regard to the women; who have the utmost contempt for those men,
+that, having no character nor consideration with their own sex,
+frivolously pass their whole time in 'ruelles' and at 'toilettes'.  They
+look upon them as their lumber, and remove them whenever they can get
+better furniture.  Women choose their favorites more by the ear than by
+any other of their senses or even their understandings.  The man whom
+they hear the most commended by the men, will always be the best received
+by them.  Such a conquest flatters their vanity, and vanity is their
+universal, if not their strongest passion.  A distinguished shining
+character is irresistible with them; they crowd to, nay, they even
+quarrel for the danger in hopes of the triumph.  Though, by the way (to
+use a vulgar expression), she who conquers only catches a Tartar, and
+becomes the slave of her captive.  'Mais c'est la leur affaire'.  Divide
+your time between useful occupations and elegant pleasures.  The morning
+seems to belong to study, business, or serious conversations with men of
+learning and figure; not that I exclude an occasional hour at a toilette.
+From sitting down to dinner, the proper business of the day is pleasure,
+unless real business, which must never be postponed for pleasure, happens
+accidentally to interfere.  In good company, the pleasures of the table
+are always carried to a certain point of delicacy and gratification, but
+never to excess and riot.  Plays, operas, balls, suppers, gay
+conversations in polite and cheerful companies, properly conclude the
+evenings; not to mention the tender looks that you may direct and the
+sighs that you may offer, upon these several occasions, to some
+propitious or unpropitious female deity, whose character and manners will
+neither disgrace nor corrupt yours.  This is the life of a man of real
+sense and pleasure; and by this distribution of your time, and choice of
+your pleasures, you will be equally qualified for the busy, or the 'beau
+monde'.  You see I am not rigid, and do not require that you and I should
+be of the same age.  What I say to you, therefore, should have the more
+weight, as coming from a friend, not a father.  But low company, and
+their low vices, their indecent riots and profligacy, I never will bear
+nor forgive.
+
+I have lately received two volumes of treaties, in German and Latin, from
+Hawkins, with your orders, under your own hand, to take care of them for
+you, which orders I shall most dutifully and punctually obey, and they
+wait for you in my library, together with your great collection of rare
+books, which your Mamma sent me upon removing from her old house.
+
+I hope you not only keep up, but improve in your German, for it will be
+of great use to you when you cone into business; and the more so, as you
+will be almost the only Englishman who either can speak or understand it.
+Pray speak it constantly to all Germans, wherever you meet them, and you
+will meet multitudes of them at Paris.  Is Italian now become easy and
+familiar to you?  Can you speak it with the same fluency that you can
+speak German?  You cannot conceive what an advantage it will give you in
+negotiations to possess Italian, German, and French perfectly, so as to
+understand all the force and finesse of those three languages.  If two
+men of equal talents negotiate together, he who best understands the
+language in which the negotiation is carried on, will infallibly get the
+better of the other.  The signification and force of one single word is
+often of great consequence in a treaty, and even in a letter.
+
+Remember the GRACES, for without them 'ogni fatica e vana'.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIII
+
+LONDON, May 17, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your apprenticeship is near out, and you are soon to set
+up for yourself; that approaching moment is a critical one for you, and
+an anxious one for me.  A tradesman who would succeed in his way, must
+begin by establishing a character of integrity and good manners; without
+the former, nobody will go to his shop at all; without the latter, nobody
+will go there twice.  This rule does not exclude the fair arts of trade.
+He may sell his goods at the best price he can, within certain bounds.
+He may avail himself of the humor, the whims, and the fantastical tastes
+of his customers; but what he warrants to be good must be really so, what
+he seriously asserts must be true, or his first fraudulent profits will
+soon end in a bankruptcy.  It is the same in higher life, and in the
+great business of the world.  A man who does not solidly establish, and
+really deserve, a character of truth, probity, good manners, and good
+morals, at his first setting out in the world, may impose, and shine like
+a meteor for a very short time, but will very soon vanish, and be
+extinguished with contempt.  People easily pardon, in young men, the
+common irregularities of the senses: but they do not forgive the least
+vice of the heart.  The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather
+worse; always harder.  A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave
+will only be a greater knave as he grows older.  But should a bad young
+heart, accompanied with a good head (which, by the way, very seldom is
+the case), really reform in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of
+its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be
+thought prudential and political, but never sincere.  I hope in God, and
+I verily.  believe, that you want no moral virtue.  But the possession of
+all the moral virtues, in 'actu primo', as the logicians call it, is not
+sufficient; you must have them in 'actu secundo' too; nay, that is not
+sufficient neither--you must have the reputation of them also.  Your
+character in the world must be built upon that solid foundation, or it
+will soon fall, and upon your own head.  You cannot, therefore, be too
+careful, too nice, too scrupulous, in establishing this character at
+first, upon which your whole depends.  Let no conversation, no example,
+no fashion, no 'bon mot', no silly desire of seeming to be above, what
+most knaves, and many fools, call prejudices, ever tempt you to avow,
+excuse, extenuate, or laugh at the least breach of morality; but show
+upon all occasions, and take all occasions to show, a detestation and
+abhorrence of it.  There, though young, you ought to be strict; and there
+only, while young, it becomes you to be strict and severe.  But there,
+too, spare the persons while you lash the crimes.  All this relates, as
+you easily judge, to the vices of the heart, such as lying, fraud, envy,
+malice, detraction, etc., and I do not extend it to the little frailties
+of youth, flowing from high spirits and warm blood.  It would ill become
+you, at your age, to declaim against them, and sententiously censure a
+gallantry, an accidental excess of the table, a frolic, an inadvertency;
+no, keep as free from them yourself as you can: but say nothing against
+them in others.  They certainly mend by time, often by reason; and a
+man's worldly character is not affected by them, provided it be pure in
+all other respects.
+
+To come now to a point of much less, but yet of very great consequence at
+your first setting out.  Be extremely upon your guard against vanity, the
+common failing of inexperienced youth; but particularly against that kind
+of vanity that dubs a man a coxcomb; a character which, once acquired, is
+more indelible than that of the priesthood.  It is not to be imagined by
+how many different ways vanity defeats its own purposes.  One man decides
+peremptorily upon every subject, betrays his ignorance upon many, and
+shows a disgusting presumption upon the rest.  Another desires to appear
+successful among the women; he hints at the encouragement he has
+received, from those of the most distinguished rank and beauty, and
+intimates a particular connection with some one; if it is true, it is
+ungenerous; if false, it is infamous: but in either case he destroys the
+reputation he wants to get.  Some flatter their vanity by little
+extraneous objects, which have not the least relation to themselves; such
+as being descended from, related to, or acquainted with, people of
+distinguished merit and eminent characters.  They talk perpetually of
+their grandfather such-a-one, their uncle such-a-one, and their intimate
+friend Mr. Such-a-one, with whom, possibly, they are hardly acquainted.
+But admitting it all to be as they would have it, what then?  Have they
+the more merit for those accidents?  Certainly not.  On the contrary,
+their taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit; a
+rich man never borrows.  Take this rule for granted, as a never-failing
+one: That you must never seem to affect the character in which you have a
+mind to shine.  Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
+The affectation of courage will make even a brave man pass only for a
+bully; as the affectation of wit will make a man of parts pass for a
+coxcomb.  By this modesty I do not mean timidity and awkward bashfulness.
+On the contrary, be inwardly firm and steady, know your own value
+whatever it may be, and act upon that principle; but take great care to.
+let nobody discover that you do know your own value.  Whatever real merit
+you have, other people will discover, and people always magnify their own
+discoveries, as they lessen those of others.
+
+For God's sake, revolve all these things seriously in your thoughts,
+before you launch out alone into the ocean of Paris.  Recollect the
+observations that you have yourself made upon mankind, compare and
+connect them with my instructions, and then act systematically and
+consequentially from them; not 'au jour la journee'.  Lay your little
+plan now, which you will hereafter extend and improve by your own
+observations, and by the advice of those who can never mean to mislead
+you; I mean Mr. Harte and myself.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIV
+
+LONDON, May 24., O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 7th, N. S., from
+Naples, to which place I find you have traveled, classically, critically,
+and 'da virtuoso'.  You did right, for whatever is worth seeing at, all,
+is worth seeing well, and better than most people see it. It is a poor
+and frivolous excuse, when anything curious is talked of that one has
+seen, to say, I SAW IT, BUT REALLY I DID NOT MUCH MIND IT.  Why did they
+go to see it, if they would not mind it?  or why not mind it when they
+saw it?  Now that you are at Naples, you pass part of your time there
+'en honnete homme, da garbato cavaliere', in the court and the best
+companies.  I am told that strangers are received with the utmost
+hospitality at Prince -------'s, 'que lui il fait bonne chere, et que
+Madame la Princesse donne chere entire; mais que sa chair est plus que
+hazardee ou mortifiee meme'; which in plain English means, that she is
+not only tender, but rotten.  If this be true, as I am pretty sure it is,
+one may say to her in a little sense, 'juvenumque prodis, publics cura'.
+
+Mr. Harte informs me that you are clothed in sumptuous apparel; a young
+fellow should be so; especially abroad, where fine clothes are so
+generally the fashion.  Next to their being fine, they should be well
+made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat,
+if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as
+if it were a plain one.
+
+I thank you for your drawing, which I am impatient to see, and which I
+shall hang up in a new gallery that I am building at Blackheath, and very
+fond of; but I am still more impatient for another copy, which I wonder
+I have not yet received, I mean the copy of your countenance.  I believe,
+were that a whole length, it would still fall a good deal short of the
+dimensions of the drawing after Dominichino, which you say is about eight
+feet high; and I take you, as well as myself, to be of the family of the
+Piccolomini.  Mr. Bathurst tells me that he thinks you rather taller than
+I am; if so, you may very possibly get up to five feet eight inches,
+which I would compound for, though I would wish you five feet ten.  In
+truth, what do I not wish you, that has a tendency to perfection?  I say
+a tendency only, for absolute perfection is not in human nature, so that
+it would be idle to wish it.  But I am very willing to compound for your
+coming nearer to perfection than the generality of your contemporaries:
+without a compliment to you, I think you bid fair for that.  Mr. Harte
+affirms (and if it were consistent with his character would, I believe,
+swear) that you have no vices of the heart; you have undoubtedly a stock
+of both ancient and modern learning, which I will venture to say nobody
+of your age has, and which must now daily increase, do what you will.
+What, then, do you want toward that practicable degree of perfection
+which I wish you?  Nothing but the knowledge, the turn, and the manners
+of the world; I mean the 'beau monde'.  These it is impossible that you
+can yet have quite right; they are not given, they must be learned.  But
+then, on the other hand, it is impossible not to acquire them, if one has
+a mind to them; for they are acquired insensibly, by keeping good
+company, if one has but the least attention to their characters and
+manners.
+
+Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally
+converses with are.  He catches their air, their manners, and even their
+way of thinking.  If he observes with attention, he will catch them soon,
+but if he does not, he will at long run contract them insensibly.  I know
+nothing in the world but poetry that is not to be acquired by application
+and care.  The sum total of this is a very comfortable one for you, as it
+plainly amounts to this in your favor, that you now want nothing but what
+even your pleasures, if they are liberal ones, will teach you.  I
+congratulate both you and myself upon your being in such a situation,
+that, excepting your exercises, nothing is now wanting but pleasures to
+complete you.  Take them, but (as I am sure you will) with people of the
+first fashion, whereever you are, and the business is done; your
+exercises at Paris, which I am sure you will attend to, will supple and
+fashion your body; and the company you will keep there will, with some
+degree of observation on your part, soon give you their air, address,
+manners, in short, 'le ton de la bonne compagnie'.  Let not these
+considerations, however, make you vain: they are only between you and me
+but as they are very comfortable ones, they may justly give you a manly
+assurance, a firmness, a steadiness, without which a man can neither be
+well-bred, or in any light appear to advantage, or really what he is.
+They may justly remove all, timidity, awkward bashfulness, low diffidence
+of one's self, and mean abject complaisance to every or anybody's
+opinion.  La Bruyere says, very truly, 'on ne vaut dans ce monde, que ce
+que l'on veut valoir'.  It is a right principle to proceed upon in the
+world, taking care only to guard against the appearances and outward
+symptoms of vanity.  Your whole then, you see, turns upon the company you
+keep for the future.  I have laid you in variety of the best at Paris,
+where, at your arrival you will find a cargo of letters to very different
+sorts of people, as 'beaux esprils, savants, et belles dames'.  These, if
+you will frequent them, will form you, not only by their examples,
+advice, and admonitions in private, as I have desired them to do; and
+consequently add to what you have the only one thing now needful.
+
+Pray tell me what Italian books you have read, and whether that language
+is now become familiar to you.
+
+Read Ariosto and Tasso through, and then you will have read all the
+Italian poets who in my opinion are worth reading.  In all events, when
+you get to Paris, take a good Italian master to read Italian with you
+three times a week; not only to keep what you have already, which you
+would otherwise forget, but also to perfect you in the rest.  It is a
+great pleasure, as well as a great advantage, to be able to speak to
+people of all nations, and well, in their own language.  Aim at
+perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable;
+however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it,
+than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as
+unattainable.  'Magnis tamen excidit ausis' is a degree of praise which
+will always attend a noble and shining temerity, and a much better sign
+in a young fellow, than 'serpere humi, tutus nimium timidusque
+procellae'.  For men as well as women:
+
+               "---------born to be controlled,
+               Stoop to the forward and the bold."
+
+A man who sets out in the world with real timidity and diffidence has not
+an equal chance for it; he will be discouraged, put by, or trampled upon.
+But to succeed, a man, especially a young one, should have inward
+firmness, steadiness, and intrepidity, with exterior modesty and SEEMING
+diffidence.  He must modestly, but resolutely, assert his own rights and
+privileges.  'Suaviter in modo', but 'fortiter in re'.  He should have an
+apparent frankness and openness, but with inward caution and closeness.
+All these things will come to you by frequenting and observing good
+company.  And by good company, I mean that sort of company which is
+called good company by everybody of that place.  When all this is over,
+we shall meet; and then we will talk over, tete-a-tete, the various
+little finishing strokes which conversation and, acquaintance
+occasionally suggest, and which cannot be methodically written.
+
+Tell Mr. Harte that I have received his two letters of the 2d and 8th
+N. S., which, as soon as I have received a third, I will answer.  Adieu,
+my dear!  I find you will do.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXV
+
+LONDON, June 5, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your picture, which I have long waited
+for with impatience: I wanted to see your countenance from whence I am
+very apt, as I believe most people are, to form some general opinion of
+the mind.  If the painter has taken you as well as he has done Mr. Harte
+(for his picture is by far the most like I ever saw in my life), I draw
+good conclusions from your countenance, which has both spirit and finesse
+in it.  In bulk you are pretty well increased since I saw you; if your
+height has not increased in proportion, I desire that you will make haste
+to, complete it.  Seriously, I believe that your exercises at Paris will
+make you shoot up to a good size; your legs, by all accounts, seem to
+promise it.  Dancing excepted, the wholesome part is the best part of
+those academical exercises.  'Ils degraissent leur homme'.
+
+'A propos' of exercises, I have prepared everything for your reception at
+Monsieur de la Gueriniere's, and your room, etc., will be ready at your
+arrival.  I am sure you must be sensible how much better it will be for
+you to be interne in the Academy for the first six or seven months at
+least, than to be 'en hotel garni', at some distance from it, and obliged
+to go to it every morning, let the weather be what it will, not to
+mention the loss of time too; besides, by living and boarding in the
+Academy, you will make an acquaintance with half the young fellows of
+fashion at Paris; and in a very little while be looked upon as one of
+them in all French companies: an advantage that has never yet happened to
+any one Englishman that I have known.  I am sure you do not suppose that
+the difference of the expense, which is but a trifle, has any weight with
+me in this resolution.  You have the French language so perfectly, and
+you will acquire the French 'tournure' so soon, that I do not know
+anybody likely to pass their time so well at Paris as yourself.  Our
+young countrymen have generally too little French, and too bad address,
+either to present themselves, or be well received in the best French
+companies; and, as a proof of it, there is no one instance of an
+Englishman's having ever been suspected of a gallantry with a French
+woman of condition, though every French woman of condition is more than
+suspected of having a gallantry.  But they take up with the disgraceful
+and dangerous commerce of prostitutes, actresses, dancing-women, and that
+sort of trash; though, if they had common address, better achievements
+would be extremely easy.  'Un arrangement', which is in plain English a
+gallantry, is, at Paris, as necessary a part of a woman of fashion's
+establishment, as her house, stable, coach, etc.  A young fellow must
+therefore be a very awkward one, to be reduced to, or of a very singular
+taste, to prefer drabs and danger to a commerce (in the course of the
+world not disgraceful) with a woman of health, education, and rank.
+Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women and men, so
+surely as timidity and diffidence of himself.  If he thinks that he shall
+not, he may depend upon it he will not please.  But with proper endeavors
+to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain
+that he will.  How many people does one meet with everywhere, who, with
+very moderate parts, and very little knowledge, push themselves pretty
+far, simply by being sanguine, enterprising, and persevering?  They will
+take no denial from man or woman; difficulties do not discourage them;
+repulsed twice or thrice, they rally, they charge again, and nine times
+in ten prevail at last.  The same means will much sooner, and, more
+certainly, attain the same ends, with your parts and knowledge.  You have
+a fund to be sanguine upon, and good forces to rally.  In business
+(talents supposed) nothing is more effectual or successful, than a good,
+though concealed opinion of one's self, a firm resolution, and an
+unwearied perseverance.  None but madmen attempt impossibilities; and
+whatever is possible, is one way or another to be brought about.  If one
+method fails, try another, and suit your methods to the characters you
+have to do with.  At the treaty of the Pyrenees, which Cardinal Mazarin
+and Don Louis de Haro concluded, 'dans l'Isle des Faisans', the latter
+carried some very important points by his constant and cool perseverance.
+
+The Cardinal had all the Italian vivacity and impatience; Don Louis all
+the Spanish phlegm and tenaciousness.  The point which the Cardinal had
+most at heart was, to hinder the re-establishment of the Prince of Conde,
+his implacable enemy; but he was in haste to conclude, and impatient to
+return to Court, where absence is always dangerous.  Don Louis observed
+this, and never failed at every conference to bring the affair of the
+Prince of Conde upon the tapis.  The Cardinal for some time refused even
+to treat upon it.  Don Louis, with the same 'sang froid', as constantly
+persisted, till he at last prevailed: contrary to the intentions and the
+interest both of the Cardinal and of his Court.  Sense must distinguish
+between what is impossible, and what is only difficult; and spirit and
+perseverance will get the better of the latter.  Every man is to be had
+one way or another, and every woman almost any way.  I must not omit one
+thing, which is previously necessary to this, and, indeed, to everything
+else; which is attention, a flexibility of attention; never to be wholly
+engrossed by any past or future object, but instantly directed to the
+present one, be it what it will.  An absent man can make but few
+observations; and those will be disjointed and imperfect ones, as half
+the circumstance must necessarily escape him.  He can pursue nothing
+steadily, because his absences make him lose his way.  They are very
+disagreeable, and hardly to be tolerated in old age; but in youth they
+cannot be forgiven.  If you find that you have the least tendency to
+them, pray watch yourself very carefully, and you may prevent them now;
+but if you let them grow into habit, you will find it very difficult to
+cure them hereafter, and a worse distemper I do not know.
+
+I heard with great satisfaction the other day, from one who has been
+lately at Rome, that nobody was better received in the best companies
+than yourself.  The same thing, I dare say, will happen to you at Paris;
+where they are particularly kind to all strangers, who will be civil to
+them, and show a desire of pleasing.  But they must be flattered a
+little, not only by words, but by a seeming preference given to their
+country, their manners, and their customs; which is but a very small
+price to pay for a very good reception.  Were I in Africa, I would pay it
+to a negro for his goodwill.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVI
+
+LONDON, June 11, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The President Montesquieu (whom you will be acquainted
+with at Paris), after having laid down in his book, 'De l'Esprit des
+Lois', the nature and principles of the three different kinds of
+government, viz, the democratical, the monarchical, and the despotic,
+treats of the education necessary for each respective form.  His chapter
+upon the education proper for the monarchical I thought worth
+transcribing and sending to you.  You will observe that the monarchy
+which he has in his eye is France:--
+
+"In monarchies, the principal branch of education is not taught in
+colleges or academies.  It commences, in some measure, at our setting out
+in the world; for this is the school of what we call honor, that
+universal preceptor, which ought everywhere to be our guide.
+
+"Here it is that we constantly hear three rules or maxims, viz:  That we
+should have a certain nobleness in our virtues, a kind of frankness in
+our morals, and a particular politeness in our behavior.
+
+"The virtues we are here taught, are less what we owe to others, than to
+ourselves; they are not so much what draws us toward society, as what
+distinguishes us from our fellow-citizens.
+
+"Here the actions of men are judged, not as virtuous, but as shining; not
+as just, but as great; not as reasonable, but as extraordinary.
+
+"When honor here meets with anything noble in our actions, it is either a
+judge that approves them, or a sophister by whom they are excused.
+
+"It allows of gallantry, when united with the idea of sensible affection,
+or with that of conquest; this is the reason why we never meet with so
+strict a purity of morals in monarchies as in republican governments.
+
+"It allows of cunning and craft, when joined with the notion of greatness
+of soul or importance of affairs; as, for instance, in politics, with
+whose finenesses it is far from being offended.
+
+"It does not forbid adulation, but when separate from the idea of a large
+fortune, and connected only with the sense of our mean condition.
+
+"With regard to morals, I have observed, that the education of monarchies
+ought to admit of a certain frankness and open carriage.  Truth,
+therefore, in conversation, is here a necessary point.  But is it for the
+sake of truth.  By no means.  Truth is requisite only, because a person
+habituated to veracity has an air of boldness and freedom.  And, indeed,
+a man of this stamp seems to lay a stress only on the things themselves,
+not on the manner in which they are received.
+
+"Hence it is, that in proportion as this kind of frankness is commended,
+that of the common people is despised, which has nothing but truth and
+simplicity for its object.
+
+"In fine, the education of monarchies requires a certain politeness of
+behavior.  Man, a sociable animal, is formed to please in society; and a
+person that would break through the rules of decency, so as to shock
+those he conversed with, would lose the public esteem, and become
+incapable of doing any good.
+
+"But politeness, generally speaking, does not derive its original from so
+pure a source.  It arises from a desire of distinguishing ourselves.  It
+is pride that renders us polite; we are flattered with being taken notice
+of for a behavior that shows we are not of a mean condition, and that we
+have not been bred up with those who in all ages are considered as the
+scum of the people.
+
+"Politeness, in monarchies, is naturalized at court.  One man excessively
+great renders everybody else little.  Hence that regard which is paid to
+our fellow-subjects; hence that politeness, equally pleasing to those by
+whom, as to those toward whom, it is practiced; because it gives people
+to understand that a person actually belongs, or at least deserves to
+belong, to the court.
+
+"A court air consists in quitting a real for a borrowed greatness.  The
+latter pleases the courtier more than the former.  It inspires him with a
+certain disdainful modesty, which shows itself externally, but whose
+pride insensibly diminishes in proportion to his distance from the source
+of this greatness.
+
+"At court we find a delicacy of taste in everything; a delicacy arising
+from the constant use of the superfluities of life; from the variety, and
+especially the satiety of pleasures; from the multiplicity and even
+confusion of fancies, which, if they are not agreeable, are sure of being
+well received.
+
+"These are the things which properly fall within the province of
+education, in order to form what we call a man of honor, a man possessed
+of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of government.
+
+"Here it is that honor interferes with everything, mixing even with
+people's manner of thinking, and directing their very principles.
+
+"To this whimsical honor it is owing that the virtues are only just what
+it pleases; it adds rules of its own invention to everything prescribed
+to us; it extends or limits our duties according to its own fancy,
+whether they proceed from religion, politics, or morality.
+
+"There is nothing so strongly inculcated in monarchies, by the laws, by
+religion, and honor, as submission to the Prince's will, but this very
+honor tells us, that the Prince never ought to command a dishonorable
+action, because this would render us incapable of serving him.
+
+"Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but offered to fight
+him.  After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX., having sent
+orders to the governors in the several provinces for the Huguenots to be
+murdered, Viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the
+King: 'Sire, Among the inhabitants of this town, and your Majesty's
+troops, I could not find so much as one executioner; they are honest
+citizens and brave soldiers.  We jointly, therefore, beseech your Majesty
+to command our arms and lives in things that are practicable.'  This great
+and generous soul looked upon a base action as a thing impossible.
+
+"There is nothing that honor more strongly recommends to the nobility,
+than to serve their Prince in a military capacity.  And indeed this is
+their favorite profession, because its dangers, its success, and even its
+miscarriages, are the road to grandeur.  Yet this very law, of its own
+making, honor chooses to explain; and in case of any affront, it requires
+or permits us to retire.
+
+"It insists also, that we should be at liberty either to seek or to
+reject employments; a liberty which it prefers even to an ample fortune.
+
+"Honor, therefore, has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to
+conform.  The chief of these are, that we are permitted to set a value
+upon our fortune, but are absolutely forbidden to set any upon our lives.
+
+"The second is, that when we are raised to a post or preferment, we
+should never do or permit anything which may seem to imply that we look
+upon ourselves as inferior to the rank we hold.
+
+"The third is, that those things which honor forbids are more rigorously
+forbidden, when the laws do not concur in the prohibition; and those it
+commands are more strongly insisted upon, when they happen not to be
+commanded by law."
+
+
+Though our government differs considerably from the French, inasmuch as
+we have fixed laws and constitutional barriers for the security of our
+liberties and properties, yet the President's observations hold pretty
+near as true in England as in France.  Though monarchies may differ a
+good deal, kings differ very little.  Those who are absolute desire to
+continue so, and those who are not, endeavor to become so; hence the same
+maxims and manners almost in all courts: voluptuousness and profusion
+encouraged, the one to sink the people into indolence, the other into
+poverty--consequently into dependence.  The court is called the world
+here as well as at Paris; and nothing more is meant by saying that a man
+knows the world, than that he knows courts.  In all courts you must
+expect to meet with connections without friendship, enmities without
+hatred, honor without virtue, appearances saved, and realities
+sacrificed; good manners with bad morals; and all vice and virtues so
+disguised, that whoever has only reasoned upon both would know neither
+when he first met them at court.  It is well that you should know the map
+of that country, that when you come to travel in it, you may do it with
+greater safety.
+
+From all this you will of yourself draw this obvious conclusion: That you
+are in truth but now going to the great and important school, the world;
+to which Westminster and Leipsig were only the little preparatory
+schools, as Marylebone, Windsor, etc., are to them.  What you have
+already acquired will only place you in the second form of this new
+school, instead of the first.  But if you intend, as I suppose you do, to
+get into the shell, you have very different things to learn from Latin
+and Greek: and which require much more sagacity and attention than those
+two dead languages; the language of pure and simple nature; the language
+of nature variously modified and corrupted by passions, prejudices, and
+habits; the language of simulation and dissimulation: very hard, but very
+necessary to decipher.  Homer has not half so many, nor so difficult
+dialects, as the great book of the school you are now going to.  Observe,
+therefore, progressively, and with the greatest attention, what the best
+scholars in the form immediately above you do, and so on, until you get
+into the shell yourself.  Adieu.
+
+Pray tell Mr. Harte that I have received his letter of the 27th May,
+N. S., and that I advise him never to take the English newswriters
+literally, who never yet inserted any one thing quite right.  I have both
+his patent and his mandamus, in both which he is Walter, let the
+newspapers call him what they please.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVII
+
+LONDON, July 9, O. S.  1750.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I should not deserve that appellation in return from you,
+if I did not freely and explicitly inform you of every corrigible defect
+which I may either hear of, suspect, or at any time discover in you.
+Those who, in the common course of the world, will call themselves your
+friends; or whom, according to the common notions of friendship, you may
+possibly think such, will never tell you of your faults, still less of
+your weaknesses.  But, on the contrary, more desirous to make you their
+friend, than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter both, and, in
+truth, not be sorry for either.  Interiorly, most people enjoy the
+inferiority of their best friends.  The useful and essential part of
+friendship, to you, is reserved singly for Mr. Harte and myself: our
+relations to you stand pure and unsuspected of all private views.
+In whatever we say to you, we can have no interest but yours.  We are
+therefore authorized to represent, advise, and remonstrate; and your
+reason must tell you that you ought to attend to and believe us.
+
+I am credibly informed, that there is still a considerable hitch or
+hobble in your enunciation; and that when you speak fast you sometimes
+speak unintelligibly.  I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts
+before you so fully upon this subject, that I can say nothing new upon it
+now.  I must therefore only repeat, that your whole depends upon it.
+Your trade is to speak well, both in public and in private.  The manner
+of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have
+ears to be tickled, than understandings to judge.  Be your productions
+ever so good, they will be of no use, if you stifle and strangle them in
+their birth.  The best compositions of Corelli, if ill executed and
+played out of tune, instead of touching, as they do when well performed,
+would only excite the indignation of the hearer's, when murdered by an
+unskillful performer.  But to murder your own productions, and that
+'coram Populo', is a MEDEAN CRUELTY, which Horace absolutely forbids.
+Remember of what importance Demosthenes, and one of the Gracchi, thought
+ENUNCIATION; and read what stress Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it; even
+the herb-women at Athens were correct judges of it.  Oratory, with all
+its graces, that of enunciation in particular, is full as necessary in
+our government as it ever was in Greece or Rome.  No man can make a
+fortune or a figure in this country, without speaking, and speaking well
+in public.  If you will persuade, you must first please; and if you will
+please, you must tune your voice to harmony, you must articulate every
+syllable distinctly, your emphasis and cadences must be strongly and
+properly marked; and the whole together must be graceful and engaging: If
+you do not speak in that manner, you had much better not speak at all.
+All the learning you have, or ever can have, is not worth one groat
+without it.  It may be a comfort and an amusement to you in your closet,
+but can be of no use to you in the world.  Let me conjure you, therefore,
+to make this your only object, till you have absolutely conquered it,
+for that is in your power; think of nothing else, read and speak for
+nothing else.  Read aloud, though alone, and read articulately and
+distinctly, as if you were reading in public, and on the most important
+occasion.  Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim scenes of tragedies to Mr.
+Harte, as if he were a numerous audience.  If there is any particular
+consonant which you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had
+with the R, utter it millions and millions of times, till you have
+uttered it right.  Never speak quick, till you have first learned to
+speak well.  In short, lay aside every book, and every thought, that does
+not directly tend to this great object, absolutely decisive of your
+future fortune and figure.
+
+The next thing necessary in your destination, is writing correctly,
+elegantly, and in a good hand too; in which three particulars, I am sorry
+to tell you, that you hitherto fail.  Your handwriting is a very bad one,
+and would make a scurvy figure in an office-book of letters, or even in a
+lady's pocket-book.  But that fault is easily cured by care, since every
+man, who has the use of his eyes and of his right hand, can write
+whatever hand he pleases.  As to the correctness and elegance of your
+writing, attention to grammar does the one, and to the best authors the
+other.  In your letter to me of the 27th June, N. S., you omitted the
+date of the place, so that I only conjectured from the contents that you
+were at Rome.
+
+Thus I have, with the truth and freedom of the tenderest affection, told
+you all your defects, at least all that I know or have heard of.  Thank
+God, they are all very curable; they must be cured, and I am sure, you
+will cure them.  That once done, nothing remains for you to acquire, or
+for me to wish you, but the turn, the manners, the address, and the
+GRACES, of the polite world; which experience, observation, and good
+company; will insensibly give you.  Few people at your age have read,
+seen, and known, so much as you have; and consequently few are so near as
+yourself to what I call perfection, by which I only, mean being very near
+as well as the best.  Far, therefore, from being discouraged by what you
+still want, what you already have should encourage you to attempt, and
+convince you that by attempting you will inevitably obtain it.  The
+difficulties which you have surmounted were much greater than any you
+have now to encounter.  Till very lately, your way has been only through
+thorns and briars; the few that now remain are mixed with roses.
+Pleasure is now the principal remaining part of your education.  It will
+soften and polish your manners; it will make you pursue and at last
+overtake the GRACES.  Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal; no one feels,
+who does not at the same time give it.  To be pleased one must please.
+What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.  Paris is
+indisputably the seat of the GRACES; they will even court you, if you are
+not too coy.  Frequent and observe the best companies there, and you will
+soon be naturalized among them; you will soon find how particularly
+attentive they are to the correctness and elegance of their language,
+and to the graces of their enunciation: they would even call the
+understanding of a man in question, who should neglect or not know the
+infinite advantages arising from them.  'Narrer, reciter, declamer bien',
+are serious studies among them, and well deserve to be so everywhere.
+The conversations, even among the women, frequently turn upon the
+elegancies and minutest delicacies of the French language.  An
+'enjouement', a gallant turn, prevails in all their companies, to women,
+with whom they neither are, nor pretend to be, in love; but should you
+(as may very possibly happen) fall really in love there with some woman
+of fashion and sense (for I do not suppose you capable of falling in love
+with a strumpet), and that your rival, without half your parts or
+knowledge, should get the better of you, merely by dint of manners,
+'enjouement, badinage', etc., how would you regret not having
+sufficiently attended to those accomplishments which you despised as
+superficial and trifling, but which you would then find of real
+consequence in the course of the world!  And men, as well as women,
+are taken by those external graces.  Shut up your books, then, now as a
+business, and open them only as a pleasure; but let the great book of the
+world be your serious study; read it over and over, get it by heart,
+adopt its style, and make it your own.
+
+When I cast up your account as it now stands, I rejoice to see the
+balance so much in your favor; and that the items per contra are so few,
+and of such a nature, that they may be very easily cancelled.  By way of
+debtor and creditor, it stands thus:
+
+Creditor.   By French                   Debtor. To English
+               German                              Enunciation
+               Italian                             Manners
+               Latin
+               Greek
+               Logic
+               Ethics
+               History
+               |Naturae
+           Jus |Gentium
+               |Publicum
+
+This, my dear friend, is a very true account; and a very encouraging one
+for you.  A man who owes so little can clear it off in a very little
+time, and, if he is a prudent man, will; whereas a man who, by long
+negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay; and
+therefore never looks into his account at all.
+
+When you go to Genoa, pray observe carefully all the environs of it, and
+view them with somebody who can tell you all the situations and
+operations of the Austrian army, during that famous siege, if it deserves
+to be called one; for in reality the town never was besieged, nor had the
+Austrians any one thing necessary for a siege.  If Marquis Centurioni,
+who was last winter in England, should happen to be there, go to him with
+my compliments, and he will show you all imaginable civilities.
+
+I could have sent you some letters to Florence, but that I knew Mr. Mann
+would be of more use to you than all of them.  Pray make him my
+compliments.  Cultivate your Italian, while you are at Florence, where it
+is spoken in its utmost purity, but ill pronounced.
+
+Pray save me the seed of some of the best melons you eat, and put it up
+dry in paper.  You need not send it me; but Mr. Harte will bring it in
+his pocket when he comes over.  I should likewise be glad of some
+cuttings of the best figs, especially la Pica gentile and the Maltese;
+but as this is not the season for them, Mr. Mann will, I dare say,
+undertake that commission, and send them to me at the proper time by
+Leghorn.  Adieu.  Endeavor to please others, and divert yourself as much
+as ever you can, in 'honnete et galant homme'.
+
+P.  S.  I send you the inclosed to deliver to Lord Rochford, upon your
+arrival at Turin.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXVIII.
+
+LONDON, August 6, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Since your letter from Sienna, which gave me a very
+imperfect account both of your illness and your recovery, I have not
+received one word either from you or Mr. Harte.  I impute this to the
+carelessness of the post simply: and the great distance between us at
+present exposes our letters to those accidents.  But when you come to
+Paris, from whence the letters arrive here very regularly, I shall insist
+upon you writing to me constantly once a week; and that upon the same
+day, for instance, every Thursday, that I may know by what mail to expect
+your letter.  I shall also require you to be more minute in your account
+of yourself than you have hitherto been, or than I have required, because
+of the informations which I receive from time to time from Mr. Harte.
+At Paris you will be out of your time, and must set up for yourself; it
+is then that I shall be very solicitous to know how you carry on your
+business.  While Mr. Harte was your partner, the care was his share, and
+the profit yours.  But at Paris, if you will have the latter, you must
+take the former along with it.  It will be quite a new world to you; very
+different from the little world that you have hitherto seen; and you will
+have much more to do in it.  You must keep your little accounts
+constantly every morning, if you would not have them run into confusion,
+and swell to a bulk that would frighten you from ever looking into them
+at all.  You must allow some time for learning what you do not know, and
+some for keeping what you do know; and you must leave a great deal of
+time for your pleasures; which (I repeat it, again) are now become the
+most necessary part of your education.  It is by conversations, dinners,
+suppers, entertainments, etc., in the best companies, that you must be
+formed for the world.  'Les manieres les agremens, les graces' cannot be
+learned by theory; they are only to be got by use among those who have
+them; and they are now the main object of your life, as they are the
+necessary steps to your fortune.  A man of the best parts, and the
+greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience
+and observation, will be very absurd; and consequently very unwelcome in
+company.  He may say very good things; but they will probably be so ill-
+timed, misplaced, or improperly addressed, that he had much better hold
+his tongue.  Full of his own matter, and uninformed of; or inattentive
+to, the particular circumstances and situations of the company, he vents
+it indiscriminately; he puts some people out of countenance; he shocks
+others; and frightens all, who dread what may come out next.  The most
+general rule that I can give you for the world, and which your experience
+will convince you of the truth of, is, Never to give the tone to the
+company, but to take it from them; and to labor more to put them in
+conceit with themselves, than to make them admire you.  Those whom you
+can make like themselves better, will, I promise you, like you very well.
+
+A system-monger, who, without knowing anything of the world by
+experience, has formed a system, of it in his dusty cell, lays it down,
+for example, that (from the general nature of mankind) flattery is
+pleasing.  He will therefore flatter.  But how?  Why, indiscriminately.
+And instead of repairing and heightening the piece judiciously, with soft
+colors and a delicate pencil,--with a coarse brush and a great deal of
+whitewash, he daubs and besmears the piece he means to adorn.  His
+flattery offends even his patron; and is almost too gross for his
+mistress.  A man of the world knows the force of flattery as well as he
+does; but then he knows how, when, and where to give it; he proportions
+his dose to the constitution of the patient.  He flatters by application,
+by inference, by comparison, by hint, and seldom directly.  In the course
+of the world, there is the same difference in everything between system
+and practice.
+
+I long to have you at Paris, which is to be your great school; you will
+be then in a manner within reach of me.
+
+Tell me, are you perfectly recovered, or do you still find any remaining
+complaint upon your lungs?  Your diet should be cooling, and at the same
+time nourishing.  Milks of all kinds are proper for you; wines of all
+kinds bad.  A great deal of gentle, and no violent exercise, is good for
+you.  Adieu.  'Gratia, fama, et valetudo, contingat, abunde!'
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXIX
+
+LONDON, October 22, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  This letter will, I am persuaded, find you, and I hope
+safely, arrived at Montpelier;  from whence I trust that Mr. Harte's
+indisposition will, by being totally removed, allow you to get to Paris
+before Christmas.  You will there find two people who, though both
+English, I recommend in the strongest manner possible to your attention;
+and advise you to form the most intimate connections with them both, in
+their, different ways.  The one is a man whom you already know something
+of, but not near enough: it is the Earl of Huntingdon; who, next to you,
+is the truest object of my affection and esteem; and who (I am proud to
+say it) calls me, and considers me as his adopted father.  His parts are
+as quick as his knowledge is extensive; and if quality were worth putting
+into an account, where every other item is so much more valuable, he is
+the first almost in this country: the figure he will make in it, soon
+after he returns to it, will, if I am not more mistaken than ever I was
+in my life, equal his birth and my hopes.  Such a connection will be of
+infinite advantage to you; and, I can assure you, that he is extremely
+disposed to form it upon my account; and will, I hope and believe, desire
+to improve and cement it upon your own.
+
+In our parliamentary government, connections are absolutely necessary;
+and, if prudently formed and ably maintained, the success of them is
+infallible.  There are two sorts of connections, which I would always
+advise you to have in view.  The first I will call equal ones; by which I
+mean those, where the two connecting parties reciprocally find their
+account, from pretty near an equal degree of parts and abilities.  In
+those, there must be a freer communication; each must see that the other
+is able, and be convinced that he is willing to be of use to him.  Honor
+must be the principle of such connections; and there must be a mutual
+dependence, that present and separate interest shall not be able to break
+them.  There must be a joint system of action; and, in case of different
+opinions, each must recede a little, in order at last to form an
+unanimous one.  Such, I hope, will be your connection with Lord
+Huntingdon.  You will both come into parliament at the same time; and if
+you have an equal share of abilities and application, you and he, with
+other young people, with whom you will naturally associate, may form a
+band which will be respected by any administration, and make a figure in
+the public.  The other sort of connections I call unequal ones; that is,
+where the parts are all on one side, and the rank and fortune on the
+other.  Here, the advantage is all on one side; but that advantage must
+be ably and artfully concealed.  Complaisance, an engaging manner, and a
+patient toleration of certain airs of superiority, must cement them.
+The weaker party must be taken by the heart, his head giving no hold;
+and he must be governed by being made to believe that he governs.
+These people, skillfully led, give great weight to their leader.
+I have formerly pointed out to you a couple that I take to be proper
+objects for your skill; and you will meet with twenty more, for they are
+very rife.
+
+The other person whom I recommended to you is a woman; not as a woman,
+for that is not immediately my business; besides, I fear that she is
+turned of fifty.  It is Lady Hervey, whom I directed you to call upon at
+Dijon, but who, to my great joy, because to your great advantage, passes
+all this winter at Paris.  She has been bred all her life at courts; of
+which she has acquired all the easy good-breeding and politeness, without
+the frivolousness.  She has all the reading that a woman should have; and
+more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well,
+though she wisely conceals it.  As she will look upon you as her son,
+I desire that you will look upon her as my delegate: trust, consult,
+and apply to her without reserve.  No woman ever had more than she has,
+'le ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manieres engageantes, et
+le je ne sais quoi qui plait'.  Desire her to reprove and correct any,
+and every, the least error and in-, accuracy in your manners, air,
+address, etc.  No woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more
+willingly, or in a more proper and obliging manner.  In such a case she
+will not put you out of countenance, by telling you of it in company;
+but either intimate it by some sign, or wait for an opportunity when you
+are alone together.  She is also in the best French company, where she
+will not only introduce but PUFF you, if I may use so low a word.  And I
+can assure you that it is no little help, in the 'beau monde', to be
+puffed there by a fashionable woman.  I send you the inclosed billet to
+carry her, only as a certificate of the identity of your person, which I
+take it for granted she could not know again.
+
+You would be so much surprised to receive a whole letter from me without
+any mention of the exterior ornaments necessary for a gentleman, as
+manners, elocution, air, address, graces, etc., that, to comply with your
+expectations, I will touch upon them; and tell you, that when you come to
+England, I will show you some people, whom I do not now care to name,
+raised to the highest stations singly by those exterior and adventitious
+ornaments, whose parts would never have entitled them to the smallest
+office in the excise.  Are they then necessary, and worth acquiring, or
+not?  You will see many instances of this kind at Paris, particularly a
+glaring one, of a person--[M. le Marechal de Richelieu]--raised to the
+highest posts and dignities in France, as well as to be absolute
+sovereign of the 'beau monde', simply by the graces of his person and
+address; by woman's chit-chat, accompanied with important gestures; by an
+imposing air and pleasing abord.  Nay, by these helps, he even passes for
+a wit, though he hath certainly no uncommon share of it.  I will not name
+him, because it would be very imprudent in you to do it.  A young fellow,
+at his first entrance into the 'beau monde', must not offend the king 'de
+facto' there.  It is very often more necessary to conceal contempt than
+resentment, the former forgiven, but the latter sometimes forgot.
+
+There is a small quarto book entitled, 'Histoire Chronologique de la
+France', lately published by Le President Henault, a man of parts and
+learning, with whom you will probably get acquainted at Paris.  I desire
+that it may always lie upon your table, for your recourse as often as you
+read history.  The chronology, though chiefly relative to the history of
+France, is not singly confined to it; but the most interesting events of
+all the rest of Europe are also inserted, and many of them adorned by
+short, pretty, and just reflections.  The new edition of 'Les Memoires de
+Sully', in three quarto volumes, is also extremely well worth your
+reading, as it will give you a clearer, and truer notion of one of the
+most interesting periods of the French history, than you can yet have
+formed from all the other books you may have read upon the subject.  That
+prince, I mean Henry the Fourth, had all the accomplishments and virtues
+of a hero, and of a king, and almost of a man.  The last are the most
+rarely seen.  May you possess them all!  Adieu.
+
+Pray make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and let him know that I have this
+moment received his letter of the 12th, N. S., from Antibes.  It requires
+no immediate answer; I shall therefore delay mine till I have another
+from him.  Give him the inclosed, which I have received from Mr. Eliot.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXX
+
+LONDON, November 1, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I hope that this letter will not find you still at
+Montpelier, but rather be sent after you from thence to Paris, where,
+I am persuaded, that Mr. Harte could find as good advice for his leg as
+at Montpelier, if not better; but if he is of a different opinion, I am
+sure you ought to stay there, as long as he desires.
+
+While you are in France, I could wish that the hours you allot for
+historical amusement should be entirely devoted to the history of France.
+One always reads history to most advantage in that country to which it is
+relative; not only books, but persons being ever at hand to solve doubts
+and clear up difficulties.  I do by no means advise you to throw away
+your time in ransacking, like a dull antiquarian, the minute and
+unimportant parts of remote and fabulous times.  Let blockheads read what
+blockheads wrote.  And a general notion of the history of France, from
+the conquest of that country by the Franks, to the reign of Louis the
+Eleventh, is sufficient for use, consequently sufficient for you.  There
+are, however, in those remote times, some remarkable eras that deserve
+more particular attention; I mean those in which some notable alterations
+happened in the constitution and form of government.  As, for example,
+in the settlement of Clovis in Gaul, and the form of government which he
+then established; for, by the way; that form of government differed in
+this particular from all the other Gothic governments, that the people,
+neither collectively nor by representatives, had any share in it.  It was
+a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy: and what were called the States
+General of France consisted only of the nobility and clergy till the time
+of Philip le Bel, in the very beginning of the fourteenth century, who
+first called the people to those assemblies, by no means for the good of
+the people, who were only amused by this pretended honor, but, in truth,
+to check the nobility and clergy, and induce them to grant the money he
+wanted for his profusion; this was a scheme of Enguerrand de Marigny, his
+minister, who governed both him and his kingdom to such a degree as to,
+be called the coadjutor and governor of the kingdom.  Charles Martel laid
+aside these assemblies, and governed by open force.  Pepin restored them,
+and attached them to him, and with them the nation; by which means he
+deposed Childeric and mounted the throne.  This is a second period worth
+your attention.  The third race of kings, which begins with Hugues Capet,
+is a third period.  A judicious reader of history will save himself a
+great deal of time and trouble by attending with care only to those
+interesting periods of history which furnish remarkable events, and make
+eras, and going slightly over the, common run of events.  Some people
+read history as others read the "Pilgrim's Progress"; giving equal
+attention to, and indiscriminately loading their memories with every part
+alike.  But I would have you read it in a different manner; take the
+shortest general history you can find of every country; and mark down in
+that history the most important periods, such as conquests, changes of
+kings, and alterations of the form of government; and then have recourse
+to more extensive histories or particular treatises, relative to those
+great points.  Consider them well, trace up their causes, and follow
+their consequences.  For instance, there is a most excellent, though very
+short history of France, by Le Gendre.  Read that with attention, and you
+will know enough of the general history; but when you find there such
+remarkable periods as are above mentioned, consult Mezeray, and other of
+the best and minutest historians, as well as political treatises upon
+those subjects.  In later times, memoirs, from those of Philip de
+Commines, down to the innumerble ones in the reign of Louis the
+Fourteenth, have been of great use, and thrown great light upon
+particular parts of history.
+
+Conversation in France, if you have the address and dexterity to turn it
+upon useful subjects, will exceedingly improve your historical knowledge;
+for people there, however classically ignorant they may be, think it a
+shame to be ignorant of the history of their own country: they read that,
+if they read nothing else, and having often read nothing else, are proud
+of having read that, and talk of it willingly; even the women are well
+instructed in that sort of reading.  I am far from meaning by this that
+you should always be talking wisely in company, of books, history, and
+matters of knowledge.  There are many companies which you will, and ought
+to keep, where such conversations would be misplaced and ill-timed; your
+own good sense must distinguish the company and the time.  You must
+trifle only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious, but
+dance to those who pipe.  'Cur in theatrum Cato severs venisti?'  was
+justly said to an old man: how much more so would it be to one of your
+age?  From the moment that you are dressed and go out, pocket all your
+knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless
+desired: the producing of the one unasked, implies that you are weary of
+the company; and the producing of the other unrequired, will make the
+company weary of you.  Company is a republic too jealous of its
+liberties, to suffer a dictator even for a quarter of an hour; and yet in
+that, as in republics, there are some few who really govern; but then it
+is by seeming to disclaim, instead of attempting to usurp the power; that
+is the occasion in which manners, dexterity, address, and the undefinable
+'je ne sais quoi' triumph; if properly exerted, their conquest is sure,
+and the more lasting for not being perceived.  Remember, that this is not
+only your first and greatest, but ought to be almost your only object,
+while you are in France.
+
+I know that many of your countrymen are apt to call the freedom and
+vivacity of the French petulancy and illbreeding; but, should you think
+so, I desire upon many accounts that you will not say so; I admit that it
+may be so in some instances of 'petits maitres Etourdis', and in some
+young people unbroken to the world; but I can assure you, that you will
+find it much otherwise with people of a certain rank and age, upon whose
+model you will do very well to form yourself.  We call their steady
+assurance, impudence why?  Only because what we call modesty is awkward
+bashfulness and 'mauvaise honte'.  For my part, I see no impudence, but,
+on the contrary, infinite utility and advantage in presenting one's self
+with the same coolness and unconcern in any and every company.  Till one
+can do that, I am very sure that one can never present one's self well.
+Whatever is done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done, and,
+till a man is absolutely easy and unconcerned in every company, he will
+never be thought to have kept good company, nor be very welcome in it.
+A steady assurance, with seeming modesty, is possibly the most useful
+qualification that a man can have in every part of life.  A man would
+certainly make a very considerable fortune and figure in the world, whose
+modesty and timidity should often, as bashfulness always does (put him in
+the deplorable and lamentable situation of the pious AEneas, when
+'obstupuit, steteruntque comae; et vox faucibus haesit!).  Fortune (as
+well as women)--
+
+               "---------born to be controlled,
+               Stoops to the forward and the bold."
+
+Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty,
+clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by
+difficulties in its journey; whereas barefaced impudence is the noisy and
+blustering harbinger of a worthless and senseless usurper.
+
+You will think that I shall never have done recommending to you these
+exterior worldly accomplishments, and you will think right, for I never
+shall; they are of too great consequence to you for me to be indifferent
+or negligent about them: the shining part of your future figure and
+fortune depends now wholly upon them.  These are the acquisitions which
+must give efficacy and success to those you have already made.  To have
+it said and believed that you are the most learned man in England, would
+be no more than was said and believed of Dr. Bentley; but to have it
+said, at the same time, that you are also the best-bred, most polite, and
+agreeable man in the kingdom, would be such a happy composition of a
+character as I never yet knew any one man deserve; and which I will
+endeavor, as well as ardently wish, that you may.  Absolute perfection
+is, I well know, unattainable; but I know too, that a man of parts may be
+unweariedly aiming at it, and arrive pretty near it.  Try, labor,
+persevere.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXI
+
+LONDON, November 8, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Before you get to Paris, where you will soon be left to
+your own discretion, if you have any, it is necessary that we should
+understand one another thoroughly; which is the most probable way of
+preventing disputes.  Money, the cause of much mischief in the world, is
+the cause of most quarrels between fathers and sons; the former commonly
+thinking that they cannot give too little, and the latter, that they
+cannot have enough; both equally in the wrong.  You must do me the
+justice to acknowledge, that I have hitherto neither stinted nor grudged
+any expense that could be of use or real pleasure to you; and I can
+assure you, by the way, that you have traveled at a much more
+considerable expense than I did myself; but I never so much as thought of
+that, while Mr. Harte was at the head of your finances; being very sure
+that the sums granted were scrupulously applied to the uses for which
+they were intended.  But the case will soon be altered, and you will be
+your own receiver and treasurer.  However, I promise you, that we will
+not quarrel singly upon the quantum, which shall be cheerfully and freely
+granted: the application and appropriation of it will be the material
+point, which I am now going to clear up and finally settle with you.
+I will fix, or even name, no settled allowance; though I well know in my
+own mind what would be the proper one; but I will first try your
+draughts, by which I can in a good degree judge of your conduct.  This
+only I tell you in general, that if the channels through which my money
+is to go are the proper ones, the source shall not be scanty; but should
+it deviate into dirty, muddy, and obscure ones (which by the bye, it
+cannot do for a week without my knowing it); I give you fair and timely
+notice, that the source will instantly be dry.  Mr. Harte,
+in establishing you at Paris, will point out to you those proper
+channels; he will leave you there upon the foot of a man of fashion, and
+I will continue you upon the same; you will have your coach, your valet
+de chambre, your own footman, and a valet de place; which, by the way, is
+one servant more than I had.  I would have you very well dressed, by
+which I mean dressed as the generality of people of fashion are; that is,
+not to be taken notice of, for being either more or less fine than other
+people: it is by being well dressed, not finely dressed, that a gentleman
+should be distinguished.  You must frequent 'les spectacles', which
+expense I shall willingly supply.  You must play 'a des petits jeux de
+commerce' in mixed companies; that article is trifling; I shall pay it
+cheerfully.  All the other articles of pocket-money are very
+inconsiderable at Paris, in comparison of what they are here, the silly
+custom of giving money wherever one dines or sups, and the expensive
+importunity of subscriptions, not being yet introduced there.  Having
+thus reckoned up all the decent expenses of a gentleman, which I will
+most readily defray, I come now to those which I will neither bear nor
+supply.  The first of these is gaming, of which, though I have not the
+least reason to suspect you, I think it necessary eventually to assure
+you, that no consideration in the world shall ever make me pay your play
+debts; should you ever urge to me that your honor is pawned, I should
+most immovably answer you, that it was your honor, not mine, that was
+pawned; and that your creditor might e'en take the pawn for the debt.
+
+Low company, and low pleasures, are always much more costly than liberal
+and elegant ones.  The disgraceful riots of a tavern are much more
+expensive, as well as dishonorable, than the sometimes pardonable
+excesses in good company.  I must absolutely hear of no tavern scrapes
+and squabbles.
+
+I come now to another and very material point; I mean women; and I will
+not address myself to you upon this subject, either in a religious, a
+moral, or a parental style.  I will even lay aside my age, remember
+yours, and speak to you as one man of pleasure, if he had parts too,
+would speak to another.  I will by no means pay for whores, and their
+never-failing consequences, surgeons; nor will I, upon any account, keep
+singers, dancers, actresses, and 'id genus omne'; and, independently of
+the expense, I must tell you, that such connections would give me,
+and all sensible people, the utmost contempt for your parts and address;
+a young fellow must have as little sense as address, to venture, or more
+properly to sacrifice, his health and ruin his fortune, with such sort of
+creatures; in such a place as Paris especially, where gallantry is both
+the profession and the practice of every woman of fashion.  To speak
+plainly, I will not forgive your understanding c--------s and p-------s;
+nor will your constitution forgive them you.  These distempers, as well
+as their cures, fall nine times in ten upon the lungs.  This argument,
+I am sure, ought to have weight with you: for I protest to you, that if
+you meet with any such accident, I would not give one year's purchase for
+your life.  Lastly, there is another sort of expense that I will not
+allow, only because it is a silly one; I mean the fooling away your money
+in baubles at toy shops.  Have one handsome snuff-box (if you take
+snuff), and one handsome sword; but then no more pretty and very useless
+things.
+
+By what goes before, you will easily perceive that I mean to allow you
+whatever is necessary, not only for the figure, but for the pleasures of
+a gentleman, and not to supply the profusion of a rake.  This, you must
+confess, does not savor of either the severity or parsimony of old age.
+I consider this agreement between us, as a subsidiary treaty on my part,
+for services to be performed on yours.  I promise you, that I will be as
+punctual in the payment of the subsidies, as England has been during the
+last war; but then I give you notice at the same time, that I require a
+much more scrupulous execution of the treaty on your part, than we met
+with on that of our allies; or else that payment will be stopped.  I hope
+all that I have now said was absolutely unnecessary, and that sentiments
+more worthy and more noble than pecuniary ones, would of themselves have
+pointed out to you the conduct I recommend; but, at all events, I
+resolved to be once for all explicit with you, that, in the worst that
+can happen, you may not plead ignorance, and complain that I had not
+sufficiently explained to you my intentions.
+
+Having mentioned the word rake, I must say a word or two more on that
+subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt
+to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there
+are not in the world two characters more different.  A rake is a
+composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful
+vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character, and to ruin his
+fortune; while wine and the p-------s contend which shall soonest and
+most effectually destroy his constitution.  A dissolute, flagitious
+footman, or porter, makes full as good a rake as a man of the first
+quality.  By the bye, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my
+youth, I never was a rake, but, on the contrary, always detested and
+despised that character.
+
+A man of pleasure, though not always so scrupulous as he should be, and
+as one day he will wish he had been, refines at least his pleasures by
+taste, accompanies them with decency, and enjoys them with dignity.
+Few men can be men of pleasure, every man may be a rake.  Remember that
+I shall know everything you say or do at Paris, as exactly as if, by the
+force of magic, I could follow you everywhere, like a sylph or a gnome,
+invisible myself.  Seneca says, very prettily, that one should ask
+nothing of God, but what one should be willing that men should know; nor
+of men, but what one should be willing that God should know.  I advise
+you to say and do nothing at Paris, but what you would be willing that
+I should know.  I hope, nay, I believe, that will be the case.  Sense,
+I dare say, you do not want; instruction, I am sure, you have never
+wanted: experience you are daily gaining: all which together must
+inevitably (I should think) make you both 'respectable et aimable', the
+perfection of a human character.  In that case nothing shall be wanting
+on my part, and you shall solidly experience all the extent and
+tenderness of my affection for you; but dread the reverse of both! Adieu!
+
+P. S.  When you get to Paris, after you have been to wait on Lord
+Albemarle, go to see Mr. Yorke, whom I have particular reasons for
+desiring that you should be well with, as I shall hereafter explain to
+you.  Let him know that my orders, and your own inclinations, conspired
+to make you desire his friendship and protection.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXII
+
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have sent you so many preparatory letters for Paris,
+that this, which will meet you there, shall only be a summary of them
+all.
+
+You have hitherto had more liberty than anybody of your age ever had;
+and I must do you the justice to own, that you have made a better use of
+it than most people of your age would have done; but then, though you had
+not a jailer, you had a friend with you.  At Paris, you will not only be
+unconfined, but unassisted.  Your own good sense must be your only guide:
+I have great confidence in it, and am convinced that I shall receive just
+such accounts of your conduct at Paris as I could wish; for I tell you
+beforehand, that I shall be most minutely informed of all that you do,
+and almost of all that you say there.  Enjoy the pleasures of youth,
+you cannot do better: but refine and dignify them like a man, of parts;
+let them raise, and not sink; let them adorn and not vilify your
+character; let them, in short, be the pleasures of a gentleman, and taken
+with your equals at least, but rather with your superiors, and those
+chiefly French.
+
+Inquire into the characters of the several Academicians, before you form
+a connection with any of them; and be most upon your guard against those
+who make the most court to you.
+
+You cannot study much in the Academy; but you may study usefully there,
+if you are an economist of your time, and bestow only upon good books
+those quarters and halves of hours, which occur to everybody in the
+course of almost every day; and which, at the year's end, amount to a
+very considerable sum of time.  Let Greek, without fail, share some part
+of every day; I do not mean the Greek poets, the catches of Anacreon, or
+the tender complaints of Theocritus, or even the porter-like language of
+Homer's heroes; of whom all smatterers in Greek know a little, quote
+often, and talk of always; but I mean Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes,
+and Thucydides, whom none but adepts know.  It is Greek that must
+distinguish you in the learned world, Latin alone will not: and Greek
+must be sought to be retained, for it never occurs like Latin.  When you
+read history or other books of amusement, let every language you are
+master of have its turn, so that you may not only retain, but improve in
+everyone.  I also desire that you will converse in German and Italian,
+with all the Germans and the Italians with whom you converse at all.
+This will be a very agreeable and flattering thing to them, and a very
+useful one to you.
+
+Pray apply yourself diligently to your exercises; for though the doing
+them well is not supremely meritorious, the doing them ill is illiberal,
+vulgar, and ridiculous.
+
+I recommend theatrical representations to you; which are excellent at
+Paris.  The tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the comedies of
+Moliere, well attended to, are admirable lessons, both for the heart and
+the head.  There is not, nor ever was, any theatre comparable to the
+French.  If the music of the French operas does not please your Italian
+ear, the words of them, at least, are sense and poetry, which is much
+more than I can, say of any Italian opera that I ever read or heard in my
+life.
+
+I send you the inclosed letter of recommendation to Marquis Matignon,
+which I would have you deliver to him as soon as you can; you will, I am
+sure, feel the good effects of his warm friendship for me and Lord
+Bolingbroke, who has also wrote to him upon your subject.  By that, and
+by the other letters which I have sent you, you will be at once so
+thoroughly introduced into the best French company, that you must take
+some pains if you will keep bad; but that is what I do not suspect you
+of.  You have, I am sure, too much right ambition to prefer low and
+disgraceful company to that of your superiors, both in rank and age.
+Your character, and consequently your fortune, absolutely depends upon
+the company you keep, and the turn you take at Paris.  I do not in the
+least mean a grave turn; on the contrary, a gay, a sprightly, but, at the
+same time, an elegant and liberal one.
+
+Keep carefully out of all scrapes and quarrels.  They lower a character
+extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France; where a man is
+dishonored by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting
+it.  The young Frenchmen are hasty, giddy, and petulant; extremely
+national, and 'avantageux'.  Forbear from any national jokes or
+reflections, which are always improper, and commonly unjust.  The colder
+northern nations generally look upon France as a whistling, singing,
+dancing, frivolous nation; this notion is very far from being a true one,
+though many 'Petits maitres' by their behavior seem to justify it; but
+those very 'petits maltres', when mellowed by age and experience, very
+often turn out very able men.  The number of great generals and
+statesmen, as well as excellent authors, that France has produced, is an
+undeniable proof, that it is not that frivolous, unthinking, empty nation
+that northern prejudices suppose it.  Seem to like and approve of
+everything at first, and I promise you that you will like and approve of
+many things afterward.
+
+I expect that you will write to me constantly, once every week, which I
+desire may be every Thursday; and that your letters may inform me of your
+personal transactions: not of what you see, but of whom you see, and what
+you do.
+
+Be your own monitor, now that you will have no other.  As to enunciation,
+I must repeat it to you again and again, that there is no one thing so
+necessary: all other talents, without that, are absolutely useless,
+except in your own closet.
+
+It sounds ridiculously to bid you study with your dancing-master; and yet
+I do.  The bodily-carriage and graces are of infinite consequence to
+everybody, and more particularly to you.
+
+Adieu for this time, my dear child.  Yours tenderly.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXIII
+
+LONDON, November 12, O. S.  1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You will possibly think, that this letter turns upon
+strange, little, trifling objects; and you will think right, if you
+consider them separately; but if you take them aggregately, you will be
+convinced that as parts, which conspire to form that whole, called the
+exterior of a man of fashion, they are of importance.  I shall not dwell
+now upon these personal graces, that liberal air, and that engaging
+address, which I have so often recommended to you; but descend still
+lower, to your dress, cleanliness, and care of your person.
+
+When you come to Paris, you may take care to be extremely well dressed;
+that is, as the fashionable people are; this does by no means consist in
+the finery, but in the taste, fitness, and manner of wearing your
+clothes; a fine suit ill-made, and slatternly or stiffly worn, far from
+adorning, only exposes the awkwardness of the wearer.  Get the best
+French tailor to make your clothes, whatever they are, in the fashion,
+and to fit you: and then wear them, button them, or unbutton them, as the
+genteelest people you see do.  Let your man learn of the best friseur to
+do your hair well, for that is a very material part of your dress.  Take
+care to have your stockings well gartered up, and your shoes well
+buckled; for nothing gives a more slovenly air to a man than ill-dressed
+legs.  In your person you must be accurately clean; and your teeth,
+hands, and nails, should be superlatively so; a dirty mouth has real ill
+consequences to the owner, for it infallibly causes the decay, as well as
+the intolerable pain of the teeth, and it is very offensive to his
+acquaintance, for it will most inevitably stink.  I insist, therefore,
+that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a
+soft sponge and swarm water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your
+mouth five or six times.  Mouton, whom I desire you will send for upon
+your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used
+sometimes.  Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, than
+dirty hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails: I do not suspect you of
+that shocking, awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough:
+you must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not tipped with black,
+as the ordinary people's always are.  The ends of your nails should be
+small segments of circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting,
+they are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your hands, rub
+the skin round your nails backward, that it may not grow up, and shorten
+your nails too much.  The cleanliness of the rest of your person, which,
+by the way, will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to
+time to the bagnio.  My mentioning these particulars arises (I freely
+own) from some suspicion that the hints are not unnecessary; for, when
+you were a schoolboy, you were slovenly and dirty above your fellows.
+I must add another caution, which is that upon no account whatever, you
+put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nose or ears.
+It is the most shocking, nasty, vulgar rudeness, that can be offered to
+company; it disgusts one, it turns one's stomach; and, for my own part,
+I would much rather know that a man's fingers were actually in his
+breech, than see them in his nose.  Wash your ears well every morning,
+and blow your nose in your handkerchief whenever you have occasion; but,
+by the way, without looking at it afterward.  There should be in the
+least, as well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, 'les manieres
+nobles'.  Sense will teach you some, observation others; attend carefully
+to the manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion,
+and form your own upon them.  On the other hand, observe a little those
+of the vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things which they
+say or do may be the same, the manner is always totally different: and in
+that, and nothing else, consists the characteristic of a man of fashion.
+The lowest peasant speaks, moves, dresses, eats, and drinks, as much as a
+man of the first fashion, but does them all quite differently; so that by
+doing and saying most things in a manner opposite to that of the vulgar,
+you have a great chance of doing and saying them right.  There are
+gradations in awkwardness and vulgarism, as there are in everything else.
+'Les manieres de robe', though not quite right, are still better than
+'les manieres bourgeoises'; and these, though bad, are still better than
+'les manieres de campagne'.  But the language, the air, the dress, and
+the manners of the court, are the only true standard 'des manieres
+nobles, et d'un honnete homme.  Ex pede Herculem' is an old and true
+saying, and very applicable to our present subject; for a man of parts,
+who has been bred at courts, and used to keep the best company, will
+distinguish himself, and is to be known from the vulgar by every word,
+attitude, gesture, and even look.  I cannot leave these seeming
+'minutiae', without repeating to you the necessity of your carving well;
+which is an article, little as it is, that is useful twice every day of
+one's life; and the doing it ill is very troublesome to one's self, and
+very disagreeable, often ridiculous, to others.
+
+Having said all this, I cannot help reflecting, what a formal dull
+fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would say, if they were to see this
+letter: they would look upon it with the utmost contempt, and say that
+surely a father might find much better topics for advice to a son.
+I would admit it, if I had given you, or that you were capable of
+receiving, no better; but if sufficient pains have been taken to form
+your heart and improve your mind, and, as I hope, not without success,
+I will tell those solid gentlemen, that all these trifling things,
+as they think them, collectively, form that pleasing 'je ne sais quoi',
+that ensemble, which they are utter strangers to both in themselves and
+others.  The word aimable is not known in their language, or the thing in
+their manners.  Great usage of the world, great attention, and a great
+desire of pleasing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle.  It is from
+old people's looking upon these things as trifles, or not thinking of
+them at all, that so many young people are so awkward and so ill-bred.
+Their parents, often careless and unmindful of them, give them only the
+common run of education, as school, university, and then traveling;
+without examining, and very often without being able to judge, if they
+did examine, what progress they make in any one of these stages.  Then,
+they carelessly comfort themselves, and say, that their sons will do like
+other people's sons; and so they do, that is, commonly very ill.  They
+correct none of the childish nasty tricks, which they get at school;
+nor the illiberal manners which they contract at the university; nor the
+frivolous and superficial pertness, which is commonly all that they
+acquire by their travels.  As they do not tell them of these things,
+nobody else can; so they go on in the practice of them, without ever
+hearing, or knowing, that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking.
+For, as I have often formerly observed to you, nobody but a father can
+take the liberty to reprove a young fellow, grown up, for those kinds of
+inaccuracies and improprieties of behavior.  The most intimate
+friendship, unassisted by the paternal superiority, will not authorize
+it.  I may truly say, therefore, that you are happy in having me for a
+sincere, friendly, and quick-sighted monitor.  Nothing will escape me:
+I shall pry for your defects, in order to correct them, as curiously as
+I shall seek for your perfections, in order to applaud and reward them,
+with this difference only, that I shall publicly mention the latter, and
+never hint at the former, but in a letter to, or a tete-d-tete with you.
+I will never put you out of countenance before company; and I hope you
+will never give me reason to be out of countenance for you, as any one of
+the above-mentioned defects would make me.  'Praetor non, curat de
+minimis', was a maxim in the Roman law; for causes only of a certain
+value were tried by him but there were inferior jurisdictions, that took
+cognizance of the smallest.  Now I shall try you, not only as 'praetor'
+in the greatest, but as 'censor' in lesser, and as the lowest magistrate
+in the least cases.
+
+I have this moment received Mr. Harte's letter of the 1st November,
+N. S., by which I am very glad to find that he thinks of moving toward
+Paris, the end of this month, which looks as if his leg were better;
+besides, in my opinion, you both of you only lose time at Montpelier;
+he would find better advice, and you better company, at Paris.  In the
+meantime, I hope you go into the best company there is at Montpelier;
+and there always is some at the Intendant's, or the Commandant's.  You
+will have had full time to learn 'les petites chansons Languedociennes',
+which are exceedingly pretty ones, both words and tunes.  I remember,
+when I was in those parts, I was surprised at the difference which I
+found between the people on one side, and those on the other side of the
+Rhone.  The Provencaux were, in general, surly, ill-bred, ugly, and
+swarthy; the Languedocians the very reverse: a cheerful, well-bred,
+handsome people.  Adieu! Yours most affectionately.
+
+P. S.  Upon reflection, I direct this letter to Paris; I think you must
+have left Montpelier before it could arrive there.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXIV
+
+LONDON, November 19, O. S. 1750
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I was very glad to find by your letter of the 12th,
+N. S., that you had informed yourself so well of the state of the French
+marine at Toulon, and of the commerce at Marseilles; they are objects
+that deserve the inquiry and attention of every man who intends to be
+concerned in public affairs.  The French are now wisely attentive to
+both; their commerce is incredibly increased within these last thirty
+years; they have beaten us out of great part of our Levant trade; their
+East India trade has greatly affected ours; and, in the West Indies,
+their Martinico establishment supplies, not only France itself, but the
+greatest part of Europe, with sugars whereas our islands, as Jamaica,
+Barbadoes, and the Leeward, have now no other market for theirs but
+England.  New France, or Canada, has also greatly lessened our fur and
+skin trade.  It is true (as you say) that we have no treaty of commerce
+subsisting (I do not say WITH MARSEILLES) but with France.  There was a
+treaty of commerce made between England and France, immediately after the
+treaty of Utrecht; but the whole treaty was conditional, and to depend
+upon the parliament's enacting certain things which were stipulated in
+two of the articles; the parliament, after a very famous debate, would
+not do it; so the treaty fell to the ground: however, the outlines of
+that treaty are, by mutual and tacit consent, the general rules of our
+present commerce with France.  It is true, too, that our commodities
+which go to France, must go in our bottoms; the French having imitated in
+many respects our famous Act of Navigation, as it is commonly called.
+This act was made in the year 1652, in the parliament held by Oliver
+Cromwell.  It forbids all foreign ships to bring into England any
+merchandise or commodities whatsoever, that were not of the growth and
+produce of that country to which those ships belonged, under penalty of
+the forfeiture of such ships.  This act was particularly leveled at the
+Dutch, who were at that time the carriers of almost all Europe, and got
+immensely by freight.  Upon this principle, of the advantages arising
+from freight, there is a provision in the same act, that even the growth
+and produce of our own colonies in America shall not be carried from
+thence to any other country in Europe, without first touching in England;
+but this clause has lately been repealed, in the instances of some
+perishable commodities, such as rice, etc., which are allowed to be
+carried directly from our American colonies to other countries.  The act
+also provides, that two-thirds, I think, of those who navigate the said
+ships shall be British subjects.  There is an excellent, and little book,
+written by the famous Monsieur Huet Eveque d'Avranches, 'Sur le Commerce
+des Anciens', which is very well worth your reading, and very soon read.
+It will give you a clear notion of the rise and progress of commerce.
+There are many other books, which take up the history of commerce where
+Monsieur d'Avranches leaves it, and bring it down to these times.  I
+advise you to read some of them with care; commerce being a very
+essential part of political knowledge in every country; but more
+particularly in that which owes all its riches and power to it.
+
+I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I
+may call bad spelling ORTHOGRAPHY.  You spell induce, ENDUCE; and
+grandeur, you spell grandURE; two faults of which few of my housemaids
+would have been guilty.  I must tell you that orthography, in the true
+sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters; or a
+gentleman, that one false spelling may fix ridicule upon him for the rest
+of his life; and I know a man of quality, who never recovered the
+ridicule of having spelled WHOLESOME without the w.
+
+Reading with care will secure everybody from false spelling; for books
+are always well spelled, according to the orthography of the times.  Some
+words are indeed doubtful, being spelled differently by different authors
+of equal authority; but those are few; and in those cases every man has
+his option, because he may plead his authority either way; but where
+there is but one right way, as in the two words above mentioned, it is
+unpardonable and ridiculous for a gentleman to miss it; even a woman of a
+tolerable education would despise and laugh, at a lover, who should send
+her an ill-spelled billet-doux.  I fear and suspect, that you have taken
+it into your head, in most cases, that the matter is all, and the manner
+little or nothing.  If you have, undeceive yourself, and be convinced
+that, in everything, the manner is full as important as the matter.  If
+you speak the sense of an angel, in bad words and with a disagreeable
+utterance, nobody will hear you twice, who can help it.  If you write
+epistles as well as Cicero, but in a very bad hand, and very ill-spelled,
+whoever receives will laugh at them; and if you had the figure of Adonis,
+with an awkward air and motions, it will disgust instead of pleasing.
+Study manner, therefore, in everything, if you would be anything.  My
+principal inquiries of my friends at Paris, concerning you, will be
+relative to your manner of doing whatever you do.  I shall not inquire
+whether you understand Demosthenes, Tacitus, or the 'Jus Publicum
+Imperii'; but I shall inquire, whether your utterance is pleasing, your
+style not only pure, but elegant, your manners noble and easy, your air
+and address engaging in short, whether you are a gentleman, a man of
+fashion, and fit to keep good company, or not; for, till I am satisfied
+in these particulars, you and I must by no means meet; I could not
+possibly stand it.  It is in your power to become all this at Paris, if
+you please.  Consult with Lady Hervey and Madame Monconseil upon all
+these matters; and they will speak to you, and advise you freely.  Tell
+them, that 'bisogna compatire ancora', that you are utterly new in the
+world; that you are desirous to form yourself; that you beg they will
+reprove, advise, and correct you; that you know that none can do it so
+well; and that you will implicitly follow their directions.  This,
+together with your careful observation of the manners of the best
+company, will really form you.
+
+Abbe Guasco, a friend of mine, will come to you as soon as he knows of
+your arrival at Paris; he is well received in the best companies there,
+and will introduce you to them.  He will be desirous to do you any
+service he can; he is active and curious, and can give you information
+upon most things.  He is a sort of 'complaisant' of the President
+Montesquieu, to whom you have a letter.
+
+I imagine that this letter will not wait for you very long at Paris,
+where I reckon you will be in about a fortnight.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CXXV
+
+LONDON, December 24, 1750
+
+DEAR FRIEND: At length you are become a Parisian, and consequently must
+be addressed in French; you will also answer me in the same language,
+that I may be able to judge of the degree in which you possess the
+elegance, the delicacy, and the orthography of that language which is,
+in a manner, become the universal one of Europe.  I am assured that you
+speak it well, but in that well there are gradations.  He, who in the
+provinces might be reckoned to speak correctly, would at Paris be looked
+upon as an ancient Gaul.  In that country of mode, even language is
+subservient to fashion, which varies almost as often as their clothes.
+
+The AFFECTED, the REFINED, the NEOLOGICAL, OR NEW FASHIONABLE STYLE are
+at present too much in vogue at Paris.  Know, observe, and occasionally
+converse (if you please) according to those different styles; but do not
+let your taste be infected by them.  Wit, too, is there subservient to
+fashion; and actually, at Paris, one must have wit, even in despite of
+Minerva.  Everybody runs after it; although if it does not come naturally
+and of itself; it never can be overtaken.  But, unfortunately for those
+who pursue, they seize upon what they take for wit, and endeavor to pass
+it for such upon others.  This is, at best, the lot of Ixion, who
+embraced a cloud instead of the goddess he pursued.  Fine sentiments,
+which never existed, false and unnatural thoughts, obscure and far-sought
+expressions, not only unintelligible, but which it is even impossible to
+decipher, or to guess at, are all the consequences of this error; and
+two-thirds of the new French books which now appear are made up of those
+ingredients.  It is the new cookery of Parnassus, in which the still is
+employed instead of the pot and the spit, and where quintessences and
+extracts ate chiefly used.  N. B.  The Attic salt is proscribed.
+
+You will now and then be obliged to eat of this new cookery, but do not
+suffer your taste to be corrupted by it.  And when you, in your turn, are
+desirous of treating others, take the good old cookery of Lewis XIV.'s
+reign for your rule.  There were at that time admirable head cooks, such
+as Corneille, Boileau, Racine, and La Fontaine.  Whatever they prepared
+was simple, wholesome, and solid.  But laying aside all metaphors, do not
+suffer yourself to be dazzled by false brilliancy, by unnatural
+expressions, nor by those antitheses so much in fashion: as a protection
+against such innovations, have a recourse to your own good sense, and to
+the ancient authors.  On the other hand, do not laugh at those who give
+into such errors; you are as yet too young to act the critic, or to stand
+forth a severe avenger of the violated rights of good sense.  Content
+yourself with not being perverted, but do not think of converting others;
+let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste, as well as in religion.
+Within the course of the last century and a half, taste in France has
+(as well as that kingdom itself) undergone many vicissitudes.  Under the
+reign of I do not say Lewis XIII. but of Cardinal de Richelieu, good
+taste first began to make its way.  It was refined under that of Lewis
+XIV., a great king, at least, if not a great man.  Corneille was the
+restorer of true taste, and the founder of the French theatre; although
+rather inclined to the Italian 'Concetti' and the Spanish 'Agudeze'.
+Witness those epigrams which he makes Chimene utter in the greatest
+excess of grief.
+
+Before his time, those kind of itinerant authors, called troubadours or
+romanciers, were a species of madmen who attracted the admiration of
+fools.  Toward the end of Cardinal de Richelieu's reign, and the
+beginning of Lewis XIV.'s, the Temple of Taste was established at the
+Hotel of Rambouillet; but that taste was not judiciously refined this
+Temple of Taste might more properly have been named a Laboratory of Wit,
+where good sense was put to the torture, in order to extract from it the
+most subtile essence.  There it was that Voiture labored hard and
+incessantly to create wit.  At length, Boileau and Moliere fixed the
+standard of true taste.  In spite of the Scuderys, the Calprenedes, etc.,
+they defeated and put to flight ARTAMENES, JUBA, OROONDATES, and all
+those heroes of romance, who were, notwithstanding (each of them), as
+good as a whole Army.  Those madmen then endeavored to obtain an asylum
+in libraries; this they could not accomplish, but were under a necessity
+of taking shelter in the chambers of some few ladies.  I would have you
+read one volume of "Cleopatra," and one of "Clelia"; it will otherwise be
+impossible for you to form any idea of the extravagances they contain;
+but God keep you from ever persevering to the twelfth.
+
+During almost the whole reign of Lewis XIV., true taste remained in its
+purity, until it received some hurt, although undesignedly, from a very
+fine genius, I mean Monsieur de Fontenelle; who, with the greatest sense
+and the most solid learning, sacrificed rather too much to the Graces,
+whose most favorite child and pupil he was.  Admired with reason, others
+tried to imitate him; but, unfortunately for us, the author of the
+"Pastorals," of the "History of Oracles," and of the "French Theatre,"
+found fewer imitators than the Chevalier d'Her did mimics.  He has since
+been taken off by a thousand authors: but never really imitated by anyone
+that I know of.
+
+At this time, the seat of true taste in France seems to me not well
+established.  It exists, but torn by factions.  There is one party of
+petits maitres, one of half-learned women, another of insipid authors
+whose works are 'verba et voces, et praeterea nihil'; and, in short, a
+numerous and very fashionable party of writers, who, in a metaphysical
+jumble, introduce their false and subtle reasonings upon the movements
+and the sentiments of THE SOUL, THE HEART, and THE MIND.
+
+Do not let yourself be overpowered by fashion, nor by particular sets of
+people with whom you may be connected; but try all the different coins
+before you receive any in payment.  Let your own good sense and reason
+judge of the value of each; and be persuaded, that NOTHING CAN BE
+BEAUTIFUL UNLESS TRUE: whatever brilliancy is not the result of the
+solidity and justness of a thought, it is but a false glare.  The Italian
+saying upon a diamond is equally just with regard to thoughts, 'Quanto
+Piu sodezza, tanto piu splendore'.
+
+All this ought not to hinder you from conforming externally to the modes
+and tones of the different companies in which you may chance to be.  With
+the 'petits maitres' speak epigrams; false sentiments, with frivolous
+women; and a mixture of all these together, with professed beaux esprits.
+I would have you do so; for at your age you ought not to aim at changing
+the tone of the company, but conform to it.  Examine well, however; weigh
+all maturely within yourself; and do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for
+the gold of Virgil.
+
+You will find at Paris good authors, and circles distinguished by the
+solidity of their reasoning.  You will never hear TRIFLING, AFFECTED, and
+far-sought conversations, at Madame de Monconseil's, nor at the hotels of
+Matignon and Coigni, where she will introduce you.  The President
+Montesquieu will not speak to you in the epigrammatic style.  His book,
+the "Spirit of the Laws," written in the vulgar tongue, will equally
+please and instruct you.
+
+Frequent the theatre whenever Corneille, Racine, and Moliere's pieces are
+played.  They are according to nature and to truth.  I do not mean by
+this to give an exclusion to several admirable modern plays, particularly
+"Cenie,"--[Imitated in English by Mr. Francis, in a play called
+"Eugenia."]--replete with sentiments that are true, natural, and
+applicable to one's self.  If you choose to know the characters of people
+now in fashion, read Crebillon the younger, and Marivaux's works.  The
+former is a most excellent painter; the latter has studied, and knows the
+human heart, perhaps too well.  Crebillon's 'Egaremens du Coeur et de
+l'Esprit is an excellent work in its kind; it will be of infinite
+amusement to you, and not totally useless.  The Japanese history of
+"Tanzar and Neadarne," by the same author, is an amiable extravagancy,
+interspersed with the most just reflections.  In short, provided you do
+not mistake the objects of your attention, you will find matter at Paris
+to form a good and true taste.
+
+As I shall let you remain at Paris without any person to direct your
+conduct, I flatter myself that you will not make a bad use of the
+confidence I repose in you.  I do not require that you should lead the
+life of a Capuchin friar; quite the contrary: I recommend pleasures to
+you; but I expect that they shall be the pleasures of a gentleman.  Those
+add brilliancy to a young man's character; but debauchery vilifies and
+degrades it.  I shall have very true and exact accounts of your conduct;
+and, according to the informations I receive, shall be more, or less, or
+not at all, yours.  Adieu.
+
+P. S.  Do not omit writing to me once a-week; and let your answer to this
+letter be in French.  Connect yourself as much as possible with the
+foreign ministers; which is properly traveling into different countries,
+without going from one place.  Speak Italian to all the Italians, and
+German to all the Germans you meet, in order not to forget those two
+languages.
+
+I wish you, my dear friend, as many happy new years as you deserve, and
+not one more.  May you deserve a great number!
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITORS BOOKMARKS:
+
+Absurd romances of the two last centuries
+Advocate, the friend, but not the bully of virtue
+Ariosto
+Assurance and intrepidity
+Attention
+Author is obscure and difficult in his own language
+Characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed
+Collana
+Commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with diligence
+Complaisance to every or anybody's opinion
+Conceal all your learning carefully
+Connections
+Contempt
+Content yourself with mediocrity in nothing
+Court mores
+Dance to those who pipe
+Dante
+Decides peremptorily upon every subject
+Desire to please, and that is the main point
+Desirous to make you their friend
+Despairs of ever being able to pay
+Difference in everything between system and practice
+Dignity to be kept up in pleasures, as well as in business
+Distinction between simulation and dissimulation
+Do not mistake the tinsel of Tasso for the gold of Virgil
+Doing what may deserve to be written
+Done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done
+Dressed as the generality of people of fashion are
+Economist of your time
+Economists
+Establishing a character of integrity and good manners
+Feed him, and feed upon him at the same time
+Flattery
+Fortune stoops to the forward and the bold
+Frivolous and superficial pertness
+Gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight
+Guard against those who make the most court to you
+Have no pleasures but your own
+If you will persuade, you must first please
+Improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young
+Indiscriminately loading their memories with every part alike
+Insipid in his pleasures, as inefficient in everything else
+Labor more to put them in conceit with themselves
+Lay down a method for everything, and stick to it inviolably
+Leo the Tenth
+Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote
+Let nobody discover that you do know your own value
+Let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste
+Lying
+Man is dishonored by not resenting an affront
+Manner is full as important as the matter
+Method
+Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise
+Money, the cause of much mischief
+Montesquieu
+More people have ears to be tickled, than understandings to judg
+Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends
+Necessity of scrupulously preserving the appearances
+Never affect the character in which you have a mind to shine
+Never put you out of countenance before company
+Never read history without having maps
+No one feels pleasure, who does not at the same time give it
+Not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife, unsuspected
+Often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment
+Passes for a wit, though he hath certainly no uncommon share
+Patient toleration of certain airs of superiority
+People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority
+People lose a great deal of time by reading
+Pleased with him, by making them first pleased with themselves
+Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal
+Pocket all your knowledge with your watch
+Put out your time, but to good interest
+Real merit of any kind will be discovered
+Resentment
+Respect without timidity
+Rich man never borrows
+Same coolness and unconcern in any and every company
+Seem to like and approve of everything at first
+Sentiments that were never felt, pompously described
+Shall be more, or less, or not at all, yours
+She has all the reading that a woman should have
+She who conquers only catches a Tartar
+Silence in love betrays more woe
+Spare the persons while you lash the crimes
+Steady assurance, with seeming modesty
+Suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgive
+Take the hue of the company you are with
+Taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit
+Tasso
+The present moments are the only ones we are sure of
+Those whom you can make like themselves better
+Timidity and diffidence
+To be heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure
+To be pleased one must please
+Trifle only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious
+Trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon
+Unwilling and forced; it will never please
+Well dressed, not finely dressed
+What is impossible, and what is only difficult
+What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you
+Whatever real merit you have, other people will discover
+Wish you, my dear friend, as many happy new years as you deserve
+Women choose their favorites more by the ear
+Words are the dress of thoughts
+Writing what may deserve to be read
+You must be respectable, if you will be respected
+Your character there, whatever it is, will get before you here
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1750
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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