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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69855 ***

[Illustration: LORD CHESTERFIELD

(Philip Dormer Stanhope).]




  LETTERS, SENTENCES
  AND MAXIMS

  By LORD CHESTERFIELD

  WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY CHARLES SAYLE
  AND A CRITICAL ESSAY BY C. A. SAINTE-BEUVE,
  DE L’ACADEMIE FRANCAISE

  [Illustration]

  “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing;
  Drink deep, or taste not the Castalian spring.”

  POPE.

  A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
  NEW YORK

    “Viewed as compositions, they appear almost unrivalled for
    a serious epistolary style; clear, elegant, and terse,
    never straining at effect, and yet never hurried into
    carelessness.”--LORD MAHON, 1845.

    “In point of style, a finished classical work; they contain
    instructions for the conduct of life that will never be
    obsolete. Instinct with the most consummate good sense and
    knowledge of life and business, and certainly nothing can be
    more attractive than the style in which they are set before
    their readers.”--_Quarterly Review_, vol. lxxvi., 1845.

    “Lord Chesterfield’s letters are, I will venture to
    say, masterpieces of good taste, good writing, and good
    sense.”--JOHN WILSON CROKER, 1846.




PREFATORY NOTE.

BY CHARLES SAYLE.


It is a singular fate that has overtaken Lord Chesterfield. One of the
more important figures in the political world of his time; one of the
few Lord-Lieutenants of Ireland whose name was afterward respected
and admired; the first man to introduce Voltaire and Montesquieu to
England; and the personal acquaintance of men like Addison and Swift,
Pope and Bolingbroke; the ally of Pitt and the enemy of three Georges;
though he married a king’s daughter and took up the task of the world’s
greatest emperor; yet the record of his actions has passed away, and he
is remembered now only by an accident.

Lord Chesterfield lives by that which he never intended for
publication, while that which he published has already passed from the
thoughts of men. It is one more example of the fact that our best work
is that which is our heart’s production. We have Lord Chesterfield’s
secret, and it bears witness to the strength of that part of him in
which an intellectual anatomist has declared him to be deficient--a
criticism which is but another proof of that which has been somewhere
said of him, that he has had the fate to be generally misunderstood.
Yet nothing is more certain than that Lord Chesterfield did not mean
to be anything but inscrutable. “Dissimilation is a shield,” he used
to say, “as secrecy is armor.” “A young fellow ought to be wiser than
he should seem to be, and an old fellow ought to seem wise whether he
really be so or not.” It is still worth while attempting to solve the
problem which is offered to us by his inscrutability, not only on its
own account, but because Lord Chesterfield is a representative spirit
of the eighteenth century.[1]


I.

Philip Dormer Stanhope did not experience in his youth either of those
influences which are so important in the lives of most of us. His
mother died before he could know her, and his father was one of those
living nonentities whom his biographer sums up in saying that “We know
little more of him than that he was an Earl of Chesterfield.” Indeed,
what influence there may have been was of a negative kind, for he had,
if anything, an avowed dislike for his son. Naturally under these
conditions he had to endure the slings and arrows of fortune alone and
uncounselled. One domestic influence was allowed him in the mother of
his mother, whose face still looks out at us from the pages of Dr.
Maty, engraved by Bartolozzi from the original of Sir Peter Lely--a
face sweet, intellectual, open--over the title of Gertrude Savile,
Marchioness of Halifax. She it was who undertook, at any rate to some
small degree, the rearing of her daughter’s child. Lord Chesterfield is
rather a Savile than a Stanhope.

He heard French from a Normandy nurse in his cradle, and he received,
when he grew a little older, “such a general idea of the sciences as
it is a disgrace to a gentleman not to possess.” But it is not till
he gets to Cambridge at the age of eighteen that we hear anything
definite. He writes to his tutor of former days, whom he seems to have
made a real friend, from Trinity Hall:

    “I find the college where I am infinitely the best in the
    university; for it is the smallest, and filled with lawyers
    who have lived in the world, and know how to behave. Whatever
    may be said to the contrary, there is certainly very little
    debauchery in the university, especially amongst people of
    fashion, for a man must have the inclinations of a porter to
    endure it here.”

Thirty-six years later he draws for his son this picture of his
college-life:

    “As I make no difficulty of confessing my past errors, where
    I think the confession may be of use to you, I will own that,
    when I first went to the university, I drank and smoked,
    notwithstanding the aversion I had to wine and tobacco, only
    because I thought it genteel, and that it made me look a man.”

This touch of nature it is interesting to find in one who gave so
much to the Graces. But to get at what he really did we may take the
following:

    “It is now, Sir, I have a great deal of business upon my hands;
    for I spend an hour every day in studying civil law, and as
    much in philosophy; and next week the blind man [Dr. Sanderson]
    begins his lectures upon the mathematics; so that I am now
    fully employed. Would you believe, too, that I read Lucian and
    Xenophon in Greek, which is made easy to me; for I do not take
    the pains to learn the grammatical rules; but the gentleman who
    is with me, and who is a living grammar, teaches me them all as
    I go along. I reserve time for playing at tennis, for I wish
    to have the _corpus sanum_ as well as the _mens sana_: I think
    the one is not good for much without the other. As for anatomy,
    I shall not have an opportunity of learning it; for though a
    poor man has been hanged, the surgeon who used to perform those
    operations would not this year give any lectures, because, he
    says, ... the scholars will not come.

    “Methinks our affairs are in a very bad way, but as I cannot
    mend them, I meddle very little in politics; only I take a
    pleasure in going sometimes to the coffee house to see the
    pitched battles that are fought between the heroes of each
    party with inconceivable bravery, and are usually terminated by
    the total defeat of a few tea-cups on both sides.”[2]

He only stayed in Cambridge two years, and then travelled abroad to
Flanders and Holland. He had just left The Hague when the news reached
him across the water which only then was not stale--Queen Anne was dead.

It was the turning point of his career, for his great-uncle, who had
influence and position at the court, obtained for him from George I.
the post of Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. At the
same time he obtained a pocket-borough in Cornwall, and appeared in
the House of Commons. He was not yet of age, of which fact a friend in
the opposition politely and quietly informed him after he had made his
first speech. He was, therefore, not only debarred from voting, but
liable to a fine of £500. He made a low bow, left the House, and posted
straightway to Paris.

He was not there long. Advancing months soon removed the objection of
age, and we find him again frequently in the House. His position on
the Schism and Occasional Conformity Bills was one which he himself
in after years regretted. He was still, however, swimming with the
stream, and the stream led on to fortune. In 1723 he was made Captain
of the Yeomen of the Guards, and two years later, when the Order of
the Bath was revived, was offered by the King the red ribbon. But this
he refused; and not contented with so much discourtesy, objected to
others accepting it. He wrote a ballad on Sir William Morgan, who had
received the same offer. The ballad came to the ears of the King; and
for this, or for other reasons, Stanhope the courtier lost his place.

At this juncture two changes took place, to him of equal importance.
George I. died and brought Stanhope’s former master to the throne; and
Lord Chesterfield died, leaving his son his title. The latter event
raised him to the House of Lords--the Hospital for Incurables, as Lord
Chesterfield calls it. The former should have raised him to higher
office still; but that policy of scheming for which Lord Chesterfield
has become almost as famous as Macchiavelli in this case played him
false. Believing that where marriage begins, love, as a necessary
consequence, ends, he had paid all his attentions to the new King’s
mistress, while he was still Prince of Wales, and none to his queen.
And Caroline of Anspach took precaution that when George II. came to
the throne the courtier’s negligence should be treated as it deserved.
Thus at the age of thirty-three, while still a young man, Chesterfield
was cut off from the Court: and he was already in opposition to
Walpole. The King as a subterfuge offered him the post of Ambassador
to Holland, and the offended courtier was thus removed. But political
events were moving rapidly, and in two years’ time it was rumored that
Chesterfield would be reinstated in favor. The King, however, was still
obdurate, and instead of Secretary of State he was made High Steward of
the Household. Chesterfield remained in Holland, gambling and watching
events. “I find treating with two hundred sovereigns of different
tempers and professions,” he writes, “is as laborious as treating with
one fine woman, who is at least of two hundred minds in one day.”

The game went on for a year more. Then he was by his own wish recalled.
On the 2d of May of this same year he was presented with a son by
Mme. Du Bouchet. “A beautiful young lady at The Hague,” says one
writer, “set her wits against his and suffered the usual penalty; she
fell, and this son was the result.” This son was the object of all
Lord Chesterfield’s care and affection. It was to him that his now
famous letters were written. The father, we find, on his return to
England, in the House talking indefatigably as ever. It was the year of
Walpole’s Excise Bill which was to have freed the country by changing
the system of taxation from direct to indirect methods. It was a good
measure and a just one. Every part of Walpole’s scheme has been since
carried into effect. But then there was a general cry raised against
it. The liberties of the people, it was said, were being attacked.
Chesterfield, with the rest of the Patriots, and with the country
behind them, fought hard, and the Bill was dropped (11th April, 1731).
Two days afterward, going up the steps of St. James’ Palace, he was
stopped by a servant in the livery of the Duke of Grafton, who told him
that his master must see him immediately. He drove off at once in the
Duke’s carriage, and found that he was to surrender the White Staff. He
demanded an audience at Court, obtained it, and was snubbed. Of course
he left it immediately.

We could have wished perhaps that Lord Chesterfield’s affection and
character had prevented him from falling--especially so soon after
the affair at The Hague--into so unpraiseworthy an undertaking as a
_mariage de convenance_. Yet whether it was to spite his royal enemy,
or because in financial difficulties he remembered the existence of
the will of George I.--or even from love; at any rate in the following
year he married, in lawful wedlock, Melusina de Schulenberg, whom,
though merely the “niece” of the Duchess of Kendale, George the
First had thought fit to create Lady Walsingham and the possessor by
his will of £20,000. Scandal or truth has been very busy about the
relationship of Lady Walsingham and her aunt. Posterity openly declares
her to have been the daughter of that lady by a royal sire. But good
Dr. Maty, as though by the quantity of his information, wishing to
override its quality, tells us that her father was none other than
one “Frederick Achatz de Schulenburg, privy counsellor to the Duke of
Brunswick-Lunenburg, Lord of Stehler, Bezendorff, Angern,” etc. But we
may well remember Lord Chesterfield’s own words here: “It is a happy
phrase that a lady has presented her husband with a son, for this does
not admit anything of its parentage.” Anyhow Lord Chesterfield lost the
money, for George the Second, on being shown his father’s will by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, put it in his pocket and walked hastily out
of the room. It never was seen again.

But to have quarrelled with George II. had one recommendation. It made
him a friend of the Prince of Wales. No sooner was Lord Chesterfield
married than the Prince and Princess sent round their cards, and the
rest of their Court, of course, followed them. It seems to have been
Lord Chesterfield’s fate to be opposed to the reigning power. His
opposition now, however, was quite spontaneous.

We need not follow him through all the political entanglements of the
time. Smollet said of him that he was the only man of genius employed
under Walpole, and though history has hardly justified such praise,
yet it certainly illustrates a truth. We may take his speech in 1737
against the Playhouse Bill as a sample of his oratory. I borrow from
Lord Mahon:

“[The speech] contains many eloquent predictions, that, should the Bill
be enacted, the ruin of liberty and the introduction of despotism would
inevitably follow. Yet even Chesterfield owns that ‘he has observed of
late a remarkable licentiousness in the stage. In one play very lately
acted (Pasquin[3]) the author thought fit to represent the three great
professions, religion, physic, and law as inconsistent with common
sense; in another (King Charles the First[4]), a most tragical story
was brought upon the stage--a catastrophe too recent, too melancholy,
and of too solemn a nature, to be heard of anywhere but from the
pulpit. How these pieces came to pass unpunished, I do not know.... The
Bill, my Lords, may seem to be designed only against the stage; but to
me it plainly appears to point somewhere else. It is an arrow that does
but glance upon the stage: the mortal wound seems designed against the
liberty of the press. By this Bill you prevent a play’s being acted,
but you do not prevent it being printed. Therefore if a license should
be refused for its being acted, we may depend upon it the play will be
printed. It will be printed and published, my Lords, with the refusal,
in capital letters, upon the title-page. People are always fond of what
is forbidden. _Libri prohibiti_ are, in all countries, diligently and
generally sought after. It will be much easier to procure a refusal
than it ever was to procure a good house or a good sale; therefore we
may expect that plays will be wrote on purpose to have a refusal; this
will certainly procure a good house or a good sale. Thus will satires
be spread and dispersed through the whole nation; and thus every man in
the kingdom may, and probably will, read for sixpence what a few only
could have seen acted for half a crown. We shall then be told, What!
will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, which you
will not allow to be acted? If we agree to the Bill now before us, we
must, perhaps, next session, agree to a Bill for preventing any plays
being printed without a license. Then satires will be wrote by way of
novels, secret histories, dialogues, or under some such title; and
thereupon we shall be told, What! will you allow an infamous libel to
be printed and dispersed, only because it does not bear the title of
a play? Thus, my Lords, from the precedent now before us, we shall be
induced, nay, we can find no reason for refusing, to lay the press
under a general license, and then we may bid adieu to the liberties of
Great Britain.’”[5] Of course it is impossible from single passages,
even perhaps from single speeches, to infer that he was ever a great
orator, but Horace Walpole has declared one of his speeches the finest
that he had ever listened to, and, as Lord Mahon justly observes,
“Horace Walpole had heard his own father; had heard Pitt; had heard
Pulteney; had heard Windham; had heard Carteret; yet he declares in
1743 that the finest speech he had ever listened to was one from Lord
Chesterfield.”

He was, with the other “Patriots,” in clamoring for war with Spain,
pursuing Walpole with an opposition which has been characterized as
“more factious and unprincipled than any that had ever disgraced
English politics” (Green). In 1739, it will be remembered, Walpole
bowed to the storm. The following extract from _An Ode to a Number of
Great Men_, published in 1742, will show underneath its virulence who
were expected to take the lead:

  “But first to C[arteret] fain you’d sing,
  Indeed he’s nearest to the king,
    Yet careless how to use him,
  Give him, I beg, no labor’d lays,
  He will but promise if you praise,
    And laugh if you abuse him.

  “Then (but there’s a vast space betwixt)
  The new-made E[arl] of B[ath] comes next,
    Stiff in his popular pride:
  His step, his gait describe the man,
  They paint him better than I can,
    Wabbling from side to side.

  “Each hour a different face he wears,
  Now in a fury, now in tears,
    Now laughing, now in sorrow,
  Now he’ll command, and now obey,
  Bellows for liberty to-day,
    And roars for power to-morrow.

  “At noon the Tories had him tight,
  With staunchest Whigs he supped at night,
    Each party thought to have won him:
  But he himself did so divide,
  Shuffled and cut from side to side,
    That now both parties shun him.

  “More changes, better times this isle
  Demands, oh! Chesterfield, Argyll,
    To bleeding Britain bring ’em;
  Unite all hearts, appease each storm,
  ’Tis yours such actions to perform,
    My pride shall be to sing ’em.”

Affairs in Holland again compelled him to seek that Court, and it is
thence that he was summoned to Ireland in 1744. “Make Chenevix an Irish
Bishop,” he had written. “We cannot,” was the reply, “but any other
condition.” “Then make me Lord-Lieutenant,” he wrote back. They took
him at his word, and Chenevix soon obtained his place.

Chesterfield had always looked forward to the post with longing. “I
would rather be called the Irish Lord-Lieutenant,” he had said, “than
go down to Posterity as the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.” It was, as
has been truly observed, the most brilliant and useful part of his
career. I shall be pardoned for quoting again from Mahon. “It was
he who first, since the revolution, had made that office a post of
active exertion. Only a few years before the Earl of Shrewsbury had
given as a reason for accepting it, that it was a place where a man
had business enough to hinder him from falling asleep, and not enough
to keep him awake. Chesterfield, on the contrary, left nothing undone
nor for others to do.... [He] was the first to introduce in Dublin
the principle of impartial justice. It is very easy, as was formerly
the case, to choose the great Protestant families as managers; to see
only through their eyes, and to hear only through their ears; it is
very easy, according to the modern fashion, to become the tool and the
champion of Roman Catholic agitators; but to hold the balance even
between both; to protect the Establishment, yet never wound religious
liberty; to repress the lawlessness, yet not chill the affection of
that turbulent but warm-hearted people; to be the arbiter, not the
slave of parties; this is the true object worthy that a statesman
should strive for, and fit only for the ablest to attain! ‘I came
determined,’ writes Chesterfield many years afterward, ‘to proscribe no
set of persons whatever; and determined to be governed by none. Had the
Papists made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have
taken good care to have quelled them again. It was said that my lenity
to the Papists had wrought no alteration, either in their religion or
political sentiments. I did not expect that it would; but surely there
was no reason of cruelty toward them.’... So able were the measures of
Chesterfield; so clearly did he impress upon the public mind that his
moderation was not weakness, nor his clemency cowardice, but that, to
quote his own words, ‘his hand should be as heavy as Cromwell’s upon
them if they once forced him to raise it.’ So well did he know how to
scare the timid, while conciliating the generous, that this alarming
period [1745] passed over with a degree of tranquillity such as Ireland
has not often displayed even in orderly and settled times. This just
and wise--wise because just--administration has not failed to reward
him with its meed of fame; his authority has, I find, been appealed to
even by those who, as I conceive, depart most widely from his maxims;
and his name, I am assured, lives in the honored remembrance of the
Irish people, as perhaps, next to Ormond, the best and worthiest in
their long Viceregal line.”

We know that it was a complete success, so far as it went. But he held
the post only for four years. He had held the highest offices, he had
attained his highest wishes; yet his membership in the Cabinet had been
made nominal rather than real, and his power was ever controlled by the
hand of the King. Nowhere, in whatever direction he might care to turn
his eyes along the political landscape, could he see anything but what
was rotten and revolting. In 1748 he retired.

We cannot call his political career an unsuccessful one. It was
probably as brilliant as it was possible for a man of his parts to
enjoy. He was a good talker and an incomparable ambassador. His action
in Holland had permanent influence on the politics of Europe. But
indeed, if he had been freed from the opposition of a profligate Court
and all that it entailed; if, as has been implied by some, he would
have been a greater man had not the death of his father driven him
into the House of Lords; if he would then have risen to be anything
greater than a second-rate Minister: this we may doubt. Yet we are not
entitled to draw an estimate of his character before we have studied
its other side.

Chesterfield did not entirely give up attendance or even speaking at
the House, but his energies henceforward were devoted to literary
rather than political matters. One further act he performed before
he left for good; he carried out three years later the reform of the
English Calendar, an account of which he gives in one of his letters,
and I cannot equal his words.[6] This was the last important public
event in his life. Next year he was attacked with deafness, which
incapacitated him of necessity from affairs. It does not seem that he
was ever sorry to leave them. Ever and anon the old political fire
breaks out, and we find him keeping an observant eye on the course
of events. But he was thoroughly despondent of the prestige and
ascendancy of England by the time of the outbreak of the Seven Years’
War. “Nation!” he had cried, “we are no longer a nation.” We find him
sympathizing with Wilkes, and to the end on the side of Pitt. But about
1765 his letters begin to bear the mark of decrepitude, and his brains
to be unable to cope with the situations that arose.

    “I see and hear these storms from shore, _suave mari magno,
    &c._ I enjoy my own security and tranquillity, together with
    better health than I have reason to expect at my age and with
    my constitution: however, I feel a gradual decay, though a
    gentle one; and I think I shall not tumble, but slide gently
    to the bottom of the hill of life. When that will be I neither
    know nor care, for I am very weary.”

And in the following August, anticipating alike the autumn of his life
and of the year, he writes:

    “I feel this beginning of the autumn, which is already very
    cold; the leaves are withered, fall apace, and seem to intimate
    that I must follow them, which I shall do without reluctance,
    being extremely weary of this silly world.”--(Letter CCCLV.)

Yet even a year later we find him giving dinner parties to the Duke of
Brunswick, and wishing that he had both the monarchs of Austria and
Prussia, that they should, “together with some of their allies, take
Lorraine and Alsace from France.” (Letter CCCLXIV.) For a few more
years he lingered on, gardening, reading, and writing, and then in
1773, almost alone, he parted with “this silly world.”


II.

I have omitted from this sketch of Lord Chesterfield’s political life
any reference to the literary side of his character. I have, however,
spoken of his friendship with Voltaire. Voltaire came to England in
the same year that Chesterfield’s father died, to obtain, among other
things, a publisher for the _Henriade_. Chesterfield and Bolingbroke
at once took him up and introduced him into high places.[7] Voltaire
never forgot him nor the services which he had rendered; and one of the
most charming lights thrown upon the end of Lord Chesterfield’s career
is in a letter from the old sage of Ferney to his friend of younger
days, now grown old as himself. Chesterfield was always a great admirer
of Voltaire’s, though by no means a blind one:

    “I strongly doubt,” he writes, “whether it is permissible for
    a man to write against the worship and belief of his country,
    even if he be fully persuaded of its error, on account of the
    terrible trouble and disorder it might cause; but I am sure
    it is in no wise allowable to attack the foundations of true
    morality, and to break unnecessary bonds which are already too
    weak to keep men in the path of duty.”

But differences upon points of morality and religion did not prevent
his having an immense regard for Voltaire’s genius.

There is yet the other transaction in which Lord Chesterfield was
engaged, and it will probably be as long remembered against him as the
letters--his ill-famed treatment of Dr. Johnson. It is too well known
how Johnson came to his door, and how Chesterfield, who could never
be impolite, received the ill-mannered Doctor. But either the Earl
objected to having the old man annoying his guests at table, or else
he was not sufficiently pressing with his money; anyhow, the Doctor
felt repelled, left off calling, and never sought another patron.
Years afterward, when he brought out his Dictionary (1755), there was
a letter prefixed to the first edition, entitled “The Blast of Doom,
proclaiming that patronage shall be no more.” Boswell solicited the
Doctor for many years to give him a copy, but he did not do so until
1781, and then gave it from memory:

    “... Seven years, my lord, have passed since I waited in your
    outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which
    time I have been pushing on my work under difficulties, of
    which it is useless to complain, and have brought it to the
    verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of
    encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not
    expect; for I never had a patron before....

    “Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a
    man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached
    ground, encumbers him with help? The notice you have been
    pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind;
    but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy
    it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known
    and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not
    to confess obligations, where no benefit has been received; or
    to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing
    that to a patron which providence has enabled me to do for
    myself.

    “Having carried on my work thus far, with so little obligation
    to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed, though
    I should conclude it, if possible, with less; for I have been
    long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted
    myself with so much exaltation, my lord, your lordship’s most
    humble and most obedient servant,

  “SAMUEL JOHNSON.”

Such a transaction is but little to the praise of Lord Chesterfield,
who would have posed as the Mæcenas of the eighteenth century. But
there the matter rests. It is another proof of what the Earl was not,
but with the slightest bend of his body might have been. He lost the
Dedication to one of the greatest achievements of the time.


III.

Let us turn to Lord Chesterfield’s son. Sainte-Beuve says of him--he
was “one of those ordinary men of the world of whom it suffices to say
there is nothing to be said.” But there is so much melancholy interest
attaching to his history that we may well try to discern some of the
features of the youth. No portrait of Philip Stanhope, so far as I
am aware, has ever been given to the public, though we know from his
father’s letters that one, if not more than one, was executed at Venice
during his stay there, so that I am unable, as yet, to surmise anything
from physical feature of form and angle. We know that his father sent
him to Westminster School, and that there he was slovenly and dirty.
Of his intellectual qualities we hear nothing. His father’s letter to
the boy, then sixteen, is subtle:

    “Since you do not care to be an Assessor of the Imperial
    Chamber, and desire an establishment in England, what do you
    think of being Greek Professor at one of our Universities? It
    is a very pretty sinecure, and requires very little knowledge
    (much less than, I hope, you have already) of that language. If
    you do not approve of this, I am at a loss to know what else to
    propose to you.”

The old earl, six months later, added as follows:

    “The end I propose by your education, and which (_if you
    please_) I shall certainly attain, is, to unite in you all the
    knowledge of a scholar, with the manners of a courtier, and to
    join what is seldom joined in any of my countrymen, Books and
    the World. They are commonly twenty years old before they have
    spoken to anybody above their schoolmaster, and the Fellows
    of their College. If they happen to have learning, it is only
    Greek and Latin; but not one word of Modern History or Modern
    Languages. Thus prepared, they go abroad, as they call it; but,
    in truth, they stay at home all that while; for, being very
    awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages,
    they go into no foreign company, at least none good, but dine
    and sup with one another at the tavern. Such example, I am sure
    you will not imitate, but carefully avoid.”

Young Stanhope went abroad with a tutor, Mr. Harte, to the chief towns,
first, of Germany, followed everywhere by letters from his father,
though, as his father says in one of them, “God knows whether to any
purpose or not.” He never escaped from the paternal care. Wherever you
are “I have Arguses with a hundred eyes,” his father told him. The
boy was affectionately fond of his father, though he did not inherit
his father’s epistolary taste. Yet we find him on corresponding terms
with Lady Chesterfield. He was inclined to be stout, a fault which
his father tells him to remedy by abstaining from Teutonic beer. He
wore long hair. “I by no means agree to your cutting off your hair.”
(Stanhope had suggested this as a remedy for headaches.) “Your own
hair is at your age such an ornament; and a wig, however well made,
such a disguise that I will upon no account whatever have you cut
off your hair.” We hear that he was already within two inches of his
father’s height. Boswell met him at Dresden, and has left us the
following picture of him:--“Mr. Stanhope’s character has been unjustly
represented as being diametrically opposed to what Lord Chesterfield
wished him to be. He has been called dull, gross, awkward, but I knew
him at Dresden when he was envoy to that Court, and though he could not
boast of the Graces, he was, in fact, a sensible, civil, well-behaved
man.” And what he was as envoy he seems to have been all his life.
Lord Chesterfield sent him to Berlin first,[8] and Turin afterward,
as there was to be found the next fittest training in Europe at that
Court. Nothing could exceed his father’s care in warning him against
such dangers as usually attend Court life. Against evils of all kind he
cautions and guards him. Yet there is this continual insistence on the
Graces. “The Graces! The Graces!” he writes, “Remember the Graces! I
would have you sacrifice to the Graces.” By no means must a man neglect
the Graces if he would pursue his object, the object of getting on.

After all this schooling he went to Paris, and seems to have made a
tolerable _début_. There must have been a strange measuring up of
qualities when father and son met. At twenty-two Lord Chesterfield
obtained for him a seat in the House, but he was never a brilliant
speaker. He, like the younger Pitt, was a parliamentary experiment; but
it was not given to Stanhope to succeed. In 1757 he goes to Hamburg.
Two years later his health broke down, and he came to England. But
feeling better again, in 1763 he obtained a post at Ratisbon, whence
he was once summoned to vote in the English Parliament. Next year he
went to Dresden as envoy, but there his constitution was ruined, and he
set off for Berlin, and afterward for France. In the spring of 1767 he
returned to Dresden, fancying himself better, but in the following year
the old symptoms returned, and he died on the 17th of October, 1768,
near Avignon. It was then only that his father discovered he was the
father of two children--by a secret marriage. And these, together with
their mother, were thrown upon Lord Chesterfield for support. It is
one of the examples of his characteristic traits that he supported and
loved all three. There is no more charming pendant to the whole series
of letters than a short one of three paragraphs which he wrote to the
two children of his illegitimate son only two years before he left them
forever.

Here my biographical notice of the three generations ends. But
the lives of father and son will ever remain full of interest and
suggestion to those who would study human character.

There are several portraits of the Earl of Chesterfield. The most
striking, and at the same time probably the most faithful which we
have, is that by Bartolozzi in the _Maty Memoirs_. It is clear, mobile,
and benevolent. The features are very large, and the eyes of that cold
meditative species which look as though they were the altar stone of
that fire of wit and quaint humor which we know he possessed. It is a
fine intellectual, if somewhat too receding, forehead, with protruding
temples and clear-cut eyebrows; the nose prominent, and the mouth
pronounced. There is a great diversity however in the portraits,
and he seems sometimes to have been unable to hide the traits of
sensuality. Yet, on the whole, it is as inscrutable as his own scheming
diplomatic soul could ever have wished for its earthly representative
in clay.


IV.

If we ask ourselves what is the moral of the Letters, and what is
their significance, we are met with a varied reply. We have here the
outpourings of a man’s soul _in penetralibus_. As such the book stands
for its time unique. Chesterfield, when he wrote these letters, was not
actuated by the criticisms of Grub Street, nor indeed any criticisms.
He never for a moment dreamt that his letters would be published, and
they are therefore bereft of that stifling self-consciousness which is
the bane of so many writers. It is this which makes so frequently a
man’s letters more living than his published works, at any rate more
real. So far, of course, Lord Chesterfield shares this distinction with
other writers. But his letters are noteworthy for more than this. They
combine with it a complete system of education, a system which was
thought out without opposition and expressed without fear. In such a
case, of course, we do not look for style; but so perfect and so equal
was the man that we are even told that these letters are not exceeded
in style by anything in the language.[9]

Manuals, of course, there have been many. In the age gone by there
had been Walsingham’s, there had been Burghley’s _Advice_, there had
been Sir Walter Raleigh’s; but from the time that Cicero wrote his
_De Officiis_ for his own child down to these, we come upon but few
of this sort. There had been Castiglione’s _Cortegiano_, and in a few
years Della Casa’s _Galateo_; there is Roger Ascham’s _Scholemaster_.
Chesterfield had found much to his taste and method in the _Moral
Reflections_ of La Rochefoucauld and the _Characters_ of La Bruyère.
In England had just appeared Locke’s _Essay on Education_, and this he
sends for his son to read.[10] In 1759 Lessing and Wieland were writing
on the same subject; and in 1762 Rousseau published _Emile_. Everywhere
education was, to use a common phrase, in the air. Chesterfield loved
his son passionately and unremittingly. He had been much in France,
and admired the French nation; and he determined that his son should
combine the good qualities of both nationalities--the ideal statesman
and the ideal polished man of society. He did not forget that on
Philip Stanhope would ever remain the brand of the bar sinister; but
we may well believe that this was only one more daring reason for the
experiment which he chose to make. He was playing for high stakes, and
he was not careless of the issue. “My only ambition,” he writes in
1754, “remaining is to be the counsellor and minister of your rising
ambition. Let me see my own youth revived in you; let me be your
mentor, and I promise you, with your parts and knowledge you shall go
far.”--(Letter CCLXXIV.)

It is seldom that we have such a continuous series of original letters
as these. From the first _badinage_ to his son, then five years old,
who was then in Holland, in which he explains what a republic is, and
how clean is Holland in comparison with London; from the times when
he explains how Poetry is made, and who the Muses are, and sends his
little son accounts of all the Greek and Roman legends; from the times
when he writes, “Let us return to our Geography that we may amuse
ourselves with maps;” and in the middle of a letter of affection,
having mentioned Cicero, starts off “apropos of him,” and gives his
little son his whole history, and that of Demosthenes after him; to
the times when the boy is able to retort on him for inconsistency in
calling Ovidius Ovid, and not calling Tacitus Tacit; through all his
explanations of what Irony is and is not; through his pedantic “by the
ways;” his definitions (_pace_ Professor Freeman) of Ancient and Modern
History; his sarcasms and his descriptions: down to the time when his
advice is about quadrille tables and ministers and kings, the series is
absolutely unbroken and of unflagging interest.

They are at the best, as he says himself, “what one man of the world
writes to another.” “I am not writing poetry,” he says, “but useful
reflections.” “Surely it is of great use to a young man before he
starts out for a country full of mazes, windings and turnings, to have
at least a good map of it by some experienced traveller.” And so the
old man gives us his map of life as he had seen it. It is exactly the
same estimate in result as Cicero gave in the _De Oratore_: “Men judge
most things under the influence of either hate, or love, or desire,
or anger, or grief, or joy, or hope, or fear, or error, or some other
passion, than by truth, or precepts, or standard of right, or justice,
or law.”

  “The proper study of mankind is man,”

and if we disapprove of the morality of Cicero and his epoch no less
than of Chesterfield’s, we must yet remember that in the one instance,
as in the other, their precepts were the purveyors of very soundest
advice. His standard is, as has been already pointed out, that of the
eighteenth century. “Be wiser than other people if you can; but do
not tell them so.” “It is an active, cheerful, seducing good breeding
which must gain you the good-will and first sentiments of the men and
affections of the women. You must carefully watch and attend to their
passions, their tastes, their little humors and weaknesses, and _aller
au devant_.” “Make love to the most impertinent beauty that you meet
with, and be gallant with all the rest.”

It would be a not uninteresting task to see how many of his moral
sentiments would stand fire at the present day. We know all the facts
of his life, and we have here his opinions on nearly every matter. His
opinions are as concise as they are outspoken. “The best of us have
had our bad sides, and it is as imprudent as it is ill-bred to exhibit
them,”[11] he says. It is this absence of ceremony which makes him so
living and real. Even in Dr. Johnson’s time the merit as well as the
demerit of this series of letters had been settled for the standard of
that day. “Take out the immorality,” said the worthy Doctor, “and it
should be put into the hands of every young gentleman.”

The training to which he subjected his son was in many ways admirable.
Rise regularly, however late o’ nights; work all the morning; take
exercise in the afternoon; and see good company in the evening. The
impressing of this advice upon his son has left us in the possession of
one of the most charming examples of Lord Chesterfield’s most playful
style.--(Letter CLXI.)

Lord Chesterfield was all for modern to the disadvantage of a classical
education. Learn all the modern history and modern languages you can,
and if at the same time you can throw in a little Latin and Greek, so
much the better for you. Roman history study as much as you will, for
of all ancient histories it is the most instructive, and furnishes
most examples of virtue, wisdom, and courage. History is to be studied
morally, he says, but not _only_ so.

When we turn to his judgment of the ancients we are considerably
startled. He seems to have preferred Voltaire’s _Henriade_ to any
epic. “Judge whether,” he writes, “I can read all Homer through _tout
de suite_. I admire his beauties; but, to tell you the truth, when he
slumbers I sleep. Virgil, I confess, is all sense, and therefore I like
him better than his model; but he is often languid, especially in his
five or six last books, during which I am obliged to take a good deal
of snuff....”

If his views on Milton should be known, he adds, he would be abused by
every tasteless pedant and every solid divine in England. His criticism
of Dante it will be best for the reader to discover.

The weightier questions and the weightiest he pushed altogether aside.
“I don’t speak of religion,” he writes. “I am not in a position to do
so--the excellent Mr. Harte will do that.” At any rate, Chesterfield
knew his own ground. Incidentally we find his position cropping
up. “The reason of every man is, or ought to be, his guide; and I
should have as much right to expect every man to be of my height and
temperament as to wish that he should reason precisely as I do.”
It was the doctrine of the French school that he had adopted, with
something of a quietism of his own. “Let them enjoy quietly their
errors,” he says somewhere, “both in taste and religion.”[12] It would
be interesting to compare in these matters the relative positions of
Chesterfield and Bolingbroke.

Of the movement headed by Wesley, as we have seen earlier in his
career, Chesterfield seems to have taken as little heed as the younger
Pliny did of the first holders of Wesley’s faith.

It is a harder and more delicate question which we are met with in
discussing Lord Chesterfield’s position with regard to morality.
Johnson’s criticism of the _Letters_, that “they taught the morals of a
courtesan and manners of a dancing master,” even though epigrammatic,
yet bears within it traces of the sting which the lexicologist felt
about the matter of the Dedication. Of the Earl’s opinions we have
seen something in former extracts and in his own life. He speaks quite
openly--“I wish to speak as one man of pleasure does to another.”
“A polite arrangement,” he says elsewhere, “becomes a gallant man.”
Anything disgraceful or impolite he will not stand.

Yet as a human Picciola does Lord Chesterfield guard the soul of his
son within its prison-house of life. He never speaks, however, to his
son _pulpitically_. It is ever as a wise counsellor: and his tendency
is always the same.

It is suggestive of much to turn aside from the _petitesses_ of these
instructions to the thoughts which were occupying the brain of the
author of _Emilius_ about the same time. From very much the same
foundations and the same materials how different is the result! In the
one we breathe the fresh air of the country, of the rustic home and
the carpenter’s shop: in the other we are stifled by the perfumes of
the court-room and suffocated by tight lacing. In the one we are never
for a moment to wear a mask: in the other we are never for a moment to
move without it. Yet, though the one is built up of social theories by
an enthusiastic dreamer, and the other is a cold, practical experiment
by a man of the world, and “an imperfect man of action, whom politics
had made a perfect moralist,” there is the same verdict of failure to
be pronounced upon them both. Voltaire said of _Emilius_ that it was
a stupid romance, but admitted that it contained fifty pages which he
would have bound in morocco. Lord Chesterfield’s was no romance, but
its pages deserve perhaps as careful treatment. “It is a rich book,”
says Sainte-Beuve; “one cannot read a page without finding some happy
observation worthy of being mentioned.” Yet, as a system of education,
it is blasted with the foul air of the charnel-house.


V.

If we look at the result we must pronounce his experiment no less a
failure. The odds were too heavy in the first instance, and a man of
less energy and stability than Lord Chesterfield would not have dared
to have played at such high stakes. He ought to have considered what
an infliction he was casting upon his son, and respected the feelings
of others rather than his own ambition. He has reaped the harvest which
he had sown. When Philip Stanhope tried to obtain an appointment at
the embassy in Brussels the Marquis de Botta made so much to do on
the ground of his illegitimacy that his claim was disallowed. When
there was a chance of his receiving an appointment at Venice, the king
objected on the same grounds. Not one word of displeasure is handed
down to us in these familiar letters, but we know that both felt it
deeply and never forgave. But even Philip Stanhope himself must have
disappointed his father. When his widow, with her two children, walked
up the hall of Chesterfield House, where the Earl sat alone in solitary
childless grandeur, it must have seemed a strange answer to the
question which he had asked Time some thirty-eight years before. He may
well have grown weary of sitting at the table at which he had staked
his all and lost.

Vivacious, sincere, plain, and liberal-minded, his memory may well pass
down to posterity as that of a great man with mean aspirations. That
ambition was not wanting in his composition is true, and it was this
which encompassed his ruin. He reminds us of the melancholy structure
of S. Petronio at Bologna, begun in emulation of the Florentine Duomo
by the Bolognese. One sees the outline of the structure which was to
have been raised, but for two centuries it has stood uncompleted, a
monument to her greatness and her shame.

Careless of the interests of those around him; careless and callous of
what was demanded of man by men; careless of speech so long as he could
create a _bon mot_ or a well-balanced phrase, Lord Chesterfield’s life
is characteristic of his time.

Chesterfield, if we may make one more comparison, is like one of those
great trees that we see upon the banks of a river, which, while drawing
its nurture half from its native soil and the stream by its side, and
half from the sky above it, has had that very soil worn away by the
current of the stream, so that the tree, by its own natural weight and
under the force of adverse winds and circumstance, has bowed itself
over toward the waves, losing its natural height and grandeur for ever.

Dead to the higher interests of humanity; dead to the deeper influences
which keep us sober and thoughtful and earnest; dead, again, to any
ideal save such as might serve his own designs:--such was the man who
deemed himself called upon, or fitted, to perform the sacred office of
Education to his darling child.




CRITICAL ESSAY.

BY C. A. SAINTE-BEUVE.[13]


Each epoch has produced its treatise intended for the formation of the
_polite man_, the man _of the world_, the _courtier_, when men only
lived for courts, and the accomplished _gentleman_. In these various
treatises on knowledge of life and politeness, if opened after a
lapse of ages, we at once see portions which are as antiquated as the
cut and fashion of our forefathers’ coats; the _model_ has evidently
changed. But looking into it carefully as a whole, if the book has been
written by a sensible man with a true knowledge of mankind, we shall
find profit in studying these models which have been placed before
preceding generations. The letters that Lord Chesterfield wrote to his
son, and which contain a whole school of _savoir vivre_ and worldly
science, are interesting in this particular, that there has been no
idea of forming a model for imitation, but they are simply intended
to bring up a pupil in the closest intimacy. They are confidential
letters, which, suddenly produced in the light of day, have betrayed
all the secrets and ingenious artifices of paternal solicitude. If,
in reading them nowadays, we are struck with the excessive importance
attached to accidental and promiscuous circumstances, with pure details
of costume, we are not less struck with the durable part, with that
which belongs to human observation in all ages; and this last part is
much more considerable than at a superficial glance would be imagined.
In applying himself to the formation of his son as a _polite man_ in
society, Lord Chesterfield has not given us a treatise on _duty_ as
Cicero has; but he has left letters which, by their mixture of justness
and lightness, by certain lightsome airs which insensibly mingle with
the serious graces, preserve the medium between the _Mémoires of the
Chevalier de Grammont_ and _Télémaque_.

Before going into detail, it will be necessary to know a little about
Lord Chesterfield, one of the most brilliant English wits of his time,
and one most closely allied to France. Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of
Chesterfield, was born in London on the 22d of September, 1694, the
same year as Voltaire. The descendant of an illustrious race, he knew
the value of birth, and wished to sustain its honor; nevertheless,
it was difficult for him not to laugh at genealogical pretensions
when carried too far. To keep himself from this folly, he had placed
amongst the portraits of his ancestors two old figures of a man and a
woman: beneath one was written, “_Adam_ de Stanhope”; and beneath the
other “_Eve_ de Stanhope.” Thus, while upholding the honor of race, he
put his veto upon chimerical vanities arising from it.

His father paid no attention whatever to his education; he was placed
under the care of his grandmother, Lady Halifax. From a very early age
he manifested a desire to excel in everything, a desire which later he
did his utmost to excite in the breast of his son, and which for good
or ill is the principle of all that is great. It appears that, in his
early youth, he was without guidance, he was deceived more than once
in the objects of his emulation, and followed some ridiculous chimera.
He confesses that at one period of inexperience he gave himself up
to wine, and other excesses, for which he was not at all inclined by
nature, but it flattered his vanity to hear himself cited as a man
of pleasure. In this way he plunged into play (which he considered a
necessary ingredient in the composition of a young man of fashion), at
first without passion, but afterwards without being able to withdraw
himself from it, and by that means compromised his fortune for years.
“Take warning by my conduct,” said he to his son, “choose your own
pleasures, and do not let others choose them for you.”

The desire to excel and to distinguish himself did not always lead him
astray, and he often applied it rightly; his first studies were the
best. Placed at the University of Cambridge, he studied all that was
there taught, civil law and philosophy; he attended the mathematical
classes of Saunderson, the blind professor, he read Greek fluently, and
sent accounts of his progress in French to his old tutor, M. Jouneau,
a French clergyman and refugee. Lord Chesterfield had, when a child,
learnt our tongue from a Norman nurse who attended him. When he visited
Paris the last time, in 1744, M. de Fontenelle having remarked a slight
Norman accent in his pronunciation, spoke of it to him, and asked him
if he had not first been taught French by a person from Normandy, which
turned out to be the case.

After two years of university life, he made his Continental tour,
according to the custom of young Englishmen. He visited Holland, Italy,
and France. He wrote from Paris to M. Jouneau on the 7th of December,
1714, as follows:

“I shall not tell you what I think of the French, because I am being
often taken for a Frenchman, and more than one of them has paid me the
highest possible compliment, by saying: ‘_Monsieur, you are quite one
of ourselves._’ I shall only tell you that I am impudent; that I talk a
great deal very loudly and with an air of authority; that I sing; that
I dance in my walk; and, finally, that I spend immense sums in powder,
feathers, white gloves, etc.”

In this extract one recognizes the mocking, satirical, and slightly
_insolent_ wit, who makes his mark for the first time at the expense of
the French; he will do justice later to our serious qualities. In his
letters to his son, he has pictured himself the first day he made his
_entrée_ into good society, still covered with the rust of Cambridge,
shamefaced, embarrassed, silent; and, finally, forcing his courage
with both hands to say to a beautiful woman near him: “Madame, don’t
you find it very warm to-day?” But Lord Chesterfield told his son that
to encourage him, and to show what it is necessary to pass through.
He makes himself an example to embolden him, and to draw the boy more
readily to him. I shall be careful not to take his word for this
anecdote. If he was for a moment embarrassed in the world, the moment
was assuredly very short, nor was he much concerned with it.

Immediately on the death of Queen Anne, Chesterfield hailed the
accession of the house of Hanover, of which he became an avowed
champion. He had at first a seat in the House of Commons, and made
his _début_ there with fair credit. But a circumstance, in appearance
frivolous, kept him, it is said, in check, and in some measure
paralyzed his eloquence. One of the members of the House, who was
distinguished by no talent of a superior order, had that of imitating
and counterfeiting to perfection the orators to whom he replied.
Chesterfield was afraid of ridicule; it was one of his weaknesses,
and he kept silence more than he otherwise would have done for fear
of giving occasion for the exercise of his colleague and opponent’s
talent. He inherited a large property on the death of his father, and
was raised to the Upper House, which was, perhaps, a better setting
for the grace, finish, and urbanity of his eloquence. He found no
comparison between the two scenes with regard to the importance of the
debates and the political influence to be acquired.

“It is surprising,” he said later of Pitt, at the time when that great
orator consented to enter the Upper House as Lord Chatham, “it is
surprising that a man in the plenitude of his power, at the very moment
when his ambition has obtained the most complete triumph, should leave
the House which procured him that power, and which alone could ensure
its maintenance, to retire into that Hospital for Incurables, the House
of Lords.”

It is not my intention here to estimate the political career of Lord
Chesterfield. Nevertheless, if I hazarded a judgment upon it as a
whole, I should say that his ambition was never wholly satisfied, and
that the brilliant distinctions with which his public life was filled,
covered, at bottom, many lost desires and the decay of many hopes.
Twice, in the two decisive circumstances of his political life, he
failed. Young, and in the first heat of ambition, he took an early
opportunity of staking his odds on the side of the heir presumptive
to the throne, who became George the Second. He was one of those who,
at the accession of that prince, counted most surely upon his favor,
and upon enjoying a share of power. But this clever man, wishing to
turn himself to the rising sun, knew not how to accomplish it with
perfect justice; he had paid court to the prince’s mistress, believing
in her destined influence, and he had neglected the legitimate wife,
the future queen, who alone had the real power. Queen Caroline never
pardoned him, and this was the first check in the political fortune of
Lord Chesterfield, then thirty-three years old, and in the full flush
of hope. He was in too great a hurry and took the wrong road. Robert
Walpole, less active, and with less apparent skill, took his measures
and made his calculations better.

Thrown with _éclat_ into the opposition, especially from 1732, the time
when he had to cease his court duties, Lord Chesterfield worked with
all his might for ten years for the downfall of Walpole, which did not
take place until 1742. But even then he inherited none of his power,
and he remained out of the new ministries. When two years afterward,
in 1744, he became one of the administration, first as ambassador to
The Hague and Viceroy of Ireland, then as Secretary of State and member
of the Cabinet (1746-1748), the honor was more nominal than real. In
a word, Lord Chesterfield, at all times a noted politician in his own
country, whether as one of the chiefs of the opposition, or as a clever
diplomatist, was never a powerful, or even a very influential, minister.

In politics he certainly possessed that far-sightedness and those
glimpses into the future which belong to very wide intelligence, but
he possessed those qualities to a much greater degree than the patient
perseverance and constant practical firmness that are so necessary
to the members of a government. It may truly be said of him, as of
Rochefoucauld, that politics served to make an accomplished moralist of
the imperfect man of action.

In 1744, when he was only fifty years of age, his political ambition,
seemed, in part, to have died out, and the indifferent state of his
health led him to choose a private life. And then the object of his
secret ideal and his real ambition we know now. Before his marriage he
had, about the year 1732, by a French lady (Madame de Bouchet) whom
he met in Holland, a natural son to whom he was tenderly attached.
He wrote to this son, in all sincerity: “From the first day of your
life, the dearest object of mine has been to make you as perfect as
the weakness of human nature will allow.” Toward the education of this
son all his wishes, all his affectionate and worldly predilections
tended. And whether Viceroy of Ireland or Secretary of State in London,
he found time to write long letters full of minute details to him, to
instruct him in small matters and to perfect him in mind and manner.

The Chesterfield, then, that we love especially to study is the man
of wit and experience, who knew all the affairs and passed through
all phases of political and public life only to find out its smallest
resources, and to tell us the last _mot_; he who from his youth was
the friend of Pope and Bolingbroke, the introducer into England of
Montesquieu and Voltaire, the correspondent of Fontenelle and Madame de
Teucin, he whom the Academy of Inscriptions placed among its members,
who united the wit of the two nations, and who, in more than one
intellectual essay, but particularly in his letters to his son, shows
himself to us as a moralist as amiable as he is consummate, and one
of the masters of life. It is the Rochefoucauld of England of whom
we speak. Montesquieu, after the publication of _L’Esprit des Lois_,
wrote to the Abbé de Guasco, who was then in England: “Tell my Lord
Chesterfield that nothing is so flattering to me as his approbation;
but that, though he is reading my work for the third time, he will
only be in a better position to point out to me what wants correcting
and rectifying in it; nothing could be more instructive to me than his
observations and his critique.” It was Chesterfield who, speaking to
Montesquieu one day of the readiness of the French for revolutions,
and their impatience at slow reforms, spoke this sentence, which is a
_résumé_ of our whole history: “You French know how to make barricades,
but you never raise barriers.”

Lord Chesterfield certainly appreciated Voltaire; he remarked, _à
propos_ of the _Siècle de Louis XIV._: “Lord Bolingbroke had taught me
how to read history; Voltaire teaches me how it should be written.”
But, at the same time, with that practical sense which rarely abandons
men of wit on the other side of the Straits, he felt the imprudences
of Voltaire, and disapproved of them. When he was old, and living in
retirement, he wrote to a French lady on the subject thus:

“Your good authors are my principal resource: Voltaire especially
charms me, with the exception of his impiety, with which he cannot help
seasoning all that he writes, and which he would do better carefully to
suppress, for one ought not to disturb established order. Let every one
think as he will, or rather as he can, but let him not communicate his
ideas if they are of a nature to trouble the peace of society.”

What he said then, in 1768, Chesterfield had already said more than
twenty years previously, writing to the younger Crebillon, a singular
correspondent and a singular confidant in point of morality. Voltaire
was under consideration, on account of his tragedy of _Mahomet_, and
the daring ideas it contains:

“What I do not pardon him for, and that which is not deserving of
pardon in him,” wrote Chesterfield to Crebillon, “is his desire to
propagate a doctrine as pernicious to domestic society as contrary to
the common religion of all countries. I strongly doubt whether it is
permissible for a man to write against the worship and belief of his
country, even if he be fully persuaded of its error, on account of the
trouble and disorder it might cause; but I am sure that it is in no
wise allowable to attack the foundations of true morality, and to break
necessary bonds which are already too weak to keep men in the path of
duty.”

Chesterfield, in speaking thus, was not mistaken as to the great
inconsistency of Voltaire. His inconsistency, in a few words, was this:
Voltaire, who looked upon men as fools or children, and who could never
laugh at them enough, at the same time put loaded firearms into their
hands, without troubling himself as to the use they would put them to.

Lord Chesterfield himself, in the eyes of the Puritans of his country,
has been accused, I should state here, of a breach of morality in the
letters addressed to his son. The strict Johnson, who was not impartial
on the subject, and who thought he had cause to complain against
Chesterfield, said, when the letters were published, that “they taught
the morals of a courtesan, and the manners of a dancing master.”

Such a judgment is supremely unjust, and if Chesterfield, in particular
instances, insists upon graces of manner at any price, it is because he
has already provided for the more solid parts of education, and because
his pupil is not in the least danger of sinning on the side which makes
man _respectable_, but rather on that which renders him _agreeable_.
Although more than one passage in these letters may seem very strange,
coming from a father to a son, the whole is animated with a true spirit
of tenderness and wisdom. If Horace had had a son, I imagine he would
not have written to him very differently.

The letters begin with the A B C of education and instruction.
Chesterfield teaches his son in French the rudiments of mythology and
history. I do not regret the publication of these first letters. He
lets slip some very excellent advice in those early pages. The little
Stanhope is no more than eight years old when his father suits a
little rhetoric to his juvenile understanding, and tries to show him
how to use good language, and to express himself well. He especially
recommends to him _attention_ in all that he does, and he gives the
word its full value. “It is attention alone,” he says, “which fixes
objects in the memory. There is no surer mark of a mean and meagre
intellect in the world than inattention. All that is worth the trouble
of doing at all deserves to be done well, and nothing can be well
done without attention.” This precept he incessantly repeats, and
varies the application of it as his pupil grows, and is in a condition
to comprehend it to its fullest extent. Whether pleasure or study,
everything one does must be done well, done entirely and at its proper
time, without allowing any distraction to intervene. “When you read
Horace pay attention to the accuracy of his thoughts, to the elegance
of his diction, and to the beauty of his poetry, and do not think of
the ‘_De Homine et Cive_’ of Puffendorf; and when you read Puffendorf
do not think of Madame de St. Germain; nor of Puffendorf when you speak
of Madame de St. Germain.” But this strong and easy subjugation of
the order of thought to the will only belongs to great or very good
intellects. M. Royer-Collard used to say that “what was most wanting in
our day was _respect_ in the moral disposition, and _attention_ in the
intellectual.” Lord Chesterfield, in a less grave manner, might have
said the same thing. He was not long in finding out what was wanting in
this child whom he wished to bring up; whose bringing up was, indeed,
the end and aim of his life. “On sounding your character to its very
depths,” he said to him, “I have not, thank God, discovered any vice
of heart or weakness of head so far; but I have discovered idleness,
inattention, and indifference, defects which are only pardonable in
the aged, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits give
way, have a sort of right to that kind of tranquillity. But a young man
ought to be ambitious to shine and excel.” And it is precisely this
sacred fire, this lightning, that makes the Achilles, the Alexanders,
and the Cæsars _to be the first in every undertaking_, this motto
of noble hearts and of eminent men of all kinds, that nature had
primarily neglected to place in the honest but thoroughly mediocre
soul of the younger Stanhope: “You appear to want,” said his father,
“that _vivida vis animi_ which excites the majority of young men to
please, to strive, and to outdo others.” “When I was your age,” he
again says, “I should have been ashamed for another to know his lesson
better, or to have been before me in a game, and I should have had no
rest till I had regained the advantage.” All this little course of
education by letters offers a sort of continuous dramatic interest; we
follow the efforts of a fine distinguished, energetic nature as Lord
Chesterfield’s was, engaged in a contest with a disposition honest but
indolent, with an easy and dilatory temperament, from which it would,
at any expense, form a masterpiece accomplished, amiable and original,
and with which it only succeeded in making a sort of estimable copy.
What sustains and almost touches the reader in this strife, where so
much art is used, and where the inevitable counsel is the same beneath
all metamorphoses, is the true fatherly affection which animates and
inspires the delicate and excellent master, as patient as he is full of
vigor, lavish in resources and skill, never discouraged, untiring in
sowing elegances and graces on this infantile soil. Not that this son,
the object of so much culture and zeal, was in any way unworthy of his
father. It has been pretended that there could be no one duller or more
sullen than he was, and Johnson is quoted in support of the statement.
There are caricatures which surpass the truth. It appears from the
best authorities, that Mr. Stanhope, without being a model of grace,
had the air of a man who had been well brought up, and was polite and
agreeable. But do you not think that that is the most grievous part of
all? It would have been better worth while, almost, to have totally
failed, and to have only succeeded in making an original in the inverse
sense, rather than with so much care and expense to have produced
nothing more than an ordinary and insignificant man of the world, one
of those about whom it suffices to say, there is nothing to be said of
them; he had cause to be truly grieved and pity himself for his work if
he were not a father.

Lord Chesterfield had early thought of France to polish his son, and
to give him that courtesy which cannot be acquired late in life. In
private letters written to a lady at Paris, whom I believe to be Madame
de Monconseil,[14] we see that he had thought of sending him to France
from his childhood.

“I have a boy,” he wrote to this friend, “who is now thirteen years
old; I freely confess to you that he is not legitimate; but his mother
was well born and was kinder to me than I deserved. As to the boy,
perhaps it is partiality, but I think him amiable; he has a pretty
face; he has much sprightliness, and I think intelligence, for his age.
He speaks French perfectly; he knows a good deal of Latin and Greek,
and he has ancient and modern history at his fingers’ ends. He is at
school at present, but as they never dream of forming the manners of
young people, and they are almost all foolish, awkward, and unpolished,
in short such as you see them when they come to Paris at the age of
twenty or twenty-one, I do not wish my boy to remain here to acquire
such bad habits; for this reason, when he is fourteen I think of
sending him to Paris. As I love the child dearly, and have set myself
to make something good of him, as I believe he has the stuff in him,
my idea is to unite in him what has never been found in one person
before--I mean the best qualities of the two nations.”

And he enters into the details of his plan, and the means he thinks
of using: a learned Englishman every morning, a French teacher after
dinner, but above all the help of the fashionable world and good
society. The war which broke out between France and England postponed
this plan, and the young man did not make his _début_ in Paris until
1751, when he was nineteen years old, and had finished his tour through
Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.

Everything has been arranged by the most attentive of fathers for his
success and well-being upon this novel scene. The young man is placed
at the Academy with M. de la Guérinière; the morning he devotes to
study, and the rest of the time is to be consecrated to the world.
“Pleasure is now the last branch of your education,” this indulgent
father writes; “it will soften and polish your manners; it will incite
you to seek and finally to acquire _graces_.” Upon this last point he
is exacting, and shows no quarter. _Graces_, he returns continually to
them, for without them all effort is vain. “If they are not natural to
you, cultivate them,” he cries. He indeed speaks confidently; as if to
cultivate graces, it is not necessary to have them already!

Three ladies, friends of his father, are especially charged to
watch over and guide the young man at his _début_; they are his
_governantes_: Madame de Monconseil, Lady Hervey, and Madame de
Bocage. But these introducers appear essential for the first time
only; the young man must afterward depend upon himself, and choose
some charming and more familiar guide. Upon this delicate subject of
women, Lord Chesterfield breaks the ice: “I shall not talk to you on
this subject like a theologian, or a moralist, or a father,” he says;
“I set aside my age, and only take yours into consideration. I wish to
speak to you as one man of pleasure would to another if he has taste
and spirit.” And he expresses himself in consequence, stimulating the
young man as much as possible toward _polite arrangements_ and delicate
pleasures, to draw him from common and coarse habits. His principle is
that “a polite arrangement becomes a gallant man.” All his morality on
this point is summed up in a line of Voltaire:

    “Il n’est jamais de mal en bonne compagnie.”

It is at these sentences more especially that the modesty of the grave
Johnson is put to the blush; ours is content to smile at them.

The serious and the frivolous are perpetually mingling in these
letters. Marcel, the dancing master, is very often recommended,
Montesquieu no less. The Abbé de Guasco, a sort of toady to
Montesquieu, is a useful personage for introductions. “Between you
and me,” writes Chesterfield, “he has more knowledge than genius; but
_a clever man knows how to make use of everything_, and every man
is good for something. As to the Président of Montesquieu, he is in
all respects a precious acquaintance: _He has genius, with the most
extensive reading in the world. Drink of his fountain as much as
possible._”

Of authors, those whom Chesterfield particularly recommends at this
time, and those whose names occur most frequently in his counsels,
are La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère. “If you read some of La
Rochefoucauld’s maxims in the morning, consider them, examine them
well, and compare them with the originals you meet in the evening. Read
La Bruyère in the morning, and see in the evening if his portraits
are correct.” But these guides, excellent as they are, have no other
use by themselves than that of a map. Without personal observation
and experience, they would be useless, and would even be conducive
to error, as a map might be if one thought to get from it a complete
knowledge of towns and provinces. Better read one man than ten books.
“The world is a country that no one has ever known by means of
descriptions; each of us must traverse it in person to be thoroughly
initiated into its ways.”

Here are some precepts or remarks which are worthy of those masters of
human morality:

“The most essential of all knowledge, I mean the knowledge of the
world, is never acquired without great attention, and I know a great
many aged persons who, after having had an extensive acquaintance, are
still mere children in the knowledge of the world.”

“Human nature is the same all over the world; but its operations are
so varied by education and custom that we ought to see it in all its
aspects to get an intimate knowledge of it.”

“Almost all men are born with every passion to some extent, but there
is hardly a man who has not a dominant passion to which the others
are subordinate. Discover this governing passion in every individual;
search into the recesses of his heart, and observe the different
effects of the same passion in different people. And when you have
found the master passion of a man, remember never to trust to him where
that passion is concerned.”

“If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and affection of
certain people, men or women, try to discover their most striking
merit, if they have one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has
his own, then do justice to the one, and _a little more than justice to
the other_.”

“Women, in general, have only one object, which is their beauty, upon
which subject hardly any flattery can be too gross to please them.”

“The flattery which is most pleasing to really beautiful or decidedly
ugly women, is that which is addressed to their intellect.”

On the subject of women, again, if he seems disdainful now and then,
he makes reparation elsewhere; and, above all, whatever he thinks of
them, he never allows his son to slander them too much. “You appear to
think that from the days of _Eve_ to the present time they have done
much harm: as regards _that lady_ I agree with you; but from her time
history teaches you that men have done more harm in the world than
women; and to speak truly, I would warn you not to trust either sex
more than is absolutely necessary. But what I particularly advise you
is this: never to attack whole bodies, whatever they may be.”

“Individuals occasionally forgive, but bodies and societies never do.”

In general, Chesterfield counsels his son to be circumspect and to
preserve a sort of prudent neutrality, even in the case of the knaves
and fools with which the world abounds. “After their friendship there
is nothing more dangerous than to have them for enemies.” It is not the
morality of Cato nor of Zeno, but that of Alcibiades, of Aristippus,
or Atticus.

Upon religion he shall speak, in reply to some trenchant opinion that
his son had expressed: “The reason of every man is and ought to be his
guide; and I shall have as much right to expect every man to be of my
height and temperament, as to wish that he should reason precisely as I
do.”

In everything he is of the opinion that the good and the best should
be known and loved, but that it is not necessary to make one’s self a
champion for or against everything. One must know even in literature
how to tolerate the weaknesses of others: “Let them enjoy quietly their
errors both in taste and religion.” Oh! how far from such wisdom is the
bitter trade of criticism, as we do it!

He does not, however, advise lying; he is precise in this particular.
His precept always runs thus: do not tell all, but never tell a lie. “I
have always observed,” he frequently repeats, “that the greatest fools
are the greatest liars. For my part, I judge of the truth of a man by
the extent of his intellect.”

We see how really he mixes the useful and the agreeable. He is
perpetually demanding from the intellect something resolute and subtle,
sweetness in the manner, energy at bottom.

Lord Chesterfield thoroughly appreciated the serious state of France
and the dread events that the eighteenth century brought to light.
According to him, Duclos, in his _Reflections_, is right when he says
that “_a germ of reason is beginning to appear in France_.” “What I can
confidently predict,” adds Chesterfield, “is that before the end of
this century the trades of king and priest will have lost half their
power.”

Our revolution has been clearly predicted by him since 1750.

He warned his son from the beginning against the idea that the French
are entirely frivolous. “The cold inhabitants of the north look upon
the French as a frivolous people who sing and whistle and dance
perpetually; this is very far from being the truth, though the army
of _fops_ seems to justify it. But these _fops_, ripened by age and
experience, often turn into very able men.” The ideal, according to
him, would be to unite the merits of the two nations; but in this
mixture he still seems to lean toward France: “I have said many times,
and I really think, that a Frenchman who joins to a good foundation
of virtue, learning, and good sense, the manners and politeness of
his country, has attained the perfection of human nature.” He unites
sufficiently well in himself the advantages of the two nations, with
one characteristic which belongs exclusively to his race--there is
imagination even in his wit. Hamilton himself has this distinctive
characteristic, and introduces it into French wit. Bacon, the great
moralist, is almost a poet by expression. One cannot say so much of
Lord Chesterfield; nevertheless, he has more imagination in his sallies
and in the expression of his wit than one meets with in Saint Evremond
and our acute moralists in general. He resembles his friend Montesquieu
in this respect.

If in the letters to his son we can, without being severe, lay hold
of some cases of slightly damaged morality, we should have to point
out, by way of compensation, some very serious and really admirable
passages, where he speaks of the Cardinal de Retz, of Mazarin, of
Bolingbroke, of Marlborough, and of many others. It is a rich book. One
cannot read a page without finding some happy observation worthy of
being remembered.

Lord Chesterfield intended this beloved son for a diplomatic life;
he at first found some difficulties in the way on account of his
illegitimacy. To cut short these objections, he sent his son to
Parliament; it was the surest method of conquering the scruples of the
court. Mr. Stanhope, in his maiden speech, hesitated a moment, and was
obliged to have recourse to notes. He did not make a second attempt at
speaking in public. It appears that he succeeded better in diplomacy,
in those second-rate places where solid merit is sufficient. He filled
the post of ambassador extraordinary to the court of Dresden. But his
health, always delicate, failed before he was old, and his father
had the misfortune to see him die before him when he was scarcely
thirty-six years old (1768). Lord Chesterfield at that time lived
entirely retired from the world, on account of his infirmities, the
most painful of which was complete deafness. Montesquieu, whose sight
failed, said to him once, “_I know how to be blind._” But he was not
able to say as much; he did not know how to be deaf. He wrote of it to
his friends, even to those in France, thus: “The exchange of letters,”
he remarked, “is the conversation of deaf people, and the only link
which connects them with society.” He found his latest consolations
in his pretty country-house at Blackheath, which he had called by the
French name of Babiole. He employed his time there in gardening and
cultivating his melons and pineapples; he amused himself by vegetating
_in company with them_.

“I have vegetated here all this year,” he wrote to a French friend
(September, 1753), “without pleasures and without troubles; my age and
deafness prevented the first; my philosophy, or rather my temperament
(for one often confounds them), guaranteed me against the last. I
always get as much as I can of the quiet pleasures of gardening,
walking, and reading, and in the meantime _I await death without
desiring or fearing it_.”

He never undertook long works, not feeling himself sufficiently strong,
but he sometimes sent agreeable essays to a periodical publication,
_The World_. These essays are quite worthy of his reputation for skill
and urbanity. Nevertheless, nothing approaches the work--which was no
work to him--of those letters, which he never imagined any one would
read, and which are yet the foundation of his literary success.

His old age, which was an early one, lasted a long time. His wit gave
a hundred turns to this sad theme. Speaking of himself and one of his
friends, Lord Tyrawley, equally old and infirm: “Tyrawley and I,” he
said, “have been dead two years, but we do not wish it to be known.”

Voltaire, who under the pretence of being always dying, had preserved
his youth much better, wrote to him on the 24th of October, 1771, this
pretty letter, signed “_Le vieux malade de Ferney_”:

“Enjoy an honorable and happy old age, after having passed through
the trials of life. Enjoy your wit and preserve the health of your
body. Of the five senses with which we are provided, you have only one
enfeebled, and Lord Huntingdon assures me that you have a good stomach,
which is worth a pair of ears. It will be perhaps my place to decide
which is the most sorrowful, to be deaf or blind, or have no digestion.
I can judge of all these three conditions with a knowledge of the
cause; but it is a long time since I ventured to decide upon trifles,
least of all upon things so important. I confine myself to the belief
that, if you have sun in the beautiful house that you have built, you
will spend some tolerable moments; that is all we can hope for at our
age. Cicero wrote a beautiful treatise upon old age, but he did not
verify his words by deeds; his last years were very unhappy. You have
lived longer and more happily than he did. You have had to do neither
with perpetual dictators nor with triumvirs. Your lot has been, and
still is, one of the most desirable in that great lottery where good
tickets are so scarce, and where the Great Prize of continual happiness
has never been gained by any one. Your philosophy has never been upset
by chimeras which have sometimes perplexed tolerably good brains. _You
have never been in any sense a charlatan, nor the dupe of charlatans_,
and that I reckon as a rare merit, which adds something to the shadow
of happiness that we are allowed to taste of in this short life.”

Lord Chesterfield died on the 24th of March, 1773. In pointing out his
charming course of worldly education, we have not thought it out of
place even in a Democracy,[15] to take lessons of _savoir vivre_ and
politeness, and to receive them from a man whose name is so closely
connected with those of Montesquieu and Voltaire, who, more than any
other of his countrymen in his own time, showed singular fondness
for our nation; who delighted, more than was right, perhaps, in our
amiable qualities; who appreciated our solid virtues, and of whom it
might be said, as his greatest praise, that he was a French wit, if he
had not introduced into the _verve_ and vivacity of his sallies that
inexplicable something of imagination and color that bears the impress
of his race.




LORD CHESTERFIELD’S LETTERS, SENTENCES, AND MAXIMS.


TRAVEL IN HOLLAND.--On me dit, Monsieur! que vous vous disposez à
voyager, et que vous débutez par la Hollande. De sorte j’ai crû de mon
devoir, de vous souhaiter un bon voyage, et des vents favorables. Vous
aurez la bonté, j’espère, de me faire part de votre arrivée à la Haye;
et si après cela, dans le cours de vos voyages, vous faites quelques
remarques curieuses, vous voudrez bien me les communiquer.

La Hollande, où vous allez, est de beaucoup la plus belle, et la
plus riche des Sept Provinces-Unies, qui, toutes ensemble, forment
la République. Les autres sont celles de Gueldres, Zélande, Frise,
Utrecht, Groningue, et Over-Yssel. Les Sept Provinces composent, ce
qu’on appelle les Etats Généraux des Provinces-Unies, et font une
République très-puissante, et très-considérable.[16]

_Translation._--I am informed, sir, that you are about to travel, and
that you will start with Holland. Therefore I have thought it my duty
to wish you a pleasant journey and favorable winds. You will, I am
sure, be so good as to acquaint me with your arrival at The Hague; and
afterward, if in your travels you should observe anything curious, will
you let me know?

Holland, where you are going, is by far the finest and richest of the
seven united provinces, which together form the Republic. The other
provinces are Guelderland, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Groningen, and
Overyssel; these seven provinces form what is called the States-General
of the United Provinces, etc.[17]

TRUE DECENCY.--One of the most important points of life is decency;
which is to do what is proper, and where it is proper; for many
things are proper at one time, and in one place, that are extremely
improper in another; for example, it is very proper and decent that
you should play some part of the day; but you must feel that it would
be very improper and indecent if you were to fly your kite, or play at
nine-pins while you are with Mr. Maittaire.[18] It is very proper and
decent to dance well; but then you must dance only at balls and places
of entertainment; for you would be reckoned a fool if you were to dance
at church or at a funeral. I hope, by these examples, you understand
the meaning of the word _decency_, which in French is _bienséance_;
in Latin, _decorum_; and in Greek, πρέπον. Cicero says of
it, _Sic hoc decorum quod elucet in vitâ, movet approbationem earum
quibuscum vivatur, ordine et constantiâ, et moderatione dictorum omnium
atque factorum_: by which you see how necessary decency is to gain
the approbation of mankind. And, as I am sure you desire to gain Mr.
Maittaire’s approbation, without which you will never have mine, I
dare say you will mind and give attention to whatever he says to you,
and behave yourself seriously and decently while you are with him;
afterward play, run, and jump as much as ever you please. [_July 24,
1739._]

THE ART OF SPEAKING.--You cannot but be convinced that a man who speaks
and writes with elegance and grace; who makes choice of good words,
and adorns and embellishes the subject upon which he either speaks or
writes, will persuade better, and succeed more easily in obtaining what
he wishes, than a man who does not explain himself clearly; speaks
his language ill; or makes use of low and vulgar expressions; and who
has neither grace nor elegance in anything that he says. Now it is by
rhetoric that the art of speaking eloquently is taught; and, though I
cannot think of grounding you in it as yet, I would wish, however, to
give you an idea of it suitable to your age.[19]

The first thing you should attend to is, to speak whatever language
you do speak, in its greatest purity, and according to the rules of
grammar; for we must never offend against grammar, nor make use of
words which are not really words. This is not all; for not to speak
ill, is not sufficient; we must speak well; and the best method of
attaining to that, is to read the best authors with attention; and to
observe how people of fashion speak, and those who express themselves
best; for shopkeepers, common people, footmen, and maid-servants all
speak ill. [_Bath, Oct. 17, 1739._]

ORATORY.--The business of oratory is to persuade people; and you easily
feel that to please people is a great step toward persuading them. You
must, then, consequently, be sensible how advantageous it is for a
man, who speaks in public, whether it be in Parliament, in the pulpit,
or at the bar (that is, in the courts of law), to please his hearers so
much as to gain their attention: which he can never do without the help
of oratory. It is not enough to speak the language he speaks in its
utmost purity, and according to the rules of grammar; but he must speak
it elegantly; that is, he must choose the best and most expressive
words, and put them in the best order. He should likewise adorn what he
says by proper metaphors, similes, and other figures of rhetoric; and
he should enliven it, if he can, by quick and sprightly turns of wit.
[_November, 1739._]


THE FOLLY OF IGNORANCE.--An ignorant man is insignificant and
contemptible; nobody cares for his company, and he can just be said to
live, and that is all. There is a very pretty French epigram upon the
death of such an ignorant, insignificant fellow, the sting of which is,
that all that can be said of him is, that he was once alive, and that
he is now dead. This is the epigram, which you may get by heart:

  “Colas est mort de maladie,
    Tu veux que j’en pleure le sort,
  Que diable veux-tu que j’en dis?
    Colas vivoit. Colas est mort.”

Take care not to deserve the name of Colas,[20] which I shall certainly
give you, if you do not learn well. [_No date._]


_Philippus Chesterfield parvulo suo Philippo Stanhope_, S. P. D.

PERGRATA mihi fuit epistola tua, quam nuper accepi, eleganter enim
scripta erat, et polliceris te summam operam daturum, ut veras laudes
meritò adipisci possis. Sed ut planè dicam; valde suspicor te, in ea
scribenda, optimum et eruditissimum adjutorem habuisse; quo duce et
auspice, nec elegantia, nec doctrina, nec quicquid prorsus est dignum
sapiente bonoque, unquam tibi deesse poterit. Illum ergo ut quam
diligenter colas, te etiam atque etiam rogo; et quo magis eum omni
officio, amore, et obsequio persequeris, eo magis te me studiosum, et
observantem existimabo.[21]


A STUDY IN VERSE.--To use your ear a little to English verse, and to
make you attend to the sense, too, I have transposed the words of the
following lines; which I would have you put in their proper order, and
send me in your next:

  “Life consider cheat a when ’tis all I
  Hope the fool’d deceit men yet with favor
  Repay will to-morrow trust on think and
  Falser former day to-morrow’s than the
  Worse lies blest be shall when and we says it
  Hope new some possess’d cuts off with we what.”

[This is curious, and truly no bad way of teaching a child the
structure of verse. The citation, a fine one, is from Dryden:

  “When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat,
  Yet fool’d with hope men favor the deceit.”

The reader may puzzle out the rest.]


VIRTUE DISCOURAGED.--If six hundred citizens of Athens gave in the
name of any one Athenian, written upon an oyster-shell (from whence
it is called ostracism), that man was banished Athens for ten years.
On one hand, it is certain, that a free people cannot be too careful
or jealous of their liberty; and it is certain, too, that the love
and applause of mankind will always attend a man of eminent and
distinguished virtue; and, consequently, they are more likely to give
up their liberties to such-a-one than to another of less merit. But
then, on the other hand, it seems extraordinary to discourage virtue
upon any account; since it is only by virtue that any society can
flourish, and be considerable. There are many more arguments, on each
side of this question, which will naturally occur to you; and when you
have considered them well, I desire you will write me your opinion,
whether the ostracism was a right or a wrong thing, and your reasons
for being of that opinion. Let nobody help you, and give me exactly
your own sentiments and your own reasons, whatever they are. [_October,
1740._]


AMBITION.--Everybody has ambition of some kind or other, and is
vexed when that ambition is disappointed; the difference is, that
the ambition of silly people is a silly and mistaken ambition; and
the ambition of people of sense is a right and commendable one. For
instance, the ambition of a silly boy, of your age, would be to have
fine clothes, and money to throw away in idle follies; which, you
plainly see, would be no proofs of merit in him, but only of folly in
his parents, in dressing him out like a jackanapes, and giving him
money to play the fool with. Whereas a boy of good sense places his
ambition in excelling other boys of his own age, and even older, in
virtue and knowledge. His glory is in being known always to speak the
truth, in showing good nature and compassion, in learning quicker,
and applying himself more than other boys. These are real proofs of
merit in him, and consequently proper objects of ambition; and will
acquire him a solid reputation and character. This holds true in men
as well as in boys; the ambition of a silly fellow will be to have a
fine equipage, a fine house, and fine clothes; things which anybody,
that has as much money, may have as well as he; _for they are all
to be bought_; but the ambition of a man of sense and honor is to
be distinguished by a character and reputation of knowledge, truth,
and virtue--things which are not to be bought, and that can only be
acquired by a good head and a good heart. [_Not dated._]


HUMANITY.--It is certain that humanity is the particular
_characteristic_ of a great mind; little, vicious minds are full of
anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the _exalted_ pleasure
of forgiving their enemies, and of bestowing marks of favor and
generosity upon those of whom they have gotten the better. Adieu![22]


NOVELS AND ROMANCES.--A novel is a kind of abbreviation of a romance;
for a romance generally consists of twelve volumes, all filled with
insipid love nonsense, and most incredible adventures. The subject of
a romance is sometimes a story entirely fictitious, that is to say,
quite invented; at other times a true story, but generally so changed
and altered that one cannot know it. For example: in “Grand Cyrus,”
“Clelia,” and “Cleopatra,” three celebrated romances, there is some
true history; but so blended with falsities and silly love adventures,
that they confuse and corrupt the mind, instead of forming and
instructing it. The greatest heroes of antiquity are there represented
in woods and forests, whining insipid love tales to their inhuman fair
one; who answers them in the same style. In short, the reading of
romances is a most frivolous occupation, and time merely thrown away.
[The little boy was then reading the historical novel of “Don Carlos,”
by the Abbé de St. Real. (_Not dated._)]


VIRTUE.--Virtue is a subject that deserves your and every man’s
attention; and suppose I were to bid you make some verses, or give
me your thoughts in prose, upon the subject of virtue, how would you
go about it? Why, you would first consider what virtue is, and then
what are the effects and marks of it, both with regard to others and
one’s self. You would find, then, that virtue consists in doing good,
and in speaking truth; and that the effects of it are advantageous to
all mankind, and to one’s self in particular. Virtue makes us pity
and relieve the misfortunes of mankind; it makes us promote justice
and good order in society; and, in general, contributes to whatever
tends to the real good of mankind. To ourselves it gives an inward
comfort and satisfaction which nothing else can do, and which nothing
can rob us of. All other advantages depend upon others, as much as
upon ourselves. Riches, power, and greatness may be taken away from us
by the violence and injustice of others or inevitable accidents, but
virtue depends only on ourselves and nobody can take it away. [_Headed
only Sunday._]


THE REWARD OF VIRTUE.--If a virtuous man be ever so poor or unfortunate
in the world, still his virtue is his own reward and will comfort him
under his afflictions. The quiet and satisfaction of his conscience
make him cheerful by day and sleep sound of nights; he can be alone
with pleasure and is not afraid of his own thoughts. Besides this, he
is esteemed and respected; for even the most wicked people themselves
cannot help admiring and respecting virtue in others. A poet says:

  “Ipsa quidem virtus, sibimet pulcherrima merces.”[23]


POLITENESS A NECESSITY.--Know, then, that as learning, honor, and
virtue are absolutely necessary to gain you the esteem and admiration
of mankind; politeness and good breeding are equally necessary, to
make you welcome and agreeable in conversation and common life. Great
talents, such as honor, virtue, learning, and parts, are above the
generality of the world; who neither possess them themselves, nor judge
of them rightly in others; but all people are judges of the lesser
talents, such as civility, affability, and an obliging, agreeable
address and manner; because they feel the good effects of them, as
making society easy and pleasing.


GOOD BREEDING AND GOOD SENSE.--Good sense must, in many cases,
determine good breeding; because the same thing that would be civil
at one time, and to one person, may be quite otherwise at another
time, and to another person; but there are some general rules of good
breeding, that hold always true, and in all cases. [_About February,
1741._]


RUDENESS AND CIVILITY.--I dare say I need not tell you how rude it
is, to take the best place in a room, or to seize immediately upon
what you like at table, without offering first to help others; as
if you consider nobody but yourself. On the contrary, you should
always endeavor to procure all the conveniences you can to the people
you are with. Besides being civil, which is absolutely necessary,
the perfection of good breeding is, to be civil with ease, and in a
gentlemanlike manner. For this, you should observe the French people;
who excel in it, and whose politeness seems as easy and natural as any
other part of their conversation. Whereas the English are often awkward
in their civilities, and, when they mean to be civil, are too much
ashamed to get it out.


MAUVAISE HONTE.--Pray, do you remember never to be ashamed of doing
what is right; you would have a great deal of reason to be ashamed,
if you were not civil; but what reason can you have to be ashamed of
being civil? And why not say a civil and an obliging thing, as easily
and as naturally, as you would ask what o’clock it is? This kind of
bashfulness, which is justly called, by the French, _mauvaise honte_,
is the distinguishing character of an English booby; who is frightened
out of his wits when people of fashion speak to him; and when he is to
answer them, blushes, stammers, can hardly get out what he would say,
and becomes really ridiculous, from a groundless fear of being laughed
at; whereas a well bred man would speak to all the kings in the world
with as little concern and as much ease as he would speak to you.


YOUTHFUL EMULATION.--This is the last letter I shall write to you
as to a little boy; for, to-morrow, if I am not mistaken, you will
attain your ninth year; so that for the future I shall treat you as a
_youth_. You must now commence a different course of life, a different
course of studies. No more levity; childish toys and playthings must
be thrown aside, and your mind directed to serious objects. What was
not unbecoming of a child would be disgraceful to a youth. Wherefore,
endeavor, with all your might, to show a suitable change; and, by
learning, good manners, politeness, and other accomplishments, to
surpass those youths of your own age, whom hitherto you have surpassed
when boys.[24] May the Almighty preserve you and bestow on you his
choicest blessings.


TRUE RESPECT.--The strictest and most scrupulous honor and virtue can
alone make you esteemed and valued by mankind; [remember] that parts
and learning can alone make you admired and celebrated by them; but
that the possession of lesser talents is most absolutely necessary,
toward making you liked, beloved, and sought after in private life. Of
these lesser talents, good breeding is the principal and most necessary
one, not only as it is very important itself; but as it adds great
lustre to the more solid advantages both of the heart and the mind.


MANNER.--An easy manner and carriage must be wholly free from those
odd tricks, ill habits, and awkwardnesses, which even very worthy and
sensible people have in their behavior. [_May, 1741._]


MANNER--ABSENCE--AWKWARDNESS--ATTENTION.--However trifling a genteel
manner may sound, it is of very great consequence towards pleasing in
private life, especially the women; which (_sic_), one time or other,
you will think worth pleasing; and I have known many a man, from his
awkwardness, give people such a dislike of him at first, that all his
merit could not get the better of it afterwards. Whereas a genteel
manner prepossesses people in your favor, bends them towards you and
makes them wish to like you. Awkwardness can proceed but from two
causes: either from not having kept good company, or from not having
attended to it. As for your keeping good company, I will take care of
that; do you take care to observe their ways and manners, and to form
your own upon them. Attention is absolutely necessary for this, as,
indeed, it is for everything else; and a man without attention is not
fit to live in the world. When an awkward fellow first comes into a
room it is highly probable that his sword gets between his legs, and
throws him down, or makes him stumble at least; when he has recovered
this accident, he goes and places himself in the very place of the
whole room where he should not; there he soon lets his hat fall down,
and, in taking it up again, throws down his cane; in recovering his
cane, his hat falls a second time; so that he is a quarter of an hour
before he is in order again. If he drinks tea or coffee, he certainly
scalds his mouth, and lets either the cup or the saucer fall, and
spills the tea or coffee in his breeches. At dinner his awkwardness
distinguishes itself particularly, as he has more to do; there he
holds his knife, fork, and spoon differently from other people; eats
with his knife to the great danger of his mouth, picks his teeth with
his fork, and puts his spoon, which has been in his throat twenty
times, into the dishes again. If he is to carve, he can never hit the
joint; but, in his vain efforts to cut through the bone, scatters the
sauce in everybody’s face. He generally daubs himself with soup and
grease, though his napkin is commonly stuck through a buttonhole, and
tickles his chin. When he drinks, he infallibly coughs in his glass
and besprinkles the company. Besides all this, he has strange tricks
and gestures; such as snuffing up his nose, making faces, putting
his fingers in his nose, or blowing it and looking afterward in his
handkerchief, so as to make the company sick. His hands are troublesome
to him when he has not something in them, and he does not know where to
put them; but they are in perpetual motion between his bosom and his
breeches; he does not wear his clothes, and, in short, does nothing
like other people. All this, I own, is not in any degree criminal; but
it is highly disagreeable and ridiculous in company, and ought most
carefully to be avoided by whoever desires to please.

From this account of what you should not do, you may easily judge what
you should do; and a due attention to the manners of people of fashion,
and who have seen the world, will make it habitual and familiar to you.

There is, likewise, an awkwardness of expression and words, most
carefully to be avoided; such as false English, bad pronunciation, old
sayings, and common proverbs; which are so many proofs of having kept
bad and low company. For example: if, instead of saying that tastes
are different, and that every man has his own peculiar one, you should
let off a proverb, and say, “What is one man’s meat is another man’s
poison”; or else, “Every one as they like, as the good man said when he
kissed his cow”; everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept
company with anybody above footmen and housemaids.

Attention will do all this; and without attention nothing is to be
done; want of attention, which is really want of thought, is either
folly or madness. You should not only have attention to everything, but
a quickness of attention, so as to observe, at once, all the people
in the room; their motions, their looks, and their words; and yet
without staring at them, and seeming to be an observer. This quick and
unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be
acquired with care; and, on the contrary, what is called absence, which
is a thoughtlessness and want of attention about what is doing, makes
a man so like either a fool or a madman, that, for my part, I see no
real difference. A fool never has thought, a madman has lost it; and an
absent man is, for the time, without it.[25] [_Dated Spa, July 25, N.
S. 1741._]


TRUE PRAISE.--_Laudari a viro laudato_ was always a commendable
ambition; encourage that ambition and continue to deserve the praises
of the praiseworthy. While you do so you shall have everything you will
from me; and when you cease to do so you shall have nothing.


AN AWKWARD MIND.--I have warned you against odd motions, strange
postures, and ungenteel carriage. But there is likewise an
awkwardness of the mind that ought to be, and with care may be,
avoided; as, for instance, to mistake or forget names; to speak of
Mr. What-d’ye-call-him, or Mrs. Thingum, or How-d’ye-call-her, is
excessively awkward and ordinary. To call people by improper titles and
appellations is so, too; as my Lord for sir; and sir for my Lord. To
begin a story or narration, when you are not perfect in it, and cannot
go through with it, but are forced, possibly, to say in the middle of
it, “I have forgot the rest,” is very unpleasant and bungling. One
must be extremely exact, clear, and perspicuous in everything one
says, otherwise, instead of entertaining or informing others, one only
tires and puzzles them. The voice and manner of speaking, too, are
not to be neglected; some people almost shut their mouths when they
speak, and mutter so, that they are not to be understood; others speak
so fast and sputter so, that they are not to be understood neither;
some always speak as loud as if they were talking to deaf people; and
others so low that one cannot hear them. All these habits are awkward
and disagreeable; and are to be avoided by attention; they are the
distinguishing marks of the ordinary people, who have had no care taken
of their education. You cannot imagine how necessary it is to mind all
these little things; for I have seen many people with great talents
ill received, for want of having these talents, too; and others well
received only from their little talents, and who had no great ones.


ORATORY AND HARD WORK.--Demosthenes, the celebrated Greek orator,
thought it so absolutely necessary to speak well, that though he
naturally stuttered, and had weak lungs, he resolved, by application
and care, to get the better of those disadvantages. Accordingly, he
cured his stammering by putting small pebbles into his mouth; and
strengthened his lungs gradually, by using himself every day to speak
aloud and distinctly for a considerable time. He likewise went often
to the seashore, in stormy weather, when the sea made most noise, and
there spoke as loud as he could, in order to use himself to the noise
and murmurs of the popular assemblies of the Athenians, before whom he
was to speak. By such care, joined to the constant study of the best
authors, he became at last the greatest orator of his own or any other
age or country, though he was born without any one natural talent for
it. Adieu! Copy Demosthenes. [(?) _August, 1741._]


KEEP YOUR WORD.--I am sure you know that breaking of your word is a
folly, a dishonor, and a crime. It is a folly, because nobody will
trust you afterward; and it is both a dishonor and a crime, truth being
the first duty of religion and morality; and whoever has not truth
cannot be supposed to have any one good quality, and must become the
detestation of God and man. Therefore I expect, from your truth and
your honor, that you will do that, which independently of your promise,
your own interest and ambition ought to incline you to do; that is, to
excel in everything you undertake. When I was of your age, I should
have been ashamed if any boy of that age had learned his book better,
or played at any play better than I did; and I would not have rested a
moment till I had got before him. Julius Cæsar, who had a noble thirst
of glory, used to say that he would rather be the first in a village
than the second in Rome; and he even cried when he saw the statue
of Alexander the Great, with the reflection of how much more glory
Alexander had acquired, at thirty years old, than he at a much more
advanced age. These are the sentiments to make people considerable;
and those who have them not will pass their lives in obscurity and
contempt; whereas those who endeavor to excel all, are at least sure of
excelling a great many. [_June, 1742._]


GOOD BREEDING.--Though I need not tell one of your age,[26] experience,
and knowledge of the world, how necessary good breeding is, to
recommend one to mankind; yet, as your various occupations of Greek and
cricket, Latin and pitch-farthing, may possibly divert your attention
from this object, I take the liberty of reminding you of it, and
desiring you to be very well bred at Lord Orrery’s. It is good breeding
alone that can prepossess people in your favor at first sight; more
time being necessary to discover greater talents. This good breeding,
you know, does not consist in low bows and formal ceremony; but in an
easy, civil, and respectful behavior. You will therefore take care to
answer with complaisance, when you are spoken to; to place yourself at
the lower end of the table, unless bid to go higher; to drink first to
the lady of the house, and next to the master; not to eat awkwardly or
dirtily; not to sit when others stand; and to do all this with an air
of complaisance, and not with a grave, sour look, as if you did it at
all unwillingly. [_No date, Letter 70._]


LETTER WRITING.--Let your letter be written as accurately as you are
able--I mean with regard to language, grammar, and stops; for as to the
_matter_ of it the less trouble you give yourself the better it will
be. Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to
whom we send them, just what we should say to the persons if we were
with them. [_No date, Letter 72._]


THE RESULTS OF CARELESSNESS.--To this oscitancy we owe so many
mistakes, hiatus’s (_sic_), lacunæ, etc., in ancient manuscripts. It
may be here necessary to explain to you the meaning of the _oscitantes
librarii_; which I believe you will easily take. These persons (before
printing was invented) transcribed the works of authors, sometimes
for their own profit, but oftener (as they were generally slaves) for
the profit of their masters. In the first case, dispatch, more than
accuracy, was their object; for the faster they wrote the more they
got; in the latter case (observe this), as it was a task imposed on
them, which they did not dare to refuse, they were _idle, careless,
and incorrect; not giving themselves the trouble to read over what
they had written_. The celebrated Atticus kept a great number of these
transcribing slaves, and got great sums of money by their labors.
[_November, 1745._]


GREEK EPIGRAMS.--I hope you will keep company with Horace and Cicero
among the Romans; and Homer and Xenophon among the Greeks, and that you
have got out of the worst company in the world, the Greek epigrams.
Martial has wit and is worth your looking into sometimes, but I
recommend the Greek epigrams to your supreme contempt. Good-night to
you. [_Same date._]


DANCING TRIFLING.--Dancing is in itself a very trifling, silly thing;
but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense
are sometimes obliged to conform; and then they should be able to do
it well. And, though I would not have you a dancer, yet, when you do
dance, I would have you dance well, as I would have you do everything
you do, well. There is no one thing so trifling, but which (if it is to
be done at all) ought to be done well. And I have often told you that
I wished you even played at pitch and cricket better than any boy at
Westminster. For instance: dress is a very foolish thing; and yet it
is a very foolish thing for a man not to be well dressed, according to
his rank and way of life; and it is so far from being a disparagement
to any man’s understanding, that it is rather a proof of it, to be
as well dressed as those whom he lives with. The difference in this
case between a man of sense and a fop is, that the fop values himself
upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time
that he knows he must not neglect it. There are a thousand foolish
customs of this kind, which not being criminal must be complied with,
and even cheerfully, by men of sense. Diogenes the cynic was a wise
man for despising them, but a fool for showing it. Be wiser than other
people if you can, but do not tell them so. [_Dublin Castle, Nov. 19,
1745._[27]]


THE PASSIONS.--Whenever you would persuade or prevail, address yourself
to the passions; it is by them that mankind is to be taken. Cæsar bade
his soldiers, at the battle of Pharsalia, aim at the faces of Pompey’s
men; they did so, and prevailed. I bid you strike at the passions; and
if you do, you, too, will prevail. If you can once engage people’s
pride, love, pity, ambition (or whichever is their prevailing passion)
on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
[_Same date._]

    MY DEAR BOY:--

    “Sunt quibus in Satirâ videar nimis acer.”

I find, sir, you are one of those; though I cannot imagine why
you think so, unless something that I have said, very innocently,
has happened to be very applicable to somebody or other of your
acquaintance. He makes the satire, who applies it, _qui capit ille
facit_. I hope you do not think I meant you, by anything I have said;
because, if you do, it seems to imply a consciousness of some guilt,
which I dare not presume to suppose, in your case. I know my duty
too well, to express, and your merit too well to entertain, such a
suspicion. I have not lately read the satirical authors you mention,
having very little time here to read. [_Dublin, February, 1746._]


INATTENTION.--There is no surer sign in the world of a little, weak
mind, than inattention. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing
well; and nothing can be done well without attention. It is the sure
answer of a fool, when you ask him about anything that was said or done
where he was present, that “truly he did not mind it.” And why did not
the fool mind it? What had he else to do there, but to mind what was
doing? A man of sense sees, hears, and retains everything that passes
where he is. I desire I may never hear you talk of not minding, nor
complain, as most fools do, of a treacherous memory. Mind, not only
what people say, but how they say it; and, if you have any sagacity,
you may discover more truth by your eyes than by your ears. People can
say what they will, but they cannot look what they will, and their
looks frequently discover what their words are calculated to conceal.
The most material knowledge of all--I mean the knowledge of the
world--is not to be acquired without great attention. [_Feb. 26, 1746._]


WOMEN--CLASSES OF MEN--JUDGMENT.--Before it is very long, I am of
opinion that you will both think and speak more favorably of women than
you do now. You seem to think, that, from Eve downward, they have done
a great deal of mischief. As for that lady, I give her up to you; but,
since her time, history will inform you that men have done much more
mischief in the world than women; and, to say the truth, I would not
advise you to trust either more than is absolutely necessary. But this
I will advise you to, which is, never to attack whole bodies of any
kind; for, besides that all general rules have their exceptions, you
unnecessarily make yourself a great number of enemies, by attacking
a _corps_ collectively. Among women, as among men, there are good as
well as bad, and it may be full as many, or more, good than among men.
This rule holds as to lawyers, soldiers, parsons, courtiers, citizens,
etc. They are all men, subject to the same passions and sentiments,
differing only in the manner, according to their several educations;
and it would be as imprudent as unjust to attack any of them by the
lump. Individuals forgive sometimes; but bodies and societies never do.
Many young people think it very genteel and witty to abuse the clergy;
in which they are extremely mistaken; since, in my opinion, parsons are
very like other men, and neither the better nor the worse for wearing
a black gown. All general reflections, upon nations and societies, are
the trite, threadbare jokes of those who set up for wit without having
any, and so have recourse to commonplace. Judge of individuals from
your own knowledge of them, and not from their sex, profession, or
denomination. [_April, 1746._]


HOW TO TRAVEL.--I am very well pleased to find that you inform
yourself of the particulars of the several places you go through.
You do mighty right to see the curiosities in those several places;
such as the golden _Bull_ at Frankfort, the tun at Heidelberg, etc.
Other travellers see them and talk of them; it is very proper to see
them, too; but remember, that seeing is the least material object
of, travelling; hearing and knowing are the essential points.[28]
[_September, 1746. From Bath._]


FALSE DELICACY.--As for the _mauvaise honte_, I hope you are above it;
your figure is like other people’s, I hope you will take care that your
dress is so, too. Why, then, should you be ashamed? Why not go into
mixed company with as little concern as you would into your own room?
[_Bath, September._]


THE WELL BRED MAN.--Feels himself firm and easy in all companies; is
modest without being bashful, and steady without being impudent; if
he is a stranger, he observes, with care, the manners and ways of the
people the most esteemed at that place, and conforms to them with
complaisance. Instead of finding fault with the customs of that place,
and telling the people that the English ones are a thousand times
better (as my countrymen are very apt to do), he commends their table,
their dress, their houses, and their manners, a little more, it may be,
than he really thinks they deserve. But this degree of complaisance
is neither criminal nor abject; and is but a small price to pay for
the good-will and affection of the people you converse with. As the
generality of people are weak enough to be pleased with these little
things, those who refuse to please them, so cheaply, are, in my mind,
weaker than they. [_Same month, O. S., 1746._]


“L’ART DE PLAIRE.”--There is a very pretty little French book
written by L’Abbé de Bellegarde, entitled “_L’Art de Plaire dans la
Conversation_”[29]; and, though I confess that it is impossible to
reduce the art of pleasing to a system, yet this principle I will lay
down, that the desire of pleasing is at least half the art of doing it;
the rest depends only upon the manner, which attention, observation,
and frequenting good company will teach. But if you are lazy, careless,
and indifferent whether you please or not, depend upon it you never
will please. [_Same date._]


CHESTERFIELD’S INTENTION.--Do not think I mean to dictate as a parent;
I only mean to advise as a friend, and an indulgent one, too; and
do not apprehend that I mean to check your pleasures; of which, on
the contrary, I only desire to be the guide, not the censor. Let my
experience supply your want of it and clear your way in the progress of
your youth of those thorns and briers which scratched and disfigured
me in the course of mine. [_Bath, Oct. 4, 1746._]


HIS SON’S UTTER DEPENDENCE.--I do not, therefore, so much as hint to
you how absolutely dependent you are on me--that you neither have nor
can have a shilling in the world but from me; and that as I have no
womanish weakness for your person, your merit must, and will, be the
only measure of my kindness--I say, I do not hint these things to you
because I am convinced that you will act right, upon more noble and
generous principles; I mean for the sake of doing right, and out of
affection and gratitude to me. [_Same date._]


NO SMATTERING.--Mr. Pope says, very truly,

  “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing;
  Drink deep, or taste not the Castalian spring.”

And what is called a _smattering_ of everything infallibly constitutes
a coxcomb. I have often, of late, reflected what an unhappy man I
must now have been, if I had not acquired in my youth some fund and
taste of learning. What could I have done with myself, at this age,
without them? I must, as many ignorant people do, have destroyed my
health and faculties by setting away the evenings; or, by wasting them
frivolously in the tattle of women’s company, must have exposed myself
to the ridicule and contempt of those very women; or, lastly, I must
have hanged myself, as a man once did, for weariness of putting on and
pulling off his shoes and stockings every day. My books, and only my
books, are now left me, and I daily find what Cicero says of learning
to be true: “Hæc studia” (says he) “adolescentiam alunt, senectutem
oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium, ac solatium
præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum,
peregrinantur, rusticantur.” [_October, 1746._]


FOOLISH TALK.--The conversation of the ignorant is no conversation, and
gives even them no pleasure; they tire of their own sterility, and have
not matter enough to furnish them with words to keep up a conversation.
[_Same date._]


WORLD KNOWLEDGE.--Do not imagine that the knowledge, which I so much
recommend to you, is confined to books, pleasing, useful, and necessary
as that knowledge is; but I comprehend in it the great knowledge of the
world, still more necessary than that of books. In truth, they assist
one another reciprocally; and no man will have either perfectly, who
has not both. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in
the world, and not in a closet. Books alone will never teach it you;
but they will suggest many things to your observation, which might
otherwise escape you; and your own observations upon mankind, when
compared with those which you will find in books, will help you to fix
the true point. [_November, 1746._]


OLD FOOLS.--To know mankind well requires full as much attention
and application as to know books, and, it may be, more sagacity and
discernment. I am, at this time, acquainted with many elderly people,
who have all passed their whole lives in the great world, but with such
levity and inattention, that they know no more of it now than they did
at fifteen. [_Same date._]


INTROSPECTION.--You must look into people, as well as at them. Almost
all people are born with all the passions, to a certain degree;
but almost every man has a prevailing one, to which the others are
subordinate. Search every one for that ruling passion; pry into the
recesses of his heart, and observe the different workings of the
same passion in different people. And, when you have found out the
prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him, where that
passion is concerned. Work upon him by it, if you please; but be upon
your guard yourself against it, whatever professions he may make you.
[_Same date._]


YOUNG STANHOPE’S CHARACTER.--In the strict scrutiny which I have made
into you, I have (thank God) hitherto not discovered any vice of the
heart, or any peculiar weakness of the head: but I have discovered
laziness, inattention, and indifference; faults which are only
pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life, when health and
spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But
a young man should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active,
and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like Cæsar, “Nil
actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.” You seem to want that
“vivida vis animi,” which spurs and excites most young men to please,
to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be
considerable, depend upon it, you never can be so; as, without the
desire and attention necessary to please, you never can please. “Nullum
numen abest, si sit prudentia,” is unquestionably true, with regard to
everything except poetry. [_November, 1746._]


HOW TO DRESS.--Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable
people of your own age, in the place where you are; whose dress is
never spoken of one way or another, as either too negligent or too much
studied. [_Same date._]


ABSENT PEOPLE.--What is commonly called an absent man, is commonly
either a very weak or a very affected man; but be he which he will, he
is, I am sure, a very disagreeable man in company. He fails in all the
common offices of civility; he seems not to know those people to-day,
with whom yesterday he appeared to live in intimacy. He takes no part
in the general conversation; but, on the contrary, breaks into it from
time to time, with some start of his own, as if he waked from a dream.
This (as I said before) is a sure indication, either of a mind so weak
that it is not able to bear above one object at a time; or so affected,
that it would be supposed to be wholly engrossed by, and directed to,
some very great and important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke,
and (it may be) five or six more, since the creation of the world, may
have had a right to absence, from that intense thought which the things
they were investigating required. But if a young man, and a man of the
world, who has no such avocations to plead, will claim and exercise
that right of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my
mind, be turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion
out of company. [_Same date._]


INSULT AND INJURY.--However frivolous a company may be, still, while
you are among them, do not show them by your inattention that you
think them so; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree
to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There
is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than
contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. [_Same
date._]


FLATTERY.--Most people (I might say all people) have their weaknesses;
they have their aversions and their likings to such and such things;
so that, if you were to laugh at a man for his aversion to a cat,
or cheese (which are common antipathies), or, by inattention and
negligence, to let them come in his way where you could prevent it, he
would, in the first case, think himself insulted, and, in the second,
slighted; and would remember both. Whereas your care to procure for him
what he likes, and to remove from him what he hates, shows him that he
is at least an object of your attention, flatters his vanity, and makes
him possibly more your friend than a more important service would have
done. With regard to women, attentions still below these are necessary,
and, by the custom of the world, in some measure due, according to the
laws of good breeding.


HIS LETTERS.--My long and frequent letters, which I send you, in great
doubt of their success, put me in mind of certain papers, which you
have very lately, and I formerly, sent up to kites, along the string,
which we called messengers; some of them the wind used to blow away,
others were torn by the string, and but few of them got up and stuck to
the kite. But I will content myself now, as I did then, if some of my
present messages do but stick to you.


EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.--I hope you employ your whole time, which few
people do; and that you put every moment to profit of some kind or
other. I call company, walking, riding, etc., employing one’s time,
and, upon proper occasions, very usefully; but what I cannot forgive
in anybody is sauntering, and doing nothing at all with a thing so
precious as time, and so irrecoverable when lost. [_Dec. 9, O. S.,
1746._[30]]


VULGAR PLEASURES.--Many young people adopt pleasures for which they
have not the least taste, only because they are called by that name.
They often mistake so totally as to imagine that debauchery is
pleasure. You must allow that drunkenness, which is equally destructive
to body and mind, is a fine pleasure. Gaming, that draws you into a
thousand scrapes, leaves you penniless, and gives you the air and
manners of an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite pleasure, is
it not? As to running after women, the consequences of that vice are
only the loss of one’s nose, the total destruction of health, and, not
unfrequently, the being run through the body. [_March, 1747._]


A GENTLEMAN’S PLEASURES.--The true pleasures of a gentleman are, those
of the table, but within the bounds of moderation; good company, that
is to say, people of merit; moderate play, which amuses without any
interested views; and sprightly, gallant conversations with women of
fashion and sense.

These are the real pleasures of a gentleman: which occasion neither
sickness, shame, nor repentance. Whatever exceeds them becomes low
vice, brutal passion, debauchery, and insanity of mind; all of which,
far from giving satisfaction, bring on dishonor and disgrace. Adieu.
[_Same date._]


VIRTUE AND GOLD.--Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic
value; but if they are not polished they certainly lose a great deal
of their lustre; and even polished brass will pass upon more people
than rough gold. What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy, good
breeding of the French frequently cover? Many of them want common
sense, many more common learning; but, in general, they make up so
much by their manner for those defects, that frequently they pass
undiscovered. I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who,
with a fund of virtue, learning, and good sense, has the manners and
good breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. [_Same
date._]


PLEASURE.--Do not think that I mean to snarl at pleasure like a stoic,
or to preach against it like a parson; no, I mean to point it out, and
recommend it like an epicurean; I wish you a great deal, and my only
view is to hinder you from mistaking it. [_March 6, 1747._]


GOODNESS.--You know what virtue is; you may have it if you will; it is
in every man’s power, and miserable is the man who has it not. [_Same
date._]


THE MAN OF PLEASURE.--The character which most young men first aim
at is that of a man of pleasure; but they generally take it upon
trust; and, instead of consulting their own taste and inclinations,
they blindly adopt whatever those with whom they chiefly converse are
pleased to call by the name of pleasure; and a _man of pleasure_, in
the vulgar acceptation of that phrase, means only a beastly drunkard,
an abandoned whoremaster, and a profligate swearer and curser. As it
may be of use to you, I am not unwilling, though at the same time
ashamed, to own that the vices of my youth proceeded much more from my
silly resolution of being what I heard called a man of pleasure, than
from my own inclinations. I always naturally hated drinking; and yet I
have often drunk, with disgust at the time, attended by great sickness
the next day, only because I then considered drinking as a necessary
qualification for a fine gentleman and a man of pleasure. [_March 27,
1747._]


GAMBLING.--The same as to gaming. I did not want money, and
consequently had no occasion to play for it; but I thought play another
necessary ingredient in the composition of a man of pleasure, and
accordingly I plunged into it, without desire at first; sacrificed a
thousand real pleasures to it; and made myself solidly uneasy by it for
thirty the best years of my life.

I was even absurd enough, for a little while, to swear, by way of
adorning and completing the shining character which I affected; but
this folly I soon laid aside upon finding both the guilt and the
indecency of it.

Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal pleasures, I
lost real ones; and my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered,
are, I must confess, the just punishment of my errors.

Take warning then by them; choose your pleasures for yourself, and
do not let them be imposed upon you. Follow nature, and not fashion;
weigh the present enjoyment of your pleasures against the necessary
consequences of them, and then let your own common-sense determine your
choice. [_Same date._]


A LIFE OF REAL PLEASURE.--Were I to begin the world again, with the
experience which I now have of it, I would lead a life of real, not
of imaginary pleasure. I would enjoy the pleasures of the table and
of wine; but stop short of the pains inseparably annexed to an excess
in either. I would not, at twenty years, be a preaching missionary of
abstemiousness and sobriety; and I should let other people do as they
would, without formally and sententiously rebuking them for it; but
I would be most firmly resolved not to destroy my own faculties and
constitution, in complaisance to those who have no regard to their
own. I would play to give me pleasure, but not to give me pain; that
is, I would play for trifles, in mixed companies, to amuse myself,
and conform to custom; but I would take care not to venture for sums
which, if I won, I should not be the better for; but which, if I lost,
I should deeply regret. [_Same date._]


COARSE AND VULGAR PLEASURES.--Does good company care to have a man
reeling drunk among them? Or to see another tearing his hair and
blaspheming, for having lost at play more than he is able to pay? Or
a whoremaster with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous
debauchery? No; those who practise, and much more those who brag of
them, make no part of good company; and are most unwillingly, if ever,
admitted into it.


FASHIONABLE VICES.--A real man of fashion and pleasure observes
decency; at least, neither borrows nor affects vices; and, if he
unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy, and
secrecy. I have not mentioned the pleasures of the mind (which are the
solid and permanent ones), because they do not come under the head of
what people commonly call pleasures; which they seem to confine to the
senses. The pleasure of virtue, of charity, and of learning is true and
lasting pleasure; which I hope you will be well and long acquainted
with. Adieu! [_March, 1747._]


A FINE EDITION.--If I am rightly informed, I am now writing to a fine
gentleman, in a scarlet coat laced with gold, a brocade waistcoat,
and all other suitable ornaments. The natural partiality of every
author for his own works, makes me very glad to hear that Mr. Harte
has thought this last edition of mine worth so fine a binding; and, as
he has bound it in red, and gilt it upon the back, I hope he will take
care that it shall be _lettered_ too. A showish binding attracts the
eyes, and engages the attention of everybody; but with this difference,
that women, and men who are like women, mind the binding more than the
book, whereas men of sense and learning immediately examine the inside,
and, if they find that it does not answer the finery on the outside,
they throw it by with the greater indignation and contempt. I hope that
when this edition of my works shall be opened and read, the best judges
will find connection, consistency, solidity, and spirit in it. Mr.
Harte may _recensere_ and _emendare_ as much as he pleases; but it will
be to little purpose if you do not co-operate with him. The work will
be imperfect. [_April 3, O. S., 1747._]


TWO KINDS OF SALT.--Swiss salt is, I dare say, very good, yet I am
apt to suspect it falls a little short of the true Attic salt, in
which there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. The same Attic salt
seasoned all Greece; a great deal of it was exported afterwards to
Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition called urbanity,
which, in some time, was brought to very near the perfection of the
original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with these two kinds
of salt the better you will keep, and the more you will be relished.
[_April, 1747._]


ONE THING AT A TIME.--If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure,
a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he
would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that
company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think
of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor
mathematician. There is time enough for everything in the course of the
day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in
the year, if you will do two things at a time. [_Same date._]


LETTER WRITING.--The best models[31] that you can form yourself upon,
are Cicero, Cardinal d’Ossat, Madame Sevigné, and Comte Bussy Rabutin.
Cicero’s epistles to Atticus and to his familiar friends are the best
examples that you can imitate, in the friendly and the familiar style.
The simplicity and clearness of Cardinal d’Ossat’s letters show how
letters of business ought to be written; no affected turns, no attempt
at wit, obscure or perplex his matter; which is always plainly and
clearly stated, as business always should be. For gay and amusing
letters, for _enjouement_ and _badinage_, there are none that equal
Comte Bussy’s and Madame Sevigné’s. They are so natural, they seem
to be the extempore conversations of two people of wit, rather than
letters; which are commonly studied, though they ought not to be so.
I would advise you to let that book be one in your itinerant library.
[_July 20, 1747._]


PERSONAL CLEANLINESS.--As you must attend to your manners, so you must
not neglect your person; but take care to be very clean, well dressed,
and genteel; to have no disagreeable attitudes, nor awkward tricks;
which many people use themselves to, and then cannot leave them off. Do
you take care to keep your teeth very clean, by washing them constantly
every morning, and after every meal? This is very necessary, both
to preserve your teeth a great while, and to save you a great deal
of pain. Mine have plagued me long, and are now falling out, merely
for want of care when I was of your age. Do you dress well, and not
too well? Do you consider your air and manner of presenting yourself
enough, and not too much? neither negligent nor stiff. All these
things deserve a degree of care, a second-rate attention; they give an
additional lustre to real merit. My Lord Bacon says that a pleasing
figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation. It is certainly an
agreeable forerunner of merit and smooths the way for it. [_July 30,
1747._]


TRUTH.--Every man seeks for truth; but God only knows who has found it.
It is, therefore, as unjust to persecute as it is absurd to ridicule
people for those several opinions which they cannot help entertaining
upon the conviction of their reason. [_Same date._]


LYING.--I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more
ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice,
cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of
these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later. If I tell
a malicious lie, in order to affect any man’s fortune or character,
I may indeed injure him for some time; but I shall be sure to be the
greatest sufferer myself at last; for as soon as ever I am detected
(and detected I most certainly shall be), I am blasted for the infamous
attempt; and whatever is said afterward, to the disadvantage of that
person, however true, passes for calumny. If I lie, or equivocate,
for it is the same thing, in order to excuse myself for something
that I have said or done, and to avoid the danger or the shame that I
apprehend from it, I discover at once my fear, as well as my falsehood;
and only increase instead of avoiding the danger and the shame; I show
myself to be the lowest and the meanest of mankind, and am sure to be
always treated as such. Fear, instead of avoiding, invites danger;
for concealed cowards will insult known ones. If one has had the
misfortune to be in the wrong, there is something noble in frankly
owning it; it is the only way of atoning for it, and the only way of
being forgiven. Equivocating, evading, shuffling, in order to remove a
present danger or inconveniency, is something so mean, and betrays so
much fear, that whoever practises them always deserves to be, and often
will be, kicked. There is another sort of lies, inoffensive enough
in themselves, but wonderfully ridiculous; I mean those lies which a
mistaken vanity suggests, that defeat the very end for which they are
calculated, and terminate in the humiliation and confusion of their
author, who is sure to be detected. These are chiefly narrative and
historical lies, all intended to do infinite honor to their author. He
is always the hero of his own romances; he has been in dangers from
which nobody but himself ever escaped; he has seen with his own eyes
whatever other people have heard or read of; he has had more _bonnes
fortunes_ than ever he knew women; and has ridden more miles post, in
one day, than ever courier went in two. He is soon discovered, and as
soon becomes the object of universal contempt and ridicule. Remember,
then, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry
you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor
unwounded. It is not only your duty, but your interest; as a proof of
which you may always observe that the greatest fools are the greatest
liars. For my own part, I judge of every man’s truth by his degree of
understanding. [_Sept. 21, 1747._]


PERCEPTION OF CHARACTER.--Search, therefore, with the greatest care
into the characters of all those whom you converse with; endeavor to
discover their predominant passions, their prevailing weaknesses,
their vanities, their follies, and their humors; with all the right
and wrong, wise and silly springs of human actions, which make such
inconsistent and whimsical beings of us rational creatures. A moderate
share of penetration, with great attention, will infallibly make these
necessary discoveries. This is the true knowledge of the world; and
the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description;
one must travel through it one’s self to be acquainted with it. The
scholar, who in the dust of his closet talks or writes of the world,
knows no more of it than that orator did of war, who judiciously
endeavored to instruct Hannibal in it. Courts and camps are the only
places to learn the world in. [_Oct. 2, 1747._]


GOOD BREEDING.--Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and
oblige others, is essentially the same in every country; but good
breeding, as it is called, which is the manner of exerting that
disposition, is different in almost every country, and merely local;
and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good
breeding of the place which he is at. A conformity and flexibility
of manners is necessary in the course of the world; that is, with
regard to all things which are not wrong in themselves. The _versatile
ingenium_ is the most useful of all. It can turn itself instantly from
one object to another, assuming the proper manner for each. It can be
serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with the
frivolous. Endeavor, by all means, to accommodate this talent, for it
is a very great one. [_Same date._]


SELF-LOVE.--Do not let your vanity and self-love make you suppose
that people become your friends at first sight, or even upon a short
acquaintance. Real friendship is a slow grower, and never thrives
unless ingrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. There is
another kind of nominal friendship, among young people, which is warm
for the time, but, by good luck, of short duration. This friendship
is hastily produced, by their being accidentally thrown together, and
pursuing the same course of riot and debauchery. A fine friendship,
truly! and well cemented by drunkenness and lewdness. It should rather
be called a conspiracy against morals and good manners, and be punished
as such by the civil magistrate. The next thing to the choice of your
friends is the choice of your company. Endeavor, as much as you can, to
keep company with people above you. There you rise as much as you sink
with people below you; for, as I mentioned before, you are whatever
the company you keep is. Do not mistake, when I say company above you,
and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least
consideration; but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in
which the world considers them. [_Oct. 9, 1747._]


GOOD COMPANY.--There are two sorts of good company; one, which is
called the _beau monde_, and consists of those people who have the lead
in courts, and in the gay part of life; the other consists of those
who are distinguished by some peculiar merit, or who excel in some
particular and valuable art or science. For my own part, I used to
think myself in company as much above me, when I was with Mr. Addison
and Mr. Pope, as if I had been with all the princes in Europe. What
I mean by low company, which should by all means be avoided, is the
company of those, who, absolutely insignificant and contemptible in
themselves, think they are honored by being in your company, and who
flatter every vice and every folly you have, in order to engage you to
converse with them. The pride of being the first of the company is but
too common; but it is very silly, and very prejudicial. Nothing in the
world lets down a character more than that wrong turn.

You may possibly ask me, whether a man has it always in his power to
get into the best company? and how? I say, yes, he has, by deserving
it; provided he is but in circumstances which enable him to appear upon
the footing of a gentleman. Merit and good breeding will make their way
everywhere. Knowledge will introduce him, and good breeding will endear
him to the best companies; for, as I have often told you, politeness
and good breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any, or all other
good qualities or talents. Without them, no knowledge, no perfection
whatsoever, is seen in its best light. The scholar, without good
breeding, is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic; the soldier, a brute;
and every man disagreeable. [_Same date._]


LOCAL PROPRIETY.--Remember that there is a local propriety to be
observed in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one
company may be, and often is, highly improper in another. [_Same date._]


The jokes, the _bon mots_, the little adventures, which may do very
well in one company, will seem flat and tedious, when related in
another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company
may give merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if
divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly
err; and, fond of something that has entertained them in one company,
and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where
it is either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or
misplaced.

Women have, in general, but one object, which is their beauty; upon
which, scarce any flattery is too gross for them to follow. Nature
has hardly formed a woman ugly enough, to be insensible to flattery
upon her person; if her face is so shocking that she must, in some
degree, be conscious of it, her figure and her air, she trusts, make
ample amends for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she thinks,
counterbalances it. If they are both bad, she comforts herself that she
has graces; a certain manner; a _je ne sçais quoi_, still more engaging
than beauty. This truth is evident, from the studied and elaborate
dress of the ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncontested,
conscious beauty is, of all women, the least sensible of flattery upon
that head; she knows it is her due, and is therefore obliged to nobody
for giving it her. She must be flattered upon her understanding; which,
though she may possibly not doubt of herself, yet she suspects that men
may distrust. [_Oct. 16, 1747._]


There are a great many people, who think themselves employed all day,
and who, if they were to cast up their accounts at night, would find
that they had done just nothing. They have read two or three hours,
mechanically, without attending to what they read, and, consequently,
without either retaining it, or reasoning upon it. From thence they
saunter into company, without taking any part in it, and without
observing the characters of the persons, or the subjects of the
conversation; but are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the
present purpose, or, often, not thinking at all; which silly and idle
suspension of thought they would dignify with the name of _absence_ and
_distraction_. They go afterwards, it may be, to the play, where they
gape at the company and the lights; but without minding the very thing
they went to, the play. [_Oct. 30, 1747._]


ACTION! ACTION!--Remember the _hoc age_; do what you are about, be that
what it will; it is either worth doing well, or not at all. Wherever
you are, have (as the low, vulgar expression is) your ears and eyes
about you. Listen to everything that is said, and see everything that
is done. Observe the looks and countenances of those who speak, which
is often a surer way of discovering the truth, than from what they say.
[_Same date._]


VALUE OF TIME.--I knew, once, a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used
frequently to say: “Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take
care of themselves.” This was a just and sensible reflection in a
miser. I recommend to you to take care of the minutes; for hours will
take care of themselves. I am very sure that many people lose two or
three hours every day, by not taking care of the minutes. Never think
any portion of time, whatsoever, too short to be employed; something or
other may always be done in it. [_Nov. 6, 1747._]


YOUNG PEOPLE.--The young leading the young is like the blind leading
the blind; “they will both fall into the ditch.” The only sure guide
is he who has often gone the road which you want to go. Let me be that
guide; who have gone all roads; and who can consequently point out to
you the best. If you ask me why I went any of the bad roads myself? I
will answer you, very truly, that it was for want of a good guide; ill
example invited me one way, and a good guide was wanting, to show me
a better. But if anybody, capable of advising me, had taken the same
pains with me, which I have taken, and will continue to take with you,
I should have avoided many follies and inconveniences, which undirected
youth ran me into. My father was neither desirous nor able to advise
me; which is what, I hope, you cannot say of yours. [_Nov. 24, 1747._]


FROM HOME.--I send you, by a person who sets out this day for Leipsic,
a small packet from your mamma, containing some valuable things which
you left behind; to which I have added, by way of New Year’s gift, a
very pretty toothpick case; and, by the way, pray take great care of
your teeth, and keep them extremely clean. I have likewise sent you
the Greek roots, lately translated into English from the French of the
Port Royal. Inform yourself what the Port Royal is. To conclude with
a quibble: I hope you will not only feed upon these Greek roots, but
likewise digest them perfectly. Adieu. [_Same date._]


TIME.--There is nothing which I more wish that you should know, and
which fewer people do know, than the true use and value of time. It
is in everybody’s mouth; but in few people’s practice. Every fool,
who slatterns away his whole time in nothings, utters, however, some
trite commonplace sentence, of which there are millions, to prove, at
once, the value and the fleetness of time. The sundials, likewise, all
over Europe, have some ingenious inscription to that effect; so that
nobody squanders away their time without hearing and seeing, daily, how
necessary it is to employ it well, and how irrecoverable it is if lost.
But all these admonitions are useless, where there is not a fund of
good sense and reason to suggest them, rather than receive them. By the
manner in which you now tell me that you employ your time, I flatter
myself that you have that fund: that is the fund which will make you
rich indeed. I do not, therefore, mean to give you a critical essay
upon the use and abuse of time; I will only give you some hints, with
regards to the use of one particular period of that long time which, I
hope, you have before you; I mean, the next two years. Remember then,
that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before
you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe. [_Dec.
11, 1747._]


KNOWLEDGE.--Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and
shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while
young, it will give us no shade when we grow old. [_Same date._]


A CLASSICAL STUDENT.--I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of
his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which
the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary house; but
gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought,
for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually
a couple of pages, read them first, and then sent them down a sacrifice
to Cloacina; this was so much time fairly gained. [_Same date._]


YOUNG STANHOPE.--Hitherto I have discovered nothing wrong in your
heart, or your head; on the contrary, I think I see sense in the one,
and sentiments in the other. This persuasion is the only motive of my
present affection; which will either increase or diminish, according to
your merit or demerit. If you have the knowledge, the honor, and the
probity which you may have, the marks and warmth of my affection shall
amply reward them. [_Dec. 18, 1747._]


FASHIONABLE LADIES.--The company of women of fashion will improve your
manners, though not your understanding; and that complaisance and
politeness, which are so useful in men’s company, can only be acquired
in women’s. [_Dec. 29, 1747._]


TALENT AND BREEDING.--Remember always, what I have told you a thousand
times, that all the talents in the world will want all their lustre,
and some part of their use too, if they are not adorned with that easy
good breeding, that engaging manner, and those graces which seduce
and prepossess people in your favor at first sight. A proper care of
your person is by no means to be neglected; always extremely clean;
upon proper occasions, fine. Your carriage genteel, and your motions
graceful. Take particular care of your manner and address, when you
present yourself in company. Let them be respectful without meanness,
easy without too much familiarity, genteel without affectation, and
insinuating without any seeming art or design. [_Same date._]


POLISH.--Now, though I would not recommend to you to go into woman’s
company in search of solid knowledge or judgment, yet it has its use in
other respects; for it certainly polishes the manners, and gives _une
certaine tournure_, which is very necessary in the course of the world;
and which Englishmen have generally less of than any people in the
world. [_Jan. 2, 1748._]


A GOOD SUPPER.--I cannot say that your suppers are luxurious, but
you must own they are solid; and a quart of soup, and two pounds of
potatoes, will enable you to pass the night without great impatience
for your breakfast next morning. One part of your supper (the potatoes)
is the constant diet of my old friends and countrymen, the Irish, who
are the healthiest and the strongest men that I know in Europe. [_Same
date._]


A GREEK PROFESSOR.--Since you do not care to be an assessor of the
Imperial Chamber, and desire an establishment in England; what do you
think of being Greek professor at one of our universities? It is a very
pretty sinecure, and requires very little knowledge (much less than, I
hope, you have already) of that language. [_Jan. 15, 1748._]


A POLITICIAN.--Mr. Harte tells me that you set up for a πολιτικὸς ανὴρ;
if so, I presume it is in the view of succeeding me in my office; which
I will very willingly resign to you, whenever you shall call upon me
for it. But, if you intend to be the πολιτικὸς ανὴρ, or the βεληφόρος
ανὴρ, there are some trifling circumstances, upon which you should
previously take your resolution. The first of which is, to be fit for
it; and then, in order to be so, make yourself master of ancient and
modern history and languages. To know perfectly the constitution, and
form of government of every nation; the growth and decline of ancient
and modern empires; and to trace out and reflect upon the causes of
both. To know the strength, the riches, and the commerce of every
country. These little things, trifling as they may seem, are yet very
necessary for a politician to know; and which therefore, I presume,
you will condescend to apply yourself to. There are some additional
qualifications necessary, in the practical part of business, which may
deserve some consideration in your leisure moments; such as an absolute
command of your temper, so as not to be provoked to passion, upon any
account: patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable
applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by
your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to
conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other
people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover
anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are
the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar.

Three mails are now due from Holland, so that I have no letters from
you to acknowledge. I therefore conclude with recommending myself to
your favor and protection when you succeed. [_Same date._]


CONGEALED SPEECH.--I find by Mr. Harte’s last letter, that many of my
letters to you and him have been frozen up in their way to Leipsic; the
thaw has, I suppose, by this time set them at liberty to pursue their
journey to you, and you will receive a glut of them at once. Hudibras
alludes, in this verse,

  “Like words congeal’d in northern air,”

to a vulgar notion, that in Greenland words were frozen in
their utterance, and that upon a thaw a very mixed conversation was
heard in the air of all those words set at liberty. [_Jan. 29, 1748._]


POLITICAL IGNORANCE OF THE ENGLISH.--We are in general in England
ignorant of foreign affairs and of the interests, views, pretensions,
and policy of other courts. That part of knowledge never enters into
our thoughts, nor makes part of our education; for which reason we have
fewer proper subjects for foreign commissions than any other country in
Europe; and, when foreign affairs happen to be debated in Parliament,
it is incredible with how much ignorance. The harvest of foreign
affairs being then so great, and the laborers so few, if you make
yourself master of them, you will make yourself necessary: first as a
foreign, and then as a domestic minister for that department. [_Feb. 9,
1748._]


MY LORD’S DISLIKE OF VALETS.--I would neither have your new man nor
him whom you have already, put out of livery, which makes them both
impertinent and useless. I am sure that as soon as you shall have taken
the other servant, your present man will press extremely to be out
of livery, and valet de chambre, which is as much as to say, that he
will curl your hair and shave you, but not condescend to do anything
else. Therefore I advise you never to have a servant out of livery;
and though you may not always think proper to carry the servant who
dresses you abroad in the rain and dirt behind a coach or before a
chair, you keep it in your power to do so, if you please, by keeping
him in livery. [_Feb. 13, 1748._]


LEARNED LEISURE.--The first use that I made of my liberty was to
come hither [Bath], where I arrived yesterday. My health, though not
fundamentally bad, yet, for want of proper attention of late, wanted
some repairs, which these waters never fail giving it. I shall drink
them a month, and return to London, there to enjoy the comforts of
social life, instead of groaning under the load of business. I have
given the description of the life that I propose to lead for the future
in this motto, which I have put up in the frize (_sic_) of my library
in my new house:

  “Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis
  Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ.”

I must observe to you upon this occasion, that the uninterrupted
satisfaction which I expect to find in that library will be chiefly
owing to my having employed some part of my life well at your age.
I wish I had employed it better, and my satisfaction would now be
complete. [_Feb. 16, 1748._]


WASTE OF TIME.--I, who have been behind the scenes, both of pleasure
and business, and have seen all the springs and pulleys of those
decorations which astonish and dazzle the audience, retire, not only
without regret, but with contentment and satisfaction. But what I do,
and ever shall, regret, is the time which, while young, I lost in
mere idleness, and in doing nothing. This is the common effect of the
inconsideracy of youth, against which I beg you will be most carefully
upon your guard. The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if
well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable. Every
moment may be put to some use, and that with much more pleasure than
if unemployed. Do not imagine that by the employment of time I mean an
uninterrupted application to serious studies. No; pleasures are, at
proper times, both as necessary and as useful; they fashion and form
you for the world; they teach you characters, and show you the human
heart in its unguarded minutes. But then remember to make that use of
them. I have known many people, from laziness of mind, go through both
pleasure and business with equal inattention; neither enjoying the one,
nor doing the other; thinking themselves men of pleasure because they
were mingled with those who were, and men of business, because they had
business to do, though they did not do it. Whatever you do, do it to
the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. _Approfondissez_; go
to the bottom of things. Anything half done, or half known, is, in my
mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay worse, for it often misleads.
There is hardly any place, or any company, where you may not gain
knowledge, if you please; almost everybody knows some one thing, and is
glad to talk upon that one thing. [_Same date._]


PROPER INQUISITIVENESS.--Seek, and you will find, in this world as well
as in the next. See everything, inquire into everything; and you may
excuse your curiosity and the questions you ask, which otherwise might
be thought impertinent by your manner of asking them; for most things
depend a great deal upon the manner. As, for example, _I am afraid that
I am very troublesome with my questions; but nobody can inform me so
well as you_; or something of that kind. [_Same date._]


RELIGION TO BE RESPECTED.--But when you frequent places of public
worship, as I would have you go to all the different ones you meet
with, remember that, however erroneous, they are none of them objects
of laughter and ridicule. Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
The object of all the public worships in the world is the same; it is
that great eternal Being who created everything. The different manners
of worship are by no means subjects of ridicule. Each sect thinks its
own the best; and I know no infallible judge, in this world, to decide
which is the best. [_Same date._]


USE A NOTE-BOOK.--Make the same inquiries, wherever you are, concerning
the revenues, the military establishment, the trade, the commerce, and
the police of every country. And you would do well to keep a blank
paper book, which the Germans call an _album_; and there, instead of
desiring, as they do, every fool they meet with to scribble something,
write down all these things, as soon as they come to your knowledge
from good authorities. [_Same date._]


LORD CHESTERFIELD’S CARE.--I have now but one anxiety left, which is
concerning you. I would have you be, what I know nobody is, perfect. As
that is impossible, I would have you as near perfection as possible.
I know nobody in a fairer way toward it than yourself, if you please.
Never were so much pains taken for anybody’s education as for yours;
and never had anybody those opportunities of knowledge and improvement
which you have had, and still have. I hope, I wish, I doubt, and I fear
alternately. This only I am sure of, that you will prove either the
greatest pain, or the greatest pleasure of, yours always truly. [_Same
date._]


PEDANTS.--Others, to show their learning, or often from the prejudices
of a school education, where they hear of nothing else, are always
talking of the ancients, as something more than men, and of the moderns
as something less. They are never without a classic or two in their
pockets; they stick to the old good sense; they read none of the modern
trash; and will show you plainly that no improvement has been made, in
any one art or science, these last seventeen hundred years. I would by
no means have you disown your acquaintance with the ancients; but still
less would I have you brag of an exclusive intimacy with them. Speak
of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry;
judge them all by their merits, but not by their ages; and if you
happen to have an Elzevir classic in your pocket, neither show it nor
mention it. [_Bath, Feb. 22, 1748._]


BLINDNESS TO HEROISM.--Take into your consideration, if you please,
cases seemingly analogous; but take them as helps only, not as guides.
We are really so prejudiced by our educations that, as the ancients
deified their heroes, we deify their madmen; of which, with all due
regard to antiquity, I take Leonidas and Curtius to have been two
distinguished ones. And yet a solid pedant would, in a speech in
Parliament, relative to a tax of twopence in the pound, upon some
commodity or other, quote those two heroes as examples of what we ought
to do and suffer for our country. [_Same date._]


INJUDICIOUS LEARNING.--I have known these absurdities carried so far
by people of injudicious learning, that I should not be surprised if
some of them were to propose, while we were at war with the Gauls,
that a number of geese should be kept in the Tower, upon account of
the infinite advantage which Rome received, in a parallel case, from
a certain number of geese in the Capitol. This way of reasoning and
this way of speaking will always form a poor politician and a puerile
declaimer. [_Same date._]


HOW “TO WEAR” LEARNING.--Wear your learning like your watch, in a
private pocket; and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show
that you have one. If you are asked what o’clock it is, tell it, but do
not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. [_Same date._]


THE GRACES.--A thousand little things, not separately to be defined,
conspire to form these graces, this _je ne sais quoi_ that always
pleases. A pretty person, genteel motions, a proper degree of dress,
an harmonious voice, something open and cheerful in the countenance,
but without laughing; a distinct and properly varied manner of
speaking; all these things, and many others, are necessary ingredients
in the composition of the pleasing _je ne sais quoi_, which everybody
feels, though nobody can describe. Observe carefully, then, what
displeases or pleases you, in others, and be persuaded, that, in
general, the same things will please or displease others, in you.
Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn you against it;
and I could heartily wish that you may often be seen to smile, but
never heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the
characteristic of folly and ill-manners; it is the manner in which the
mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being
merry. In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred as
audible laughter. [_March 9, 1748._]


THE FOLLY OF LAUGHTER.--True wit or sense never yet made anybody laugh;
they are above it; they please the mind and give a cheerfulness to the
countenance. But it is low buffoonery or silly accidents that always
excite laughter; and that is what people of sense and breeding should
show themselves above. A man’s going to sit down, in the supposition
that he has a chair behind him, and falling down upon his breech
for want of one, sets a whole company a-laughing, when all the wit
in the world would not do it; a plain proof, in my mind, how low
and unbecoming a thing laughter is. Not to mention the disagreeable
noise that it makes, and the shocking distortion of the face that it
occasions. Laughter is easily restrained by a very little reflection;
but as it is generally connected with the idea of gaiety, people do
not enough attend to its absurdity. I am neither of a melancholy nor
a cynical disposition; and am as willing and as apt to be pleased
as anybody; but I am sure that, since I have had the full use of my
reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh. [_Same date._]


THE MIND.--It requires, also, a great deal of exercise, to bring it to
a state of health and vigor. Observe the difference there is between
minds cultivated and minds uncultivated, and you will, I am sure, think
that you cannot take too much pains, nor employ too much of your time
in the culture of your own. A drayman is probably born with as good
organs as Milton, Locke, or Newton; but, by culture, they are much more
above him than he is above his horse. Sometimes, indeed, extraordinary
geniuses have broken out by the force of nature, without the assistance
of education; but those instances are too rare for anybody to trust
to; and even they would make a much greater figure if they had the
advantage of education into the bargain. [_April 1, 1748._]


SEE ALL THINGS.--At least, see everything that you can see, and know
everything that you can know of it, by asking questions. See likewise
everything at the fair, from operas and plays down to the Savoyards’
rareeshows. Everything is worth seeing once; and the more one sees, the
less one either wonders or admires. [_April 15, 1748._]


FALSEHOOD UNIVERSAL.--Falsehood and dissimulation are certainly to be
found at courts; but where are they not to be found? Cottages have them
as well as courts; only with worse manners. A couple of neighboring
farmers, in a village, will contrive and practice as many tricks to
overreach each other at the next market, or to supplant each other
in the favor of the squire, as any two courtiers can do to supplant
each other in the favor of their prince. Whatever poets may write, or
fools believe, of rural innocence and truth, and of the perfidy of
courts, this is most undoubtedly true--that shepherds and ministers are
both men; their nature and passions the same, the modes of them only
different. [_May 10, 1748._]


VULGAR SCOFFERS.--Religion is one of their favorite topics; it is all
priestcraft; and an invention contrived and carried on by priests, of
all religions, for their own power and profit; from this absurd and
false principle flow the commonplace, insipid jokes and insults upon
the clergy. With these people, every priest, of every religion, is
either a public or a concealed unbeliever, drunkard, and whoremaster;
whereas I conceive that priests are extremely like other men, and
neither the better nor the worse for wearing a gown or a surplice;
but, if they are different from other people, probably it is rather
on the side of religion and morality, or at least decency, from their
education and manner of life. [_Same date._]


WIT--FALSE AND VULGAR.--Another common topic for false wit and
cold raillery is matrimony. Every man and his wife hate each other
cordially, whatever they may pretend, in public, to the contrary. The
husband certainly wishes his wife at the devil, and the wife certainly
cuckolds her husband. Whereas I presume that men and their wives
neither love nor hate each other the more upon account of the form of
matrimony which has been said over them. The cohabitation, indeed,
which is the consequence of matrimony, makes them either love or hate
more, accordingly as they respectively deserve it; but that would be
exactly the same, between any man and woman, who lived together without
being married. [_Same date._]


SNUBBING A “WIT.”--I always put these pert jackanapeses out of
countenance, by looking extremely grave, when they expect that I should
laugh at their pleasantries; and by saying _Well, and so_; as if they
had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts
them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of
jokes to live upon. [_Same date._]


METHOD AND MANNER.--The manner of doing things is often more important
than the things themselves; and the very same thing may become either
pleasing or offensive, by the manner of saying or doing it. _Materiam
superabat opus_ is often said of works of sculpture, where though the
materials were valuable, as silver, gold, etc., the workmanship was
still more so. [_Same date._]


CHESTERFIELD’S PROPOSED AIM.--The end which I propose by your
education, and which (if you please) I shall certainly attain, is to
unite in you the knowledge of a scholar with the manners of a courtier;
and to join, what is seldom joined in any of my countrymen, books and
the world. They are commonly twenty years old before they have spoken
to anybody above their schoolmaster and the fellows of their college.
If they happen to have learning, it is only Greek and Latin; but not
one word of modern history or modern languages. Thus prepared, they
go abroad, as they call it; but, in truth, they stay at home all that
while; for being very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking
the languages, they go into no foreign company, at least none good; but
dine and sup with one another only, at the tavern. Such examples, I am
sure, you will not imitate, but even carefully avoid. [_Same date._]


GOOD COMPANY.--You will always take care to keep the best company in
the place where you are, which is the only use of travelling; and (by
the way) the pleasures of a gentleman are only to be found in the best
company; for that riot which low company, most falsely and impudently,
call pleasure, is only the sensuality of a swine. [_Same date._]


MANLY DEFERENCE TO RANK.--People of a low, obscure education cannot
stand the rays of greatness; they are frightened out of their wits when
kings and great men speak to them; they are awkward, ashamed, and do
not know what nor how to answer, whereas: _les honnêtes gens_ are not
dazzled by superior rank; they know and pay all the respect that is
due to it; but they do it without being disconcerted; and can converse
just as easily with a king as with any one of his subjects. That is the
great advantage of being introduced young into good company, and being
used early to converse with one’s superiors. How many men have I seen
here, who, after having had the full benefit of an English education,
first at school and then at the university, when they have been
presented to the king, did not know whether they stood upon their heads
or their heels. [_May 17, 1748._]


VULGARITY AND GOOD BREEDING AT COURT.--If the king spoke to them, they
were annihilated; they trembled, endeavored to put their hands in
their pockets and missed them, let their hats fall, and were ashamed
to take them up; and, in short, put themselves in every attitude but
the right, that is, the easy and natural one. The characteristic of a
well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors without insolence,
and with his superiors with respect and with ease. He talks to kings
without concern; he trifles with women of the first condition, with
familiarity, gaiety, but respect; and converses with his equals,
whether he is acquainted with them or not, upon general, common topics,
that are not, however, quite frivolous, without the least concern of
mind or awkwardness of body; neither of which can appear to advantage,
but when they are perfectly easy. [_Same date._]


FILIAL LOVE TO THE MOTHER.--You owe her not only duty, but likewise
great obligations, for her care and tenderness; and consequently cannot
take too many opportunities of showing your gratitude.[32] [_Same
date._]


CONSIDER YOUR OWN SITUATION.--You have not the advantage of rank and
fortune to bear you up; I shall, very probably, be out of the world
before you can properly be said to be in it. What then will you have to
rely on but your own merit? That alone must raise you, and that alone
will raise you, if you have but enough of it. I have often heard and
read of oppressed and unrewarded merit, but I have oftener (I might say
always) seen great merit make its way, and meet with its reward, to a
certain degree at least, in spite of all difficulties. By merit I mean
the moral virtues, knowledge, and manners; as to the moral virtues, I
say nothing to you; they speak best for themselves; nor can I suspect
that they want any recommendation with you; I will, therefore, only
assure you that, without them you will be most unhappy. [_May 27,
1748._]


DIPLOMATIC EDUCATION.--You must absolutely speak all the modern
languages, as purely and correctly as the natives of the respective
countries; for whoever does not speak a language perfectly and easily,
will never appear to advantage in conversation, nor treat with others
in it upon equal terms. As for French, you have it very well already;
and must necessarily, from the universal usage of that language, know
it better and better every day; so that I am in no pain about that.
German, I suppose, you know pretty well by this time, and will be quite
master of it before you leave Leipsic; at least I am sure you may.
Italian and Spanish will come in their turns; and, indeed, they are
both so easy, to one who knows Latin and French, that neither of them
will cost you much time or trouble. [_Same date._]


ADVANTAGES OF MANNERS.--Manners, though the last, and it may be the
least ingredient of real merit, are, however, very far from being
useless in its composition; they adorn, and give an additional force
and lustre to both virtue and knowledge. They prepare and smooth
the way for the progress of both; and are, I fear, with the bulk of
mankind, more engaging than either. Remember, then, the infinite
advantage of manners; cultivate and improve your own to the utmost;
good sense will suggest the great rules to you, good company will do
the rest. [_Same date._]


FOREIGN MINISTERS.--You are the only one I ever knew, of this country,
whose education was, from the beginning, calculated for the department
of foreign affairs; in consequence of which, if you will invariably
pursue, and diligently qualify yourself for that object, you may make
yourself absolutely necessary to the government; and, after having
received orders as a minister abroad, send orders, in your turn, as
Secretary of State at home. Most of our ministers abroad have taken
up that department occasionally, without having ever thought of
foreign affairs before--many of them, without speaking any one foreign
language; and all of them without the manners which are absolutely
necessary towards being well received and making a figure at foreign
courts. [_Same date._]


HOW TO BE CONSIDERABLE.--Upon the whole, if you have a mind to be
considerable, and to shine hereafter, you must labor hard now. No
quickness of parts, no vivacity, will do long, or go far, without a
solid fund of knowledge; and that fund of knowledge will amply repay
all the pains that you can take in acquiring it. Reflect seriously,
within yourself, upon all this, and ask yourself, whether I can have
any view, but your interest, in all that I recommend to you. [_Same
date._]


THE POPE’S POWER.--Indulgences stood instead of armies, in the times
of ignorance and bigotry; but now that mankind is better informed,
the spiritual authority of the Pope is not only less regarded, but
even despised, by the Catholic princes themselves; and his holiness is
actually little more than Bishop of Rome. [_May 31, 1748._]


PAPAL VIRTUES.--Alexander VI., together with his natural son, Cæsar
Borgia, was famous for his wickedness, in which he, and his son too,
surpassed all imagination. Their lives are well worth your reading.
They were poisoned themselves by the poisoned wine which they had
prepared for others; the father died of it, but Cæsar recovered.

Sixtus V. was the son of a swineherd, and raised himself to the popedom
by his abilities; he was a great knave, but an able and a singular one.

Here is history enough for to-day. [_Same date._]


AWKWARD SPEECH.--Good God! if this ungraceful and disagreeable manner
of speaking had, either by your negligence or mine, become habitual
to you, as in a couple of years more it would have been, what a figure
would you have made in company, or in a public assembly? Who would
have liked you in the one, or have attended to you in the other? Read
what Cicero and Quintilian say of enunciation, and see what a stress
they lay upon the gracefulness of it; nay, Cicero goes further, and
even maintains that a good figure is necessary for an orator; and,
particularly, that he must not be _vastus_; that is, overgrown and
clumsy. He shows by it that he knew mankind well, and knew the powers
of an agreeable figure and a graceful manner. [_June 21, 1748._]


ENUNCIATION--ELOQUENCE.--Your figure is a good one; you have no natural
defect in the organs of speech; your address may be engaging, and your
manner of speaking graceful, if you will; so that, if they are not
so, neither I nor the world can ascribe it to any thing but your want
of parts. What is the constant and just observation as to all actors
upon the stage? Is it not, that those who have the best sense always
speak the best, though they may happen not to have the best voices?
They will speak plainly, distinctly, and with the proper emphasis,
be their voices ever so bad. Had Roscius spoken _quick_, _thick_,
and _ungracefully_, I will answer for it that Cicero would not have
thought him worth the oration which he made in his favor. Words were
given us to communicate our ideas by; and there must be something
inconceivably absurd in uttering them in such a manner as that either
people cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them. I
tell you truly and sincerely that I shall judge of your parts by your
speaking gracefully or ungracefully. If you have parts, you will never
be at rest till you have brought yourself to a habit of speaking most
gracefully; for I aver that it is in your power. [_Same date._]


ARTICULATION.--You will take care to open your teeth when you speak; to
articulate every word distinctly; and to beg of Mr. Harte, Mr. Eliot,
or whomever you speak to, to remind and stop you, if ever you fall
into the rapid and unintelligible mutter. You will even read aloud to
yourself, and tune your utterance to your own ear; and read at first
much slower than you need to do, in order to correct yourself of that
shameful trick of speaking faster than you ought.


PROPER CARRIAGE.--Next to graceful speaking, a genteel carriage and a
graceful manner of presenting yourself are extremely necessary, for
they are extremely engaging; and carelessness in these points is much
more unpardonable in a young fellow than affectation. It shows an
offensive indifference about pleasing. I am told by one here, who has
seen you lately, that you are awkward in your motions, and negligent
of your person. I am sorry for both; and so will you, when it will be
too late, if you continue so some time longer. Awkwardness of carriage
is very alienating, and a total negligence of dress and air is an
impertinent insult upon custom and fashion. [_Same date._]


DESERT AND REWARD.--Deserve a great deal, and you shall have a great
deal; deserve little, and you shall have but a little; and be good for
nothing at all, and I assure you, you shall have nothing at all.

Solid knowledge, as I have often told you, is the first and great
foundation of your future fortune and character; for I never mention
to you the two much greater points of religion and morality, because I
cannot possibly suspect you as to either of them. [_July 1, 1748._]


NO ONE CONTEMPTIBLE.--Be convinced that there are no persons so
insignificant and inconsiderable, but may some time or other, and in
something or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which
they certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. [_Same
date._]


THE FOLLY OF CONTEMPT.--Wrongs are often given, but contempt never is.
Our pride remembers it forever. It implies a discovery of weaknesses,
which we are much more careful to conceal than crimes. Many a man will
confess his crimes to a common friend, but I never knew a man who would
tell his silly weaknesses to his most intimate one. As many a friend
will tell us our faults without reserve, who will not so much as hint
at our follies; that discovery is too mortifying to our self-love,
either to tell another, or to be told of, one’s self. You must,
therefore, never expect to hear of your weaknesses, or your follies,
from anybody but me; those I will take pains to discover, and whenever
I do, I shall tell you of them. [_Same date._]


GOOD NATURE.--Your school-fellow, Lord Pulteney, set out last week for
Holland, and will, I believe, be at Leipsic soon after this letter.
You will take care to be extremely civil to him, and to do him any
service that you can, while you stay there; let him know that I wrote
you to do so. As being older, he should know more than you; in that
case, take pains to get up to him; but if he does not, take care not
to let him feel his inferiority. He will find it out of himself,
without your endeavors; and that cannot be helped; but nothing is more
insulting, more mortifying, and less forgiven, than avowedly to take
pains to make a man feel a mortifying inferiority in knowledge, rank,
fortune, etc. In the two last articles it is unjust, they not being in
his power; and in the first it is both ill-bred and ill-natured. Good
breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people
up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our
own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many
friends, instead of so many enemies. [_July 6, 1748._]


LES ATTENTIONS.--The constant practice of what the French call _les
attentions_ is a most necessary ingredient in the art of pleasing; they
flatter the self-love of those to whom they are shown; they engage,
they captivate, more than things of much greater importance. The duties
of social life every man is obliged to discharge; but these attentions
are voluntary acts, the free-will offerings of good breeding and good
nature; they are received, remembered, and returned as such. Women,
particularly, have a right to them; and any omission in that respect is
downright ill breeding. [_Same date._]


AN EDUCATIONAL TEST.--Tell me what Greek and Latin books you can now
read with ease. Can you open Demosthenes at a venture, and understand
him? Can you get through an oration of Cicero, or a satire of Horace,
without difficulty? What German book do you read to make yourself
master of that language? And what French books do you read for your
amusement? Pray give me a particular and true account of all this; for
I am not indifferent as to any one thing that relates to you. [_Same
date._]


LAZY MINDS.--There are two sorts of understandings; one of which
hinders a man from ever being considerable, and the other commonly
makes him ridiculous; I mean the lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous
mind. Yours, I hope, is neither. The lazy mind will not take the
trouble of going to the bottom of anything; but, discouraged by the
difficulties (and everything worth knowing or having is attended with
some), stops short, contents itself with easy and, consequently,
superficial knowledge, and prefers a great degree of ignorance to
a small degree of trouble. These people either think or represent
most things as impossible; whereas few things are so to industry and
activity. [_July 26, 1748._]


RESOLUTION.--But difficulties seem to them (lazy people)
impossibilities, or at least they pretend to think them so, by way of
excuse for their laziness. An hour’s attention to the same object is
too laborious for them; they take everything in the light in which it
first presents itself, never considering it in all its different views;
and, in short, never think it thorough. The consequence of this is,
that when they come to speak upon these subjects before people who have
considered them with attention, they only discover their own ignorance
and laziness, and lay themselves open to answers that put them in
confusion. Do not then be discouraged by the first difficulties, but
_contra audentior ito_; and resolve to go to the bottom of all those
things which every gentleman ought to know well. [_Same date._]


CONVERSATION.--When you are in company, bring the conversation to some
useful subject, but _à portée_ of that company. Points of history,
matters of literature, the customs of particular countries, the several
orders of knighthood, as Teutonic, Maltese, etc., are surely better
subjects of conversation than the weather, dress, or fiddle-faddle
stories, that carry no information along with them. The characters of
kings and great men are only to be learned in conversation; for they
are never fairly written during their lives. [_Same date._]


ALWAYS ASK.--Never be ashamed nor afraid of asking questions; for if
they lead to information, and if you accompany them with some excuse,
you will never be reckoned an impertinent or rude questioner. All those
things, in the common course of life, depend entirely upon the manner;
and in that respect the vulgar saying is true, “That one man may better
steal a horse, than another look over the hedge.” [_Same date._]


TWO HEADS.--I am very glad that Mr. Lyttelton approves of my new house,
and particularly of my _Canonical_[33] pillars. My bust of Cicero is a
very fine one, and well preserved; it will have the best place in my
library, unless, at your return, you bring me over as good a modern
head of your own, which I should like still better. I can tell you that
I shall examine it as attentively as ever antiquary did an old one.
[_Same date._]


A PICTURE.--Duval, the jeweler, is arrived, and was with me three or
four days ago. You will easily imagine that I asked him a few questions
concerning you; and I will give you the satisfaction of knowing that,
upon the whole, I was very well pleased with the account he gave me.
But, though he seemed to be much in your interest, yet he fairly
owned to me that your utterance was rapid, thick, and ungraceful. I
can add nothing to what I have already said upon this subject; but I
can and do repeat the absolute necessity of speaking distinctly and
gracefully.[34] [_Aug. 2, 1748._]


DIET.--He tells me that you are pretty fat for one of your age; this
you should attend to in a proper way; for if, while very young, you
should grow fat, it would be troublesome, unwholesome, and ungraceful;
you should therefore, when you have time, take very strong exercise,
and in your diet avoid fattening things. All malt liquors fatten, or at
least bloat; and I hope you do not deal much in them. [_Same date._]


BE NATURAL.--I have this moment received your letter of the 4th, N.
S., and have only time to tell you, that I can by no means agree to
your cutting off your hair. I am very sure that your headaches cannot
proceed from thence. And as for the pimples upon your head, they are
only owing to the heat of the season; and consequently will not last
long. But your own hair is, at your age, such an ornament, and a wig,
however well made, such a disguise, that I will upon no account
whatsoever have you cut off your hair. Nature did not give it you for
nothing, still less to cause you the headache. Mr. Eliot’s hair grew so
ill and bushy, that he was in the right to cut it off; but you have not
the same reason. [_Same date._]


BUYING BOOKS.--Mr. Harte wrote me word some time ago, and Mr. Eliot
confirms it now, that you employ your pin-money in a very different
manner from that in which pin-money[35] is commonly lavished. Not in
gewgaws and baubles, but in buying good and useful books. This is an
excellent symptom, and gives me very good hopes. Go on thus, my dear
boy, but for these two next years, and I ask no more. You must then
make such a figure, and such a fortune in the world, as I wish you, and
as I have taken all these pains to enable you to do. After that time, I
allow you to be as idle as ever you please; because I am sure that you
will not then please to be so at all. The ignorant and the weak only
are idle; but those, who have once acquired a good stock of knowledge,
always desire to increase it. Knowledge is like power, in this respect,
that those who have the most, are most desirous of having more. It does
not clog, by possession, but increases desires; which is the case of
very few pleasures. [_Aug. 23, 1748._]


GRATITUDE TO A TUTOR.--Upon receiving this congratulatory letter,
and reading your own praises, I am sure that it must naturally occur
to you, how great a share of them you owe to Mr. Harte’s care and
attention; and, consequently, that your regard and affection for him
must increase, if there be room for it, in proportion as you reap,
which you do daily, the fruits of his labors. [_Same date._]


HISTORICAL FAITH.--Take nothing for granted, upon the bare authority of
the author; but weigh and consider, in your own mind, the probability
of the facts, and the justness of the reflections. Consult different
authors upon the same facts, and form your opinion upon the greater or
lesser degree of probability arising from the whole, which, in my mind,
is the utmost stretch of historical faith, certainty (I fear) not being
to be found. [_Aug. 30, 1748._]


GOOD AND BAD MIXED.--The best have something bad, and something little;
the worst have something good, and sometimes something great; for I do
not believe what Valleius Paterculus (for the sake of saying a pretty
thing) says of Scipio, “Qui nihil non laudandum aut fecit, aut dixit,
aut sensit.” [_Same date._]


THE RULING PASSION.--Seek for their particular merit, their predominant
passion, or their prevailing weakness, and you will then know what to
bait your hook with, to catch them. Man is a composition of so many
and such various ingredients, that it requires both time and care to
analyze him: for though we have, all, the same ingredients in our
general composition, as reason, will, passions, and appetites, yet the
different proportions and combinations of them, in each individual,
produce that infinite variety of characters, which, in some particular
or other, distinguishes every individual from another. Reason ought to
direct the whole, but seldom does. [_Sept. 5, 1748._]


BRUYÈRE AND ROCHEFOUCAULT.--I will recommend to your attentive perusal,
now you are going into the world, two books, which will let you as much
into the characters of men as books can do. I mean “Les Réflexions
Morales de Monsieur de la Rochefoucault,” and “Les Caractères de la
Bruyère”: but remember, at the same time, that I only recommend them to
you as the best general maps, to assist you in your journey, and not as
marking out every particular turning and winding that you will meet
with. There, your own sagacity and observation must come to their aid.
La Rochefoucault is, I know, blamed, but I think without reason, for
deriving all our actions from the source of self-love. For my own part,
I see a great deal of truth, and no harm at all, in that opinion.

The reflection which is the most censured in Monsieur de la
Rochefoucault’s book, as a very ill-natured one, is this: “On trouve
dans le malheur de son meilleur ami, quelque chose qui ne déplaît pas.”
And why not? Why may I not feel a very tender and real concern for
the misfortune of my friend, and yet at the same time feel a pleasing
consciousness at having discharged my duty to him, by comforting and
assisting him to the utmost of my power in that misfortune? Give me but
virtuous actions, and I will not quibble and chicane about the motives.
And I will give anybody their choice of these two truths, which amount
to the same thing: He who loves himself best is the honestest man; or,
The honestest man loves himself best. [_Same date._]


WOMAN.--As women are a considerable, or at least a pretty numerous part
of company, and as their suffrages go a great way toward establishing
a man’s character, in the fashionable part of the world (which is of
great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it),
it is necessary to please them. I will, therefore, upon this subject,
let you into certain _arcana_ that will be very useful for you to know,
but which you must, with the utmost care, conceal; and never seem to
know. Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have
an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit; but for solid, reasoning
good sense, I never in my life knew one that had it, or who reasoned
or acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together. Some
little passion or humor always breaks in upon their best resolutions.
Their beauty neglected or controverted, their age increased, or their
supposed understandings depreciated, instantly kindles their little
passions, and overturns any system of consequential conduct, that in
their most reasonable moments they might have been capable of forming.
A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and
flatters them, as he does with a sprightly, forward child; but he
neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters;
though he often makes them believe that he does both, which is the
thing in the world that they are proud of, for they love mightily to be
dabbling in business (which, by the way, they always spoil); and being
justly distrustful, that men in general look upon them in a trifling
light, they almost adore that man who talks more seriously to them, and
who seems to consult and trust them--I say, who seems--for weak men
really do, but wise ones only seem to do it. No flattery is either too
high or too low for them. They will greedily swallow the highest, and
gracefully accept of the lowest; and you may safely flatter any woman,
from her understanding down to the exquisite taste of her fan. Women,
who are either indisputably beautiful or indisputably ugly, are best
flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in
a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least
their graces, for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself
handsome, but not hearing often that she is so, is the more grateful
and the more obliged to the few who tell her so; whereas a decided and
conscious beauty looks upon every tribute paid to her beauty only as
her due, but wants to shine, and to be considered on the side of her
understanding; and a woman, who is ugly enough to know that she is so,
knows that she has nothing left for it but her understanding, which is
consequently, (and probably in more senses than one) her weak side. But
these are secrets which you must keep inviolably, if you would not,
like Orpheus, be torn to pieces by the whole sex. On the contrary, a
man who thinks of living in the great world must be gallant, polite,
and attentive to please the women. They have from the weakness of men,
more or less influence in all courts; they absolutely stamp every man’s
character in the _beau monde_, and make it either current, or cry it
down, and stop it in payments. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary
to manage, please, and flatter them; and never to discover the least
marks of contempt, which is what they never forgive; but in this they
are not singular, for it is the same with men; who will much sooner
forgive an injustice than an insult. [_Same date_.]


CONTEMPT.--Every man is not ambitious, or covetous, or passionate;
but every man has pride enough in his composition to feel and resent
the least slight and contempt. Remember, therefore, most carefully to
conceal your contempt, however just, wherever you would not make an
implacable enemy. Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses
and their imperfections known, than their crimes; and, if you hint to
a man that you think him silly, ignorant or even ill-bred or awkward,
he will hate you more and longer than if you tell him, plainly, that
you think him a rogue. Never yield to that temptation, which, to most
young men, is very strong, of exposing other people’s weaknesses
and infirmities, for the sake either of diverting the company, or of
showing your own superiority. You may get the laugh on your side by
it, for the present; but you will make enemies by it for ever; and
even those who laugh with you then, will, upon reflection, fear, and
consequently hate you; besides that, it is ill-natured; and a good
heart desires rather to conceal, than expose, other people’s weaknesses
or misfortunes. If you have wit, use it to please, and not to hurt; you
may shine, like the sun in the temperate zones, without scorching. Here
it is wished for; under the line it is dreaded. [_Same date._]


CALIGULA.--Another very just observation of the Cardinal’s[36] is, that
the things which happen in our own times, and which we see ourselves,
do not surprise us near so much as the things which we read of in times
past, though not in the least more extraordinary; and adds that he is
persuaded that, when Caligula made his horse a consul, the people of
Rome at that time were not greatly surprised at it, having necessarily
been in some degree prepared for it, by an insensible gradation of
extravagancies from the same quarter. [_Sept. 13, 1748._]


ANTIQUITY IS STRANGE.--We read every day, with astonishment, things
which we see every day without surprise. We wonder at the intrepidity
of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and are not the least surprised
to hear of a sea captain who has blown up his ship, his crew, and
himself, that they might not fall into the hands of the enemies of his
country. I cannot help reading of Porsenna and Regulus with surprise
and reverence; and yet I remember that I saw, without either, the
execution of Shepherd, a boy of eighteen years old, who intended to
shoot the late king, and who would have been pardoned if he would
have expressed the least sorrow for his intended crime; but, on the
contrary, he declared, that, if he was pardoned, he would attempt it
again; that he thought it a duty which he owed his country; and that he
died with pleasure for having endeavored to perform it. Reason equals
Shepherd to Regulus; but prejudice, and the recency of the fact, make
Shepherd a common malefactor, and Regulus a hero. [_Same date._]


SECRETS.--The last observation that I shall now mention of the
Cardinal’s is, “That a secret is more easily kept by a good many people
than one commonly imagines.” By this he means a secret of importance
among people interested in the keeping of it. And it is certain that
people of business know the importance of secrecy, and will observe
it where they are concerned in the event. To go and tell any friend,
wife, or mistress, any secret with which they have nothing to do, is
discovering to them such an unretentive weakness as must convince them
that you will tell it to twenty others, and consequently that they may
reveal it without the risk of being discovered. But a secret properly
communicated only to those who are to be concerned in the thing in
question, will probably be kept by them, though they should be a good
many. Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally
kept. Adieu. [_Same date._]


TRIFLES.--How trifling soever these things may seem, or really be, in
themselves, they are no longer so, when above half the world thinks
them otherwise. And, as I would have you _omnibus ornatum--excellere
rebus_, I think nothing above or below my pointing out to you, or your
excelling in. You have the means of doing it, and time before you to
make use of them. Take my word for it, I ask nothing now but what you
will, twenty years hence, most heartily wish that you had done. [_Sept.
20, 1748._]

THE PEDANT AND THE SCHOLAR.--A gentleman has, probably, read no other
Latin than that of the Augustan age; and therefore can write no
other; whereas the pedant has read much more bad Latin than good; and
consequently writes so too. He looks upon the best classical books
as books for schoolboys, and consequently below him, but pores over
fragments of obscure authors, treasures up the obsolete words which he
meets with there, and uses them upon all occasions, to show his reading
at the expense of his judgment. Plautus is his favorite author, not
for the sake of the wit and the _vis comica_ of his comedies; but upon
account of the many obsolete words and the cant of low characters,
which are to be met with nowhere else. He will rather use _olli_ than
_illi_, _optumè_ than _optimè_, and any bad word, rather than any good
one, provided he can but prove that, strictly speaking, it is Latin;
that is, that it was written by a Roman. [_Sept. 27, 1748._]

A DETESTABLE DOCTRINE.--I must now say something as to the matter of
the lecture; in which I confess there is one doctrine laid down that
surprises me; it is this: “Quum vero hostis sit lenta citave morte
omnia dira nobis minitans quocunque bellantibus negotium est, parum
sane interfuerit quo modo eum obruere et interficere satagamus si
ferociam exuere cunctetur. Ergo veneno quoque uti fas est,” etc.,
whereas I cannot conceive that the use of poison can, upon any
account, come within the lawful means of self-defence. Force may,
without doubt, be justly repelled by force; but not by treachery and
fraud; for I do not call the stratagems of war, such as ambuscades,
masked batteries, false attacks, etc., frauds or treachery; they are
mutually to be expected and guarded against; but poisoned arrows,
poisoned waters, or poison administered to your enemy (which can only
be done by treachery), I have always heard, read, and thought to be
unlawful and infamous means of defence, be your danger ever so great;
but, _si ferociam exuere cunctetur_; must I rather die than poison
this enemy? Yes, certainly, much rather die than do a base or criminal
action; nor can I be sure, beforehand, that this enemy may not in the
last moment _ferociam exuere_. But the public lawyers now seem to me
rather to warp the law, in order to authorize than to check those
unlawful proceedings of princes and states; which, by being become
common, appear less criminal; though custom can never alter the nature
of good and ill.

Pray let no quibbles of lawyers, no refinements of casuists break into
the plain notions of right and wrong which every man’s right reason and
plain common sense suggest to him. To do as you would be done by is
the plain, sure, and undisputed rule of morality and justice. Stick
to that; and be convinced that whatever breaks into it, in any degree,
however speciously it may be turned, and however puzzling it may be to
answer it, is, notwithstanding, false in itself, unjust, and criminal.
I do not know a crime in the world which is not, by the casuists among
the Jesuits (especially the twenty-four collected, I think, by Escobar)
allowed in some, or many cases, not to be criminal. The principles
first laid down by them are often specious, the reasonings plausible;
but the conclusion always a lie; for it is contrary to that evident
and undeniable rule of justice which I have mentioned above, of not
doing to any one what you would not have him do to you. But, however,
these refined pieces of casuistry and sophistry being very convenient
and welcome to people’s passions and appetites, they gladly accept the
indulgence without desiring to detect the fallacy of the reasoning;
and indeed many, I might say most people, are not able to do it; which
makes the publication of such quibblings and refinements the more
pernicious. I am no skilful casuist nor subtle disputant; and yet I
would undertake to justify and qualify the profession of a highwayman
step by step, and so plausibly as to make many ignorant people embrace
the profession as an innocent, if not even a laudable one; and to
puzzle people of some degree of knowledge to answer me point by point.
I have seen a book entitled “Quidlibet ex Quolibet,” or the art of
making any thing out of any thing; which is not so difficult as it
would seem, if once one quits certain plain truths, obvious in growth
to every understanding, in order to run after the ingenious refinements
of warm imaginations and speculative reasonings. Doctor Berkeley,
Bishop of Cloyne, a very worthy, ingenious, and learned man, has
written a book to prove that there is no such thing as matter, and that
nothing exists but in idea; that you and I only fancy ourselves eating,
drinking, and sleeping; you at Leipsic, and I at London; that we think
we have flesh and blood, legs, arms, etc., but that we are only spirit.
His arguments are, strictly speaking, unanswerable; but yet I am so far
from being convinced by them that I am determined to go on to eat and
drink, and walk and ride, in order to keep that _matter_, which I so
mistakenly imagine my body at present to consist of, in as good plight
as possible. Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the
best sense I know of; abide by it; it will counsel you best. Read and
hear for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions, subtlely
agitated, with all the refinements that warm imaginations suggest; but
consider them only as exercitations for the mind, and return always to
settle with common sense. [_Same date._]

LETTERS.--Your letters, except when upon a given subject, are
exceedingly laconic, and neither answer my desires, nor the purpose
of letters; which should be familiar conversations, between absent
friends. As I desire to live with you upon the footing of an intimate
friend, and not of a parent, I could wish that your letters gave me
more particular accounts of yourself, and of your lesser transactions.
When you write to me, suppose yourself conversing freely with me, by
the fireside. In that case, you would naturally mention the incidents
of the day; as where you had been, whom you had seen, what you thought
of them, etc. Do this in your letters; acquaint me sometimes with your
studies, sometimes with your diversions; tell me of any new persons and
characters that you meet with in company, and add your own observations
upon them; in short, let me see more of you, in your letters. [_Same
date._]

GOOD COMPANY.--To keep good company, especially at your first setting
out, is the way to receive good impressions. If you ask me what I mean
by good company, I will confess to you that it is pretty difficult to
define; but I will endeavor to make you understand it as well as I can.

Good company is not what respective sets of company are pleased
either to call or think themselves; but it is that company which all
the people of the place call, and acknowledge to be good company,
notwithstanding some objections which they may form to some of the
individuals who compose it. It consists chiefly (but by no means
without exception) of people of considerable birth, rank, and
character: for people of neither birth nor rank are frequently and
very justly admitted into it, if distinguished by any peculiar merit,
or eminency in any liberal art or science. Nay, so motley a thing is
good company, that many people without birth, rank, or merit, intrude
into it by their own forwardness; and others slide into it by the
protection of some considerable person; and some even of indifferent
characters and morals make part of it. But, in the main, the good part
preponderates, and people of infamous and blasted characters are never
admitted. In this fashionable good company the best manners and the
best language of the place are most unquestionably to be learnt; for
they establish and give the tone to both, which are therefore called
the language and manners of good company; there being no legal tribunal
to ascertain either.

A company consisting wholly of people of the first quality cannot,
for that reason, be called good company, in the common acceptation of
the phrase, unless they are, into the bargain, the fashionable and
accredited company of the place; for people of the very first quality
can be as silly, as ill-bred, and as worthless, as people of the
meanest degree. On the other hand, a company consisting entirely of
people of very low condition, whatever their merits or parts may be,
can never be called good company; and consequently, should not be much
frequented, though by no means despised.

A company wholly composed of men of learning, though greatly to be
valued and respected, is not meant by the words _good company_: they
cannot have the easy manners and _tournure_ of the world, as they do
not live in it. If you can bear your part well in such a company, it
is extremely right to be in it sometimes, and you will be but more
esteemed, in other companies, for having a place in that. But then do
not let it engross you; for if you do, you will be only considered as
one of the _litterati_ by profession; which is not the way either to
shine or rise in the world.

The company of professed wits and poets is extremely inviting to most
young men; who, if they have wit themselves, are pleased with it, and
if they have none, are sillily proud of being one of it: but it should
be frequented with moderation and judgment, and you should by no means
give yourself up to it. A wit is a very unpopular denomination, as it
carries terror along with it; and people in general are as much afraid
of a live wit, in company, as a woman is of a gun, which she thinks
may go off of itself, and do her a mischief. Their acquaintance is,
however, worth seeking, and their company worth frequenting; but not
exclusively of others, nor to such a degree as to be considered only as
one of that particular set.

But the company, which of all others you should most carefully avoid,
is that low company, which in every sense of the word, is low indeed;
low in rank, low in parts, low in manners, and low in merit [_Oct. 12,
1748._]

ASSOCIATES.--There is good sense in the Spanish saying, “Tell me whom
you live with, and I will tell you who you are.” Make it therefore your
business, wherever you are, to get into that company which everybody
of the place allows to be the best company, next to their own: which
is the best definition that I can give you of good company. But here,
too, one caution is very necessary; for want of which many young men
have been ruined, even in good company. Good company (as I have
before observed) is composed of a great variety of fashionable people,
whose characters and morals are very different, though their manners
are pretty much the same. When a young man, now in the world, first
gets into that company, he very rightly determines to conform to and
imitate it. But then he too often, and fatally, mistakes the objects
of his imitation. He has often heard that absurd term of genteel and
fashionable vices. [_Same date._]


BEHAVIOR.--Imitate, then, with discernment and judgment, the real
perfections of the good company into which you may get; copy their
politeness, their carriage, their address, and the easy and well-bred
turn of their conversation; but remember that, let them shine ever so
bright, their vices, if they have any, are so many spots which you
would no more imitate than you would make an artificial wart upon your
face, because some very handsome man had the misfortune to have a
natural one upon his; but, on the contrary, think how much handsomer he
would have been without it. [_Same date._]


TALKING.--Talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not
please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own
reckoning, but do not treat the whole company; this being one of the
very few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one
being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.

Tell stories seldom, and absolutely never but where they are very apt
and very short. Omit every circumstance that is not material, and
beware of digressions. To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays
great want of imagination.

Never hold anybody by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out;
for if people are not willing to hear you, you had much better hold
your tongue than them.

Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man in company
(commonly him whom they observe to be the most silent, or their next
neighbor) to whisper, or at least, in a half voice, to convey a
continuity of words to. This is excessively ill-bred, and, in some
degree, a fraud; conversation stock being a joint and common property.
But, on the other hand, if one of these unmerciful talkers lays hold
of you, hear him with patience (and at least seeming attention) if he
is worth obliging; for nothing will oblige him more than a patient
hearing, as nothing would hurt him more than either to leave him in
the midst of his discourse or to discover your impatience under your
affliction.

Take rather than give the tone of the company you are in. If you have
parts you will show them more or less upon every subject; and if you
have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people’s
than of your own choosing.

Avoid as much as you can in mixed companies, argumentative, polemical
conversations; which, though they should not, yet certainly do,
indispose, for a time, the contending parties towards each other; and
if the controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavor to put an end to it
by some genteel levity or joke. I quieted such a conversation hubbub
once by presenting to them that, though I was persuaded none there
present would repeat out of company what passed in it, yet I could not
answer for the discretion of the passengers in the street, who must
necessarily hear all that was said.

Above all things, and upon all occasions, avoid speaking of yourself if
it be possible. Such is the natural pride and vanity of our hearts that
it perpetually breaks out, even in people of the best parts, in all the
various modes and figures of the egotism. [_Oct. 19, 1748._]


SILLY VANITY.--This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human
nature that it descends even to the lowest objects; and one often sees
people angling for praise, where, admitting all they say to be true
(which, by the way, it seldom is), no just praise is to be caught.
One man affirms that he has rode post a hundred miles in six hours;
probably it is a lie; but supposing it to be true, what then? Why, he
is a very good postboy, that is all. Another asserts, and probably not
without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a
sitting; out of charity I will believe him a liar; for if I do not, I
must think him a beast. [_Same date._]


YOURSELF.--The only sure way of avoiding these evils is never to speak
of yourself at all. But when historically you are obliged to mention
yourself, take care not to drop one single word that can directly or
indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be your character
what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own
word. Never imagine that anything you can say yourself will varnish
your defects or add lustre to your perfections; but on the contrary,
it may, and nine times in ten will, make the former more glaring and
the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, neither
envy, indignation, nor ridicule will obstruct or allay the applause
which you may really deserve; but if you publish your own panegyric
upon any occasion or in any shape whatsoever, and however artfully
dressed or disguised, they will all conspire against you, and you will
be disappointed of the very end you aim at. [_Same date._]


SCANDAL--MIMICRY--SWEARING--LAUGHTER.--Neither retail nor receive
scandal willingly; for though the defamation of others may for the
present gratify the malignity of the pride of our hearts, cool
reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a
disposition; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the
receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.

Mimicry, which is the common and favorite amusement of little, low
minds, is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest
and most illiberal of all buffoonery. Pray neither practise it
yourself, nor applaud it in others. Besides that, the person mimicked
is insulted; and as I have often observed to you before, an insult is
never forgiven.

I need not (I believe) advise you to adapt your conversation to the
people you are conversing with; for I suppose you would not, without
this caution, have talked upon the same subject and in the same manner
to a minister of state, a bishop, a philosopher, a captain, and a
woman. A man of the world must, like the chameleon (_sic_), be able to
take every different hue; which is by no means a criminal or abject,
but a necessary complaisance, for it relates only to manners, and not
to morals.

One word only as to swearing; and that I hope and believe is more
than is necessary. You may sometimes hear some people in good company
interlard their discourse with oaths by way of embellishment, as they
think; but you must observe, too, that those who do so are never those
who contribute in any degree to give that company the denomination of
good company. They are always subalterns or people of low education;
for that practice, besides that it has no one temptation to plead, is
as silly and as illiberal as it is wicked.

Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly
things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the
creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore only
seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.

But to conclude this long letter; all the above-mentioned rules,
however carefully you may observe them, will lose half their effect
if unaccompanied by the Graces. Whatever you say, if you say it with
a supercilious, cynical face, or an embarrassed countenance, or a
silly, disconcerted grin, will be ill received. If, into the bargain,
_you mutter it, or utter it indistinctly and ungracefully_, it will be
still worse received. If your air and address are vulgar, awkward,
and _gauche_, you may be esteemed indeed, if you have great intrinsic
merit; but you will never please, and, without pleasing, you will rise
but heavily. Venus, among the ancients, was synonymous with the Graces,
who were always supposed to accompany her; and Horace tells us that
even Youth and Mercury, the god of arts and eloquence, would not do
without her.

  “--Parùm comis _sine te Juventas,
                Mercuriusque_.”

They are not inexorable ladies, and may be had if properly and
diligently pursued. Adieu. [_Same date._]


THE DUTY OF A MENTOR.--I have long since done mentioning your great
religious and moral duties; because I could not make your understanding
so bad a compliment, as to suppose that you wanted, or could receive,
any new instructions upon those two important points. Mr. Harte, I am
sure, has not neglected them; besides, they are so obvious to common
sense and reason, that commentators may (as they often do) perplex, but
cannot make them clearer. My province, therefore, is to supply, by my
experience, your, hitherto, inevitable inexperience in the ways of the
world. People at your age are in a state of natural ebriety; and want
rails, and _gardefous_, wherever they go, to hinder them from breaking
their necks. This drunkenness of youth is not only tolerated, but even
pleases, if kept within certain bounds of discretion and decency. Those
bounds are the point which it is difficult for the drunken man himself
to find out; and there it is that the experience of a friend may not
only serve but save him.

Carry with you, and welcome, into company, all the gaiety and spirits,
but as little of the giddiness, of youth as you can. The former will
charm; but the latter will often, though innocently, implacably offend.
Inform yourself of the characters and situations of the company, before
you give way to what your imagination may prompt you to say. There are,
in all companies, more wrong heads than right ones, and many more who
deserve than who like censure. [_Oct. 29, 1748._]


EGOTISM.--Cautiously avoid talking of either your own or other people’s
domestic affairs.[37] Yours are nothing to them, but tedious; theirs
are nothing to you. The subject is a tender one; and it is odds but
you touch somebody or other’s sore place; for, in this case, there is
no trusting to specious appearances; which may be, and often are, so
contrary to the real situation of things, between men and their wives,
parents and their children, seeming friends, etc., that, with the best
intentions in the world, one often blunders disagreeably.

Remember, that the wit, humor, and jokes of most mixed companies are
local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear
transplanting. Every company is differently circumstanced, has its
particular cant, and jargon; which may give occasion to wit and mirth,
within that circle, but would seem flat and insipid in any other, and
therefore will not bear repeating. [_Same date._]


GOOD FELLOWS.--You will find, in most good company, some people who
only keep their place there by a contemptible title enough; these
are what we call _very good-natured fellows_, and the French _bons
diables_. The truth is, they are people without any parts or fancy, and
who, having no will of their own, readily assent to, concur in, and
applaud, whatever is said or done in the company; and adopt, with the
same alacrity, the most virtuous or the most criminal, the wisest or
the silliest scheme, that happens to be entertained by the majority of
the company. This foolish, and often criminal, complaisance flows from
a foolish cause; the want of any other merit. I hope you will hold your
place in company by a nobler tenure, and that you will hold it (you
can bear a quibble, I believe, yet) _in capite_. Have a will and an
opinion of your own, and adhere to them steadily; but then do it with
good humor, good breeding, and (if you have it) with urbanity; for you
have not yet beard enough either to preach or censure. [_Same date._]


THE FINE GENTLEMAN.--What the French justly call _les manières
nobles_, are only to be acquired in the very best companies. They
are the distinguishing characteristics of men of fashion: people of
low education never wear them so close, but that some part or other
of the original vulgarism appears. _Les manières nobles_ equally
forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy. Low people, in
good circumstances, fine clothes, and equipage, will insolently show
contempt for all those who cannot afford as fine clothes, as good an
equipage, and who have not (as they term it) as much money in their
pockets: on the other hand, they are gnawed with envy, and cannot help
discovering it, of those who surpass them in any of these articles;
which are far from being sure criterions of merit. They are, likewise,
jealous of being slighted; and, consequently, suspicious and captious:
they are eager and hot about trifles; because trifles were, at first,
their affairs of consequence. _Les manières nobles_ imply exactly
the reverse of all this. Study them early; you cannot make them too
habitual and familiar to you. [_Same date._]

I like the description of your _pic-nic_;[38] where, I take it for
granted, that your cards are only to break the formality of a circle,
and your symposium intended more to promote conversation than drinking.
Such an _amicable collision_, as Lord Shaftesbury very prettily calls
it, rubs off and smooths those rough corners, which mere nature has
given to the smoothest of us. I hope some part, at least, of the
conversation is in German. [_Same date._]


THE GRACES.--I send you Mr. Locke’s book upon education, in which you
will find the stress he lays upon the graces, which he calls (and very
truly) good breeding. I have marked all the parts of that book which
are worth your attention; for as he begins with the child, almost from
its birth, the parts relative to its infancy would be useless to you.
Germany is, still less than England, the seat of the graces; however
you had as good not to say so while you are there. [_Nov. 18, 1748._]


THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.--Of all the men that ever I knew in my life
(and I knew him extremely well), the late Duke of Marlborough possessed
the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them; and indeed
he got the most by them; for I will venture (contrary to the custom of
profound historians, who always assign deep causes for great events)
to ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough’s greatness and
riches to those graces. He was eminently illiterate; wrote bad English,
and spelled it still worse. He had no share of what is commonly called
_parts_; that is, he had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius.
He had, most undoubtedly, an excellent good plain understanding, with
sound judgment. But these alone would probably have raised him but
something higher than they found him; which was page to King James
the Second’s Queen. There the graces protected and promoted him; for,
while he was an ensign of the Guards, the Duchess of Cleveland, then
favorite mistress to King Charles the Second, struck by those very
graces, gave him five thousand pounds, with which he immediately
bought an annuity for his life, of five hundred pounds a year, of
my grandfather, Halifax, which was the foundation of his subsequent
fortune. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible,
to either man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner
that he was enabled, during all his war, to connect the various and
jarring powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main
object of the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views,
jealousies, and wrongheadedness. Whatever court he went to (and he
was often obliged to go himself to some testy and refractory ones),
he as constantly prevailed, and brought them into his measures. The
Pensionary Heinsius, a venerable old minister, grown gray in business,
and who had governed the Republic of the United Provinces for more than
forty years, was absolutely governed by the Duke of Marlborough, as
that republic feels to this day. He was always cool; and nobody ever
observed the least variation in his countenance; he could refuse more
gracefully than other people could grant; and those who went away from
him the most dissatisfied, as to the substance of their business, were
yet personally charmed with him, and, in some degree, comforted by his
manner. With all his gentleness and gracefulness, no man living was
more conscious of his situation, nor maintained his dignity better.
[_Same date._]


A FATHER’S ANXIETY.--This subject is inexhaustible, as it extends to
everything that is to be said or done; but I will leave it for the
present, as this letter is already pretty long. Such is my desire, my
anxiety for your perfection, that I never think I have said enough,
though you may possibly think I have said too much; and though, in
truth, if your own good sense is not sufficient to direct you, in many
of these plain points, all that I or anybody else can say will be
insufficient. But, where you are concerned, I am the insatiable man in
Horace, who covets still a little corner more, to complete the figure
of his field. I dread every little corner that may deform mine, in
which I would have (if possible) no one defect. [_Same date._]


MOURNING.--I am at present under very great concern for the loss of a
most affectionate brother, with whom I had always lived in the closest
friendship. My brother John died last Friday night, of a fit of the
gout, which he had had for about a month in his hands and feet, and
which fell at last upon his stomach and head. As he grew, towards the
last, lethargic, his end was not painful to himself. At the distance
which you are from hence, you need not go into mourning upon this
occasion, as the time of your mourning would be near over before you
could put it on. [_Dec. 6, 1748._]


FRIVOLITY.--Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and
lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the
latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous
tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of
butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between
the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the
curious. He applies himself intensely to the former; he only amuses
himself with the latter. Of this little sort of knowledge, which I
have just hinted at, you will find, at least, as much as you need wish
to know, in a superficial but pretty French book, entitled “Spectacle
de la Nature,” which will amuse you while you read it, and give you a
sufficient notion of the various parts of nature; I would advise you to
read it at leisure hours. [_Same date._]


ASTRONOMY.--But that part of nature which, Mr. Harte tells me, you
have begun to study, with the _Rector magnificus_, is of much greater
importance, and deserves much more attention; I mean astronomy.
The vast and immense planetary system, the astonishing order and
regularity of those innumerable worlds, will open a scene to you
which not only deserves your attention as a matter of curiosity, or
rather astonishment; but, still more, as it will give you greater
and consequently juster ideas of that eternal and omnipotent Being,
who contrived, made, and still preserves that universe, than all the
contemplation of this, comparatively, very little orb, which we at
present inhabit, could possibly give you. Upon this subject, Monsieur
Fontenelle’s “Pluralité des Mondes,” which you may read in two hours’
time, will both inform and please you. God bless you! Yours. [_Same
date._]


The whole morning, if diligently and attentively devoted to solid
studies, will go a great way at the year’s end; and the evenings spent
in the pleasures of good company will go as far in teaching you a
knowledge not much less necessary than the other--I mean the knowledge
of the world. Between these two necessary studies, that of books in
the morning, and that of the world in the evening, you see that you
will not have one minute to squander or slattern away. Nobody ever
lent themselves more than I did, when I was young, to the pleasures
and dissipation of good company; I even did it too much. But then,
I can assure you that I always found time for serious studies; and
when I could find it no other way, I took it out of my sleep, for I
resolved always to rise early in the morning, however late I went to
bed at night; and this resolution I have kept so sacred that, unless
when I have been confined to my bed by illness, I have not for more
than forty years ever been in bed at nine o’clock in the morning, but
commonly up before eight. [_Dec. 13, 1748._]


WRITING.--Why do you not form your Roman characters better? for
I maintain that it is in every man’s power to write what hand he
pleases; and consequently that he ought to write a good one. You
form, particularly, your ee and your ll in zigzag, instead of making
them straight, as thus, _ee_, _ll_; a fault very easily mended. You
will not, I believe, be angry with this little criticism, when I tell
you that, by all the accounts I have had of late, from Mr. Harte and
others, this is the only criticism that you give me occasion to make.
[_Dec. 20, 1748._]


A PORTRAIT.--Consider what lustre and _éclat_ it will give you when you
return here, to be allowed to be the best scholar, of a gentleman, in
England; not to mention the real pleasure and solid comfort which such
knowledge will give you throughout your whole life. Mr. Harte tells me
another thing which, I own, I did not expect; it is that, when you read
aloud, or repeat part of plays, you speak very properly and distinctly.
This relieves me from great uneasiness, which I was under upon account
of your former bad enunciation. Go on, and attend most diligently to
this important article. It is, of all the graces (and they are all
necessary), the most necessary one. [_Same date._]


THE DESIRE OF PRAISE.--But here let me, as an old stager upon the
theatre of the world, suggest one consideration to you, which is, to
extend your desire of praise a little beyond the strictly praiseworthy;
or else you may be apt to discover too much contempt for at least
three parts in the five of the world, who will never forgive it you.
In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools
and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree
be respected, though they are by no means respectable. And a man, who
will show every knave or fool that he thinks him such, will engage in
a most ruinous war, against numbers much superior to those that he and
his allies can bring into the field. Abhor a knave, and pity a fool in
your heart, but let neither of them, unnecessarily, see that you do so.
Some complaisance and attention to fools is prudent, and not mean; as
a silent abhorrence of individual knaves is often necessary, and not
criminal. [_Same date._]


A COMPLIMENT.--Lady Chesterfield bids me tell you that she decides
entirely in your favor,[39] against Mr. Grevenkop, and even against
herself; for she does not think that she could, at this time, write
either so good a character, or so good German. Pray write her a German
letter upon that subject; in which you may tell her that, like the rest
of the world, you approve of her judgment, because it is in your favor;
and that you true Germans cannot allow Danes to be competent judges of
your language, etc. [_Same date._]


AFFECTATION.--Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my
mind, a flaw in the understanding. Most of our young fellows here
display some character or other by their dress: some affect the
tremendous, and wear a great and fiercely cocked hat, an enormous
sword, a short waistcoat, and a black cravat; these I should be almost
tempted to swear the peace against, in my own defence, if I were not
convinced that they are but meek asses in lions’ skins. Others go in
brown frocks, leather breeches, great oaken cudgels in their hands,
their hats uncocked, and their hair unpowdered; and imitate grooms,
stage-coachmen, and country bumpkins, so well in their outsides, that I
do not make the least doubt of their resembling them equally in their
insides. A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in
his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest
is for other people’s. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as
the people of sense and fashion of the place where he is. If he dresses
better, as he thinks, that is, more than they, he is a fop; if he
dresses worse, he is unpardonably negligent; but, of the two, I would
rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess
on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if
he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at
fifty years old. Dress yourself fine, where others are fine; and plain,
where others are plain; but take care, always, that your clothes are
well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward
air. When you are once well dressed for the day, think no more of it
afterwards; and, without any stiffness for fear of discomposing that
dress, let all your motions be as easy and natural as if you had no
clothes on at all. So much for dress, which I maintain to be a thing of
consequence in the polite world. [_Dec. 30, 1748._]


A HAPPY NEW YEAR.--I send you, my dear child (and you will not doubt),
very sincerely, the wishes of the season. May you deserve a great
number of happy new years; and, if you deserve, may you have them! Many
new years, indeed, you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without
deserving them. These, virtue, honor, and knowledge, alone can merit,
alone can procure. “Dii tibi dent annos de te nam cætera sumes,” was a
pretty piece of poetical flattery, where it was said; I hope that in
time it may be no flattery when said to you. But, I assure you, that,
whenever I cannot apply the latter part of the line to you with truth,
I shall neither say, think, nor wish the former. Adieu. [_Same date._]


RATIONAL PLEASURES.--Now that you are going a little more into the
world, I will take this occasion to explain my intentions as to your
future expenses, that you may know what you have to expect from me,
and make your plan accordingly. I shall neither deny nor grudge you
any money that may be necessary for either your improvement or your
pleasures; I mean, the pleasures of a rational being. Under the head
of improvement, I mean the best books, and the best masters, cost what
they will; I also mean all the expense of lodgings, coach, dress,
servants, etc., which, according to the several places where you may
be, shall be respectively necessary, to enable you to keep the best
company. Under the head of rational pleasures, I comprehend, first,
proper charities, to real and compassionate objects of it; secondly,
proper presents, to those to whom you are obliged, or whom you
desire to oblige; thirdly, a conformity of expense to that of the
company which you keep--as in public spectacles, your share of little
entertainments, a few pistoles at games of mere commerce, and other
incidental calls of good company. The only two articles which I will
never supply, are the profusion of low riot and the idle lavishness
of negligence and laziness. A fool squanders away, without credit or
advantage to himself, more than a man of sense spends with both. The
latter employs his money as he does his time, and neither spends a
shilling of the one, nor a minute of the other, but in something that
is either useful or rationally pleasing to himself or others. The
former buys whatever he does not want, and does not pay for what he
does want. He cannot withstand the charms of a toy-shop; snuff-boxes,
watches, heads of canes, etc., are his destruction. His servants and
tradesmen conspire with his own indolence, to cheat him; and, in a
little time, he is astonished, in the midst of all the ridiculous
superfluities, to find himself in want of all the real comforts and
necessaries of life. Without care and method the largest fortune will
not, and with them, almost the smallest will, supply all necessary
expenses. As far as you can possibly, pay ready money for everything
you buy, and avoid bills. Pay that money too, yourself, and not
through the hands of any servant, who always either stipulates
poundage, or requires a present for his good word, as they call it.
Where you must have bills (as for meat and drink, clothes, etc.) pay
them regularly every month, and with your own hand. Never, from a
mistaken economy, buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap; or,
from a silly pride, because it is dear. Keep an account, in a book, of
all that you receive, and of all that you pay; for no man, who knows
what he receives, and what he pays, ever runs out. I do not mean that
you should keep an account of the shillings and half-crowns which you
may spend in chair-hire, operas, etc., they are unworthy of the time,
and of the ink, that they would consume; leave such _minutiæ_ to dull,
pennywise fellows; but remember, in economy, as well as in every other
part of life, to have the proper attention to proper objects, and the
proper contempt for little ones. A strong mind sees things in their
true proportions: a weak one views them through a magnifying medium;
which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea; magnifies
all little objects, but cannot receive great ones. I have known many
a man pass for a miser, by saving a penny, and wrangling for two
pence, who was undoing himself, at the same time, by living above his
income, and not attending to essential articles, which were above his
_portée_. The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind is, to
find, in everything, those certain bounds, _quos ultra citrave nequit
consistere rectum_. These boundaries are marked out by a very fine
line, which only good sense and attention can discover; it is much too
fine for vulgar eyes. In manners, this line is good breeding; beyond
it, is troublesome ceremony; short of it, is unbecoming negligence
and inattention. In morals, it divides ostentatious Puritanism from
criminal relaxation; in religion, superstition from impiety; and, in
short, every virtue from its kindred vice or weakness. I think you have
sense enough to discover the line; keep it always in your eye, and
learn to walk upon it; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poise you till
you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk
well upon that line, than upon the slack rope; and therefore a good
performer shines so much the more. [_Jan. 10, 1749._]


DANCING.--Remember to take the best dancing master at Berlin, more to
teach you to sit, stand, and walk gracefully, than to dance finely. The
Graces, the Graces; remember the Graces! Adieu. [_Same date._]


THE CLASSICS--THEIR VALUE.--My first prejudice (for I do not mention
the prejudices of boys and women, such as hobgoblins, ghosts, dreams,
spilling salt, etc.) was my classical enthusiasm, which I received
from the books I read, and the masters who explained them to me. I was
convinced there had been no common sense nor common honesty in the
world for these last fifteen hundred years; but that they were totally
extinguished with the ancient Greek and Roman governments. Homer and
Virgil could have no faults, because they were ancient; Milton and
Tasso could have no merit, because they were modern. And I could almost
have said, with regard to the ancients, what Cicero, very absurdly and
unbecomingly for a philosopher, says with regard to Plato, “Cum quo
errare malim; quam cum aliis rectè sentire.” Whereas now, without any
extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the
same three thousand years ago as it is at present; that men were but
men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that
human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men
were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years
ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better
then than they are now. I dare assert too, in defiance of the favorers
of the ancients, that Homer’s hero, Achilles, was both a brute and
a scoundrel, and consequently an improper character for the hero of
an epic poem; he had so little regard for his country, that he would
not act in defence of it, because he had quarrelled with Agamemnon
about a w----e; and then afterward, animated by private resentment
only, he went about killing people basely, I will call it, because he
knew himself invulnerable; and yet, invulnerable as he was, he wore
the strongest armor in the world; which I humbly apprehend to be a
blunder; for a horseshoe clapped to his vulnerable heel would have
been sufficient. On the other hand, with submission to the favorers of
the moderns, I assert with Mr. Dryden, that the Devil is in truth the
hero of Milton’s poem: his plan, which he lays, pursues, and at last
executes, being the subject of the poem. From all which considerations,
I impartially conclude, that the ancients had their excellencies and
their defects, their virtues and their vices, just like the moderns:
pedantry and affectation of learning decide clearly in favor of the
former; vanity and ignorance, as peremptorily, in favor of the latter.
Religious prejudices kept pace with my classical ones; and there was a
time when I thought it impossible for the honestest man in the world
to be saved, out of the pale of the Church of England: not considering
that matters of opinion do not depend upon the will; and that it is as
natural, and as allowable, that another man should differ in opinion
from me, as that I should differ from him; and that, if we are both
sincere, we are both blameless: and should consequently have mutual
indulgence for each other. [_Feb. 7, 1749._]


REFLECTION--ITS USE.--Use and assert your own reason; reflect,
examine, and analyze everything, in order to form a sound and mature
judgment; let no ουτος ἔφα impose upon your understanding, mislead
your actions, or dictate your conversation. Be early, what, if you are
not, you will, when too late, wish you had been. Consult your reason
betimes: I do not say that it will always prove an unerring guide; for
human reason is not infallible: but it will prove the least erring
guide that you can follow. Books and conversation may assist it; but
adopt neither, blindly and implicitly; try both by that best rule
which God has given to direct us, Reason. Of all the troubles do not
decline, as many people do, that of thinking. The herd of mankind can
hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in
general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common
prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate
reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are. We have
many of those useful prejudices in this country, which I should be very
sorry to see removed. The good Protestant conviction, that the Pope
is both Antichrist, and the Whore of Babylon, is a more effectual
preservative, in this country, against popery, than all the solid and
unanswerable arguments of Chillingworth.

The idle story of the Pretender’s having been introduced in a
warming-pan, into the queen’s bed, though as destitute of all
probability as of all foundation, has been much more prejudicial to
the cause of Jacobitism, than all that Mr. Locke and others have
written, to show the unreasonableness and absurdity of the doctrines
of indefeasible hereditary right and unlimited passive obedience. And
that silly, sanguine notion, which is firmly entertained here, that
one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen, encourages, and has sometimes
enabled one Englishman, in reality, to beat two. [_Same date._]


LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.--Can an author with reason complain that he is
cramped and shackled if he is not at liberty to publish blasphemy,
bawdry, or sedition? all which are equally prohibited in the freest
governments, if they are wise and well regulated ones. This is the
present general complaint of the French authors; but, indeed, chiefly
of the bad ones. No wonder, say they, that England produces so many
great geniuses; people there may think as they please, and publish
what they think. Very true, but who hinders them from thinking as they
please? If, indeed, they think in a manner destructive of all religion,
morality, or good manners, or to the disturbance of the state; an
absolute government will certainly more effectually prohibit them from,
or punish them for publishing such thoughts, than a free one could do.
But how does that cramp the genius of an epic, dramatic, or lyric poet?
Or how does it corrupt the eloquence of an orator, in the pulpit or at
the bar? [_Same date._]


GRACEFUL BEHAVIOR.--There is another object that must keep pace with
and accompany knowledge; I mean, manners, politeness, and the graces;
in which Sir Charles Williams, though very much your friend, owns you
are very deficient. The manners of Leipsic must be shook off; and in
that respect you must put on the new man. No scrambling at your meals,
as at a German ordinary; no awkward overturns of glasses, plates, and
salt-cellars; no horse-play. On the contrary, a gentleness of manners,
a graceful carriage, and an insinuating address, must take their place.
I repeat, and shall never cease repeating to you, _the Graces, the
Graces_. [_April 12, 1749._]


A GENTLEMAN’S PLEASURES.--DEAR BOY: This letter will, I believe, still
find you at Venice, in all the dissipation of masquerades, ridottos,
operas, etc.: with all my heart; they are decent evening amusements,
and very properly succeed that serious application to which I am sure
you devote your mornings. There are liberal and illiberal pleasures,
as well as liberal and illiberal arts. There are some pleasures, that
degrade a gentleman, as much as some trades could do. Sottish drinking,
indiscriminate gluttony, driving coaches, rustic sports, such as
fox-chases, horse-races, etc., are, in my opinion, infinitely below the
honest and industrious professions of a tailor, and a shoemaker, which
are said to _déroger_. [_April 19, 1749._]


MUSIC--FIDDLING.--I cannot help cautioning you against giving into
those (I will call them illiberal) pleasures (though music is commonly
reckoned one of the liberal arts) to the degree that most of your
countrymen do when they travel in Italy. If you love music, hear it;
go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist
upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in
a very frivolous, contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of
bad company; and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much
better employed. Few things would mortify me more than to see you
bearing a part in a concert, with a fiddle under your chin, or a pipe
in your mouth. [_Same date._]


MANIÈRES.--By _manières_, I do not mean bare common civility; everybody
must have that, who would not be kicked out of company; but I mean
engaging, insinuating, shining manners; a distinguished politeness, an
almost irresistible address; a superior gracefulness in all you say and
do. It is this alone that can give all your other talents their full
lustre and value; and consequently, it is this which should now be the
principal object of your attention. Observe minutely, wherever you go,
the allowed and established morals of good breeding, and form yourself
upon them. Whatever pleases you most, in others, will infallibly please
others, in you. I have often repeated this to you; now is your time of
putting it in practice. [_Same date._]


LITTLE PRINCES.--In general, I believe that little princes are more
likely to be great men than those whose more extensive dominions, and
superior strength, flatter them with security; which commonly produces
negligence and indolence. A little prince, in the neighborhood of
great ones, must be alert, and look out sharp, if he would secure his
own dominions; much more still, if he would enlarge them. He must
watch for conjunctures, or endeavor to make them. No princes have ever
possessed this art better than those of the House of Savoy, who have
enlarged their dominions prodigiously within a century, by profiting of
conjunctures. [_Same date._]


ATTENTIONS.--A young man should never be wanting in these attentions;
they cost little and bring in a great deal, by getting you people’s
good word and affection. They gain the heart, to which I have always
advised you to apply yourself particularly; it guides ten thousand for
one that reason influences.

I cannot end this letter, or (I believe) any other, without repeating
my recommendation of _the Graces_. They are to be met with at Turin;
for God’s sake, sacrifice to them, and they will be propitious. People
mistake grossly, to imagine that the least awkwardness, in either
matter or manner, mind or body, is an indifferent thing, and not worthy
of attention. It may possibly be a weakness in me (but in short we are
all so made). I confess to you fairly, that when you shall come home,
and that I first see you, if I find you ungraceful in your address, and
awkward in your person and dress, it will be impossible for me to love
you half so well as I should otherwise do, let your intrinsic merit and
knowledge be ever so great. [_Same date._]


ENGLISH ABROAD.--I am informed there are now many English at the
Academy at Turin, and I fear those are just so many dangers for you to
encounter. Who they are, I do not know; but I well know the general ill
conduct, the indecent behavior, and the illiberal views of my young
countrymen abroad; especially wherever they are in numbers together.
Ill example is of itself dangerous enough; but those who give it seldom
stop there; they add their infamous exhortations and invitations; and,
if these fail, they have recourse to ridicule, which is harder for one
of your age and inexperience to withstand than either of the former.
Be upon your guard, therefore, against these batteries, which will all
be played upon you. You are not sent abroad to converse with your own
countrymen; among them, in general, you will get little knowledge, no
languages, and, I am sure, no manners. I desire that you will form no
connections, nor (what they impudently call) friendships, with these
people; which are, in truth, only combinations and conspiracies
against good morals and good manners. [_May 15, 1749._]


VICES SHOULD BE ORIGINAL.--If people had no vices but their own, few
would have so many as they have. For my own part, I would sooner wear
other people’s clothes than their vices; and they would sit upon me
just as well. I hope you will have none; but, if ever you have, I beg,
at least, they may be all your own. Vices of adoption are, of all
others, the most disgraceful and unpardonable. There are degrees in
vices, as well as in virtues; and I must do my countrymen the justice
to say, they generally take their vices in the lowest degree. Their
gallantry is the infamous mean debauchery of stews, justly attended and
rewarded by the loss of their health as well as their character. Their
pleasures of the table end in beastly drunkenness, low riot, broken
windows, and very often (as they well deserve) broken bones. They game
for the sake of the vice, not of the amusement; and therefore carry it
to excess; undo, or are undone by, their companions. By such conduct,
and in such company abroad, they come home the unimproved, illiberal,
and ungentlemanlike creatures that one daily sees them; that is, in the
park, and in the streets, for one never meets them in good company;
where they have neither manners to present themselves, nor merit to
be received. But, with the manners of footmen and grooms, they assume
their dress too; for you must have observed them in the streets here,
in dirty blue frocks, with oaken sticks in their hands, and their hair
greasy and unpowdered, tucked up under their hats of an enormous size.
Thus finished and adorned by their travels, they become the disturbers
of playhouses; they break the windows, and commonly the landlords,
of the taverns where they drink; and are at once the support, the
terror, and the victims of the bawdy-houses they frequent. These poor
mistaken people think they shine, and so they do indeed; but it is as
putrefaction shines, in the dark.

I am not now preaching to you, like an old fellow, upon either
religious or moral texts; I am persuaded you do not want the best
instructions of that kind; but I am advising you as a man, as a friend
of the world, as one who would not have you old while you are young,
but would have you take all the pleasures that reason points out, and
that decency warrants. [_Same date._]


FOOLISH SAYINGS.--There are some expressions, both in French and
English, and some characters, both in those two and in other countries,
which have, I dare say, misled many young men to their ruin. _Une
honnête débauche, une jolie débauche: an agreeable rake, a man of
pleasure._ Do not think that this means debauchery and profligacy;
nothing like it. It means, at most, the accidental and unfrequent
irregularities of youth and vivacity, in opposition to dulness,
formality, and want of spirit. [_Same date._]


HOW TO PLEASE.--You must not neglect your dress neither, but take
care to be _bien mis_. Pray send for the best operator for the teeth
at Turin, where I suppose there is some famous one, and let him put
yours in perfect order; and then take care to keep them so afterwards
yourself. You had very good teeth, and I hope they are so still; but
even those who have bad ones should keep them clean; for a dirty
mouth is, to my mind, ill-manners. In short, neglect nothing that can
possibly please. A thousand nameless little things, which nobody can
describe but which everybody feels, conspire to form that _whole_ of
pleasing; as the several pieces of a mosaic work, though separately
of little beauty or value, when properly joined form those beautiful
figures which please everybody. A look, a gesture, an attitude, a tone
of voice, all bear their parts in the great work of pleasing. The art
of pleasing is more particularly necessary in your intended profession
than perhaps in any other; it is, in truth, the first half of your
business; for if you do not please the court you are sent to, you will
be of very little use to the court you are sent from. Please the eyes
and the ears, they will introduce you to the heart; and, nine times in
ten, the heart governs the understanding.

Make your court particularly, and show distinguished attentions, to
such men and women as are best at court, highest in the fashion and in
the opinion of the public; speak advantageously of them behind their
backs, in companies who you have reason to believe will tell them
again. Express your admiration of the many great men that the house of
Savoy has produced; observe, that nature, instead of being exhausted
by those efforts, seems to have redoubled them in the persons of the
present king, and the Duke of Savoy; wonder at this rate where it will
end, and conclude that it will end in the government of all Europe.
Say this, likewise, where it will probably be repeated; but say it
unaffectedly, and the last, especially, with a kind of _enjouement_.
These little arts are very allowable, and must be made use of in the
course of the world; they are pleasing to one party, useful to the
other, and injurious to nobody. [_Same date._]


FLATTERY.--I recommended to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art;
that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who,
to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to
repeat, and even amplify the praise to the party concerned. This is of
all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual.
There are other, and many other inoffensive arts of this kind, which
are necessary in the course of the world, and which he who practises
the earliest, will please the most, and rise the soonest. [_May 22,
1749._]


TEMPER.--The principal of these things, is the mastery of one’s
temper, and that coolness of mind, and serenity of countenance, which
hinders us from discovering, by words, actions, or even looks, those
passions or sentiments, by which we are inwardly moved or agitated; and
the discovery of which, gives cooler and abler people such infinite
advantages over us, not only in business, but in all the most common
occurrences of life. A man who does not possess himself enough to
hear disagreeable things, without visible marks of anger and change
of countenance, or agreeable ones without sudden bursts of joy and
expansion of countenance, is at the mercy of every artful knave, or
pert coxcomb; the former will provoke or please you by design, to
catch unguarded words or looks, by which he will easily decipher the
secrets of your heart, of which you should keep the key yourself, and
trust it with no man living. [_Same date._]


IMMOBILITY.--Determine, too, to keep your countenance as unmoved and
unembarrassed as possible which steadiness you may get a habit of, by
constant attention. I should desire nothing better, in any negotiation,
than to have to do with one of these men of warm, quick passions;
which I would take care to set in motion. By artful provocations, I
would extort rash and unguarded expressions; and, by hinting at all
the several things that I could suspect, infallibly discover the true
one, by the alteration it occasioned in the countenance of the person.
_Vólto sciolto con pensieri stretti_,[40] is a most useful maxim in
business. [_Same date._]


DISSIMULATION.--It may be objected, that I am now recommending
dissimulation to you; I both own and justify it. It has been long
said: _Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare_: I go still farther,
and say, that without some dissimulation, no business can be carried
on at all. It is _simulation_ that is false, mean and criminal; that
is the cunning which Lord Bacon calls crooked or left-handed wisdom,
and which is never made use of but by those who have not true wisdom.
And the same great man says, that dissimulation is only to hide our
own cards; whereas simulation is put on in order to look into other
people’s. Lord Bolingbroke in his “Idea of a Patriot King,” which
he has lately published, and which I will send you by the first
opportunity, says, very justly, that simulation is a _stiletto_; not
only an unjust but an unlawful weapon, and the use of it very rarely
to be excused, never justified. Whereas dissimulation is a shield, as
secrecy is armor; and it is no more possible to preserve secrecy in
business, without some degree of dissimulation, than it is to succeed
in business without secrecy. [_Same date._]


THE FACE.--Make yourself absolute master, therefore, of your temper,
and your countenance, so far, at least, as that no visible change
do appear in either, whatever you may feel inwardly. This may be
difficult, but it is by no means impossible; and, as a man of sense
never attempts impossibilities on one hand, on the other he is never
discouraged by difficulties. [_Same date._]


THE EASY MOMENT.--Some people are to be reasoned, some flattered,
some intimidated, and some teased into a thing; but, in general, all
are to be brought into it at last, if skilfully applied to, properly
managed, and indefatigably attacked in their several weak places. The
time should likewise be judiciously chosen: every man has his _mollia
tempora_, but that is far from being all day long; and you would choose
your time very ill, if you applied to a man about one business, when
his head was full of another, or when his heart was full of grief,
anger, or any other disagreeable sentiments. [_Same date._]


JUDGE OF OTHERS BY YOURSELF.--In order to judge of the inside of
others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike; and
though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet
their operations are much the same; and whatever engages or disgusts,
pleases or offends you, in others, will, _mutatis mutandis_, engage,
disgust, please, or offend others, in you. [_Same date._]


SMART SAYINGS.--The temptation of saying a smart and witty thing,
or _bon mot_, and the malicious applause with which it is commonly
received, have made people who can say them, and, still oftener,
people who think they can, but cannot and yet try, more enemies,
and implacable ones too, than any one other thing that I know of.
When such things, then, shall happen to be said at your expense (as
sometimes they certainly will) reflect seriously upon the sentiments
of uneasiness, anger, and resentment, which they excite in you; and
consider whether it can be prudent, by the same means, to excite the
same sentiments in others against you. It is a decided folly to lose
a friend for a jest; but, in my mind, it is not a much less degree of
folly, to make an enemy of an indifferent and neutral person for the
sake of a _bon mot_. When things of this kind happen to be said of you
the most prudent way is to seem not to suppose that they are meant at
you, but to dissemble and conceal whatever degree of anger you may
feel inwardly; and should they be so plain that you cannot be supposed
ignorant of their meaning, to join in the laugh of the company against
yourself; acknowledge the hit to be a fair one, and the jest a good
one, and play off the whole thing in seeming good humor; but by no
means reply in the same way; which only shows that you are hurt, and
publishes the victory which you might have concealed. Should the thing
said, indeed, injure your honor, or moral character, there is but one
proper reply; which I hope you will never have occasion to make. [_Same
date._]


WOMEN OF FASHION.--They are a numerous and loquacious body; their
hatred would be more prejudicial than their friendship can be
advantageous to you. A general complaisance and attention to that
sex is, therefore, established by custom, and certainly necessary.
But where you would particularly please any one, whose situation,
interest, or connections can be of use to you, you must show particular
preference. The least attentions please, the greatest charm them.
The innocent but pleasing flattery of their persons, however gross,
is greedily swallowed, and kindly digested, but a seeming regard for
their understandings, a seeming desire of, and deference for, their
advice, together with a seeming confidence in their moral virtues,
turns their head entirely in your favor. Nothing shocks them so much as
the least appearance of that contempt, which they are apt to suspect
men of entertaining of their capacities; and you may be very sure of
gaining their friendship, if you seem to think it worth gaining. Here
dissimulation is very often necessary, and even simulation sometimes
allowable; which, as it pleases them, may be useful to you and is
injurious to nobody. [_Same date._]


VENETIAN ART.--The time you will probably pass at Venice will allow
you to make yourself master of that intricate and singular form of
government, which few of our travellers know anything of. Read, ask,
and see everything that is relative to it. There are, likewise, many
valuable remains of the remotest antiquity, and many fine pieces of
the _antico moderno_, all which deserve a different sort of attention
from that which your countrymen commonly give them. They go to see
them as they go to see the lions, and kings on horseback, at the Tower
here, only to say that they have seen them. You will, I am sure, view
them in another light; you will consider them as you would a poem, to
which indeed they are akin. You will observe whether the sculptor has
animated his stone, or the painter his canvas, into the just expression
of those sentiments and passions which should characterize and mark
their several figures. [_June 22, 1749._]


SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.--You will examine, likewise, whether, in their
groups there be a unity of action or proper relation; a truth of dress
and manners. Sculpture and painting are very justly called liberal
arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation
being absolutely necessary to excel in either, which, in my opinion, is
by no means the case of music, though called a liberal art, and now in
Italy placed even above the other two--a proof of the decline of that
country. A taste of sculpture and painting is, in my mind, as becoming
as a taste of fiddling and piping is unbecoming a man of fashion. The
former is connected with history and poetry; the latter, with nothing
that I know of, but bad company. [_Same date._]


AMIABILITY.--There is a certain concurrence of various little
circumstances, which compose what the French call _l’amiable_; and
which, now you are entering into the world, you ought to make it your
particular study to acquire. Without them, your learning will be
pedantry, your conversation often improper, always unpleasant, and
your figure, however good in itself, awkward and unengaging. A diamond
while rough has indeed its intrinsic value; but till polished is of
no use, and would neither be sought for nor worn. Its great lustre,
it is true, proceeds from its solidity and strong cohesion of parts;
but without the last polish, it would remain forever a dirty, rough
mineral in the cabinets of some few curious collectors. You have, I
hope, that solidity and cohesion of parts; take now as much pains to
get the lustre. Good company, if you make the right use of it, will
cut you into shape, and give you the true brilliant polish. _Apropos_
of diamonds, I have sent you, by Sir James Gray, the king’s minister,
who will be at Venice about the middle of September, my own diamond
buckles, which are fitter for your young feet than for my old ones;
they will properly adorn you; they would only expose me. [_Same date._]


TRIFLES.--Great merit or great failings will make you respected or
despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or
neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run
of the world. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people, and
dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different
sentiments proceed from very slight causes. Moral virtues are the
foundation of society in general, and of friendship in particular; but
attentions, manners, and graces both adorn and strengthen them. [_July
20, 1749._]


YOUTH ARMED BY EXPERIENCE.--Your youth and talents, armed with my
experience, may go a great way; and that armor is very much at your
service, if you please to wear it. I premise that it is not my
imagination, but my memory, that gives you these rules; I am not
writing pretty, useful reflections. A man of sense soon discovers,
because he carefully observes where and how long he is welcome; and
takes care to leave the company, at least, as soon as he is wished out
of it. Fools never perceive whether they are ill-timed or ill-placed.
[_Same date._]


IDLENESS.--But indeed I do not suspect you of one single moment’s
idleness in the whole day. Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds,
and the holiday of fools. I do not call good company and liberal
pleasures idleness; far from it; I recommend to you a good share of
both. [_Same date._]


BATHING.--I am very glad that my letter, with Dr. Shaw’s opinion, has
lessened your bathing; for, since I was born, I never heard of bathing
four hours a day, which would surely be too much, even in Medea’s
kettle, if you wanted (as you do not yet) new boiling. [_July 30,
1749._]


ARCHITECTURE--A SIMILE.--To carry on the metaphor of building, I would
wish you to be a Corinthian edifice, upon a Tuscan foundation; the
latter having the utmost strength and solidity to support, and the
former all possible ornaments to decorate. The Tuscan column is coarse,
clumsy, and unpleasant; nobody looks at it twice: the Corinthian fluted
column is beautiful and attractive; but without a solid foundation,
can hardly be seen twice, because it must soon tumble down. Yours
affectionately. [_Same date._]


EARN YOUR PLEASURES.--No man tastes pleasures truly who does not earn
them by previous business; and few people do business well who do
nothing else. Remember, that when I speak of pleasures I always mean
the elegant pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of
a swine. I mean _la bonne chere_, short of gluttony; wine, infinitely
short of drunkenness; play, without the least gaming; and gallantry,
without debauchery. There is a line in all these things which men of
sense, for greater security, take care to keep a good deal on the right
side of; for sickness, pain, contempt, and infamy lie immediately on
the other side of it. Men of sense and merit in all other respects may
have had some of these failings; but then those few examples, instead
of inviting us to imitation, should only put us the more upon our guard
against such weaknesses. Whoever thinks them fashionable will not be so
himself. I have often known a fashionable man to have some one vice,
but I never, in my life, knew a vicious man a fashionable man. Vice is
as degrading as it is criminal. God bless you, my dear child! [_Aug. 7,
1749._]


DIGNITY OF MANNERS.--There is a certain dignity of manners absolutely
necessary, to make even the most valuable character either respected
or respectable. Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of
laughter, jokes, waggery, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink
both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at
most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable
man. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else
dubs you their dependent, and led captain. It gives your inferiors just
but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A joker is near akin
to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit. Whoever
is admitted or sought for in company upon any account than that of his
merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. We
will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one
to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for
he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another, because he plays
deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are
vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas
of esteem and regard. Whoever _is had_ (as it is called) in company,
for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will
never be considered in any other light, consequently never respected,
let his merits be what they will. [_Aug. 10, 1749._]


FOOLS AND THEIR FLATTERY.--Abject flattery and indiscriminate
assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy
debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a
complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.

Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify, as
they imply either a very low turn of mind, or low education, and low
company. [_Same date._]


A TRIFLER.--Cardinal de Retz, very sagaciously marked out Cardinal
Chigi for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had wrote
(_sic_) three years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent
good one still.

A certain degree of exterior seriousness, in looks and motions, gives
dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are
always serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face, and a
whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility.
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for
him. Haste and hurry are very different things. [_Same date._]


THE PRETENDER--POLITICAL CAUTION.--You will, in many parts of Italy,
meet with numbers of the Pretender’s people (English, Scotch, and Irish
fugitives) especially at Rome; and probably the Pretender himself. It
is none of your business to declare war on these people; as little as
it is your interest, or, I hope, your inclination to connect yourself
with them: and therefore I recommend to you a perfect neutrality. Avoid
them as much as you can with decency and good manners; but, when you
cannot avoid any political conversation or debates with them, tell them
that you do not concern yourself with political matters; that you are
neither a maker nor a deposer of kings; that, when you left England,
you left a king in it, and have not since heard either of his death,
or of any revolution that has happened, and that you take kings and
kingdoms as you find them; but enter no farther into matters with them,
which can be of no use, and might bring on heat and quarrels. When you
speak of the old Pretender you will call him only, the Chevalier de
St. George; but mention him as seldom as possible. Should he chance to
speak to you at any assembly (as, I am told, he sometimes does to the
English) be sure that you seem not to know him; and answer him civilly,
but always either in French or in Italian; and give him, in the former,
the appellation of _Monsieur_, and in the latter of _Signore_. Should
you meet with the Cardinal of York, you will be under no difficulty,
for he has, as Cardinal, an undoubted right to _Eminenza_. Upon the
whole, see any of those people as little as possible; when you do
see them be civil to them, upon the footing of strangers; but never
be drawn into any altercations with them about the imaginary right of
their king, as they call him.

It is to no sort of purpose to talk to those people of the natural
rights of mankind and particular constitution of this country. Blinded
by prejudices, soured by misfortunes, and tempted by their necessities,
they are as incapable of reasoning rightly, as they have hitherto been
of acting wisely. The late Lord Pembroke never would know anything
that he had not a mind to know; and, in this case, I advise you to
follow his example. Never know either the father or the two sons, any
otherwise than as foreigners; and so not knowing their pretensions you
have no occasion to dispute them. [_Sept. 5, 1749._]


A FATHER’S ANXIETY.--It seems extraordinary, but it is very true, that
my anxiety for you increases in proportion to the good accounts which I
receive of you from all hands. I promise myself so much from you, that
I dread the least disappointment. You are now so near the port, which I
have so long wished and labored to bring you safe into, that my concern
would be doubled, should you be shipwrecked within sight of it. The
object, therefore, of this letter is (laying aside all the authority
of the parent), to conjure you as a friend, by the affection you have
for me (and surely you have reason to have some), and by the regard you
have for yourself, to go on with assiduity and attention, to complete
that work, which, of late, you have carried on so well, and which is
now so near being finished. My wishes, and my plan, were to make you
shine, and distinguish yourself equally in the learned and the polite
world. Few have been able to do it. [_Sept. 12, 1749._]


THE STUDENT OF LIFE AND THE TRIFLER: A DIALOGUE.--I will suppose you
at Rome, studying six hours uninterruptedly with Mr. Harte, every
morning, and passing your evenings with the best company of Rome,
observing their manners and forming your own; and I will suppose a
number of idle, sauntering, illiterate English, as there commonly is
there, living entirely with one another, supping, drinking, and sitting
up late at each other’s lodgings; commonly in riots and scrapes when
drunk, and never in good company when sober. I will take one of these
pretty fellows, and give you the dialogue between him and yourself;
such as I dare say it will be on his side, and such as I hope it will
be on yours.

_Englishman._ Will you come and breakfast with me to-morrow; there will
be four or five of our countrymen; we have provided chaises, and we
will drive somewhere out of town after breakfast?

_Stanhope._ I am very sorry I cannot; but I am obliged to be at home
all the morning.

_Englishman._ Why then we will come and breakfast with you.

_Stanhope._ I can’t do that neither, I am engaged.

_Englishman._ Well, then, let it be the next day.

_Stanhope._ To tell you the truth, it can be no day in the morning; for
I neither go out, nor see anybody at home before twelve.

_Englishman._ And what the devil do you do with yourself till twelve
o’clock?

_Stanhope._ I am not by myself, I am with Mr. Harte.

_Englishman._ Then what the devil do you do with him?

_Stanhope._ We study different things; we read, we converse.

_Englishman._ Very pretty amusement indeed! Are you to take orders then?

_Stanhope._ Yes, my father’s orders, I believe, I must take.

_Englishman._ Why, hast thou no more spirit than to mind an old fellow
a thousand miles off?

_Stanhope._ If I don’t mind his orders he won’t mind my draughts.

_Englishman._ What, does the old prig threaten, then? Threatened folks
live long; never mind threats.

_Stanhope._ No, I can’t say that he has ever threatened me in his life;
but I believe I had best not provoke him.

_Englishman._ Pooh! you would have one angry letter from the old
fellow, and there would be an end of it.

_Stanhope._ You mistake him mightily; he always does more than he says.
He has never been angry with me yet, that I remember, in his life; but
if I were to provoke him, I am sure he would never forgive me; he would
be coolly immovable, and I might beg and pray, and write my heart out
to no purpose.

_Englishman._ Why then, he is an old dog, that’s all I can say:
and pray, are you to obey your dry-nurse too, this same what’s his
name--Mr. Harte?

_Stanhope._ Yes.

_Englishman._ So he stuffs you all morning with Greek, and Latin, and
logic, and all that. Egad, I have a dry-nurse too, but I never looked
into a book with him in my life; I have not so much as seen the face of
him this week, and don’t care a louse if I never see it again.

_Stanhope._ My dry-nurse never desires anything of me that is not
reasonable, and for my own good; and therefore I like to be with him.

_Englishman._ Very sententious and edifying, upon my word! at this rate
you will be reckoned a very good young man.

_Stanhope._ Why, that will do me no harm.

_Englishman._ Will you be with us to-morrow in the evening, then? We
shall be ten with you; and I have got some excellent good wine; and
we’ll be very merry.

_Stanhope._ I am very much obliged to you but I am engaged for all the
evening, to-morrow; first at Cardinal Albani’s; and then to sup at the
Venetian Embassadress’s.

_Englishman._ How the devil can you like being always with these
foreigners? I never go amongst them, with all their formalities and
ceremonies. I am never easy in company with them, and I don’t know why,
but I am ashamed.

_Stanhope._ I am neither ashamed nor afraid; I am very easy with
them; they are very easy with me; I get the language, and I see their
characters, by conversing with them; and that is what we are sent
abroad for. Is it not?

_Englishman._ I hate your modest women’s company; your women of
fashion, as they call ’em. I don’t know what to say to them, for my
part.

_Stanhope._ Have you ever conversed with them?

_Englishman._ No, I never conversed with them; but I have been
sometimes in their company, though much against my will.

_Stanhope._ But at least they have done you no hurt; which is,
probably, more than you can say of the women you do converse with.

_Englishman._ That’s true, I own; but for all that, I would rather keep
company with my surgeon half the year, than with your women of fashion
the year round.

_Stanhope._ Tastes are different, you know, and every man follows his
own.

_Englishman._ That’s true; but thine’s a devilish odd one, Stanhope.
All morning with thy dry-nurse; all the evening in formal fine company;
and all day long afraid of old Daddy in England. Thou art a queer
fellow, and I am afraid there’s nothing to be made of thee.

_Stanhope._ I am afraid so, too.

_Englishman._ Well, then, good-night to you; you have no objection, I
hope, to my being drunk to-night, which I certainly will be?

_Stanhope._ Not in the least; nor to your being sick to-morrow, which
you as certainly will be; and so good-night too.

You will observe, that I have not put into your mouth those good
arguments, which upon such an occasion would, I am sure, occur to you;
as piety and affection towards me; regard and friendship for Mr. Harte;
respect for your own moral character, and for all the relative duties
of man, son, pupil and citizen. Such solid arguments would be thrown
away upon such shallow puppies. Leave them to their ignorance, and to
their dirty, disgraceful vices. They will severely feel the effects
of them, when it will be too late. Without the comfortable refuge of
learning, and with all the sickness and pains of a ruined stomach,
and a rotten carcass, if they happen to arrive at old age, it is an
uneasy and ignominious one. The ridicule which such fellows endeavor to
throw upon those who are not like them is, in the opinion of all men
of sense, the most authentic panegyric. Go on, then, my dear child,
in the way you are in, only for a year and a half more; that is all I
ask of you. After that, I promise that you shall be your own master,
and that I will pretend to no other title than that of your best and
truest friend. You shall receive advice, but no orders, from me; and in
truth you will want no other advice, but such as youth and inexperience
must necessarily require. You shall certainly want nothing that is
requisite, not only for your conveniency, but also for your pleasures,
which I always desire should be gratified. You will suppose that I mean
the pleasures _d’un honnête homme_. [_Same date._]


A PANEGYRIST.--If I had faith in philters and love potions, I should
suspect that you had given Sir Charles Williams some, by the manner in
which he speaks of you, not only to me, but to everybody else. I will
not repeat to you what he says of the extent and correctness of your
knowledge, as it might either make you vain, or persuade you that you
had already enough of what nobody can have too much. You will easily
imagine how many questions I asked, and how narrowly I sifted him upon
your subject; he answered me, and I dare say with truth, just as I
could have wished. [_Sept. 22, 1749._]


NECESSITY OF ATTENTION.--Sir Charles Williams told me then, that in
company you were frequently most _provokingly_ inattentive, absent,
_and distrait_. That you came into a room and presented yourself very
awkwardly; that at table you constantly threw down knives, forks,
napkins, bread, etc., and that you neglected your person and dress to a
degree unpardonable at any age, and much more so at yours.


DISTRACTION AND INATTENTION.--I know no one thing more offensive to a
company than that inattention and _distraction_. It is showing them
the utmost contempt; and people never forgive contempt. No man is
_distrait_ with the man he fears or the woman he loves; which is a
proof that every man can get the better of that _distraction_, when he
thinks it worth his while to do so; and, take my word for it, it is
always worth his while. For my own part, I would rather be in company
with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me
no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent man,
silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me
worth his attention. Besides, can an absent man make any observations
upon the characters, customs, and manners of the company? No. He may be
in the best companies all his lifetime (if they will admit him, which,
if I were they, I would not), and never be one jot the wiser. I never
will converse with an absent man; one may as well talk to a deaf one.
It is, in truth, a practical blunder to address ourselves to a man who,
we see plainly, neither hears, minds, nor understands us. Moreover,
I aver that no man is, in any degree, fit for either business or
conversation who cannot and does not direct and command his attention
to the present object, be that what it will. You know, by experience,
that I grudge no expense in your education, but I will positively not
keep you a flapper. You may read, in Dr. Swift, the description of
these flappers, and the use they were of to their friends.


DANCING.--Learn to dance, not so much for the sake of dancing, as for
coming into a room, and presenting yourself genteelly and gracefully.
Women, whom you ought to endeavor to please, cannot forgive a vulgar
and awkward air and gesture; _il leur faut du brillant_. The generality
of men are pretty like them, and are equally taken by the same exterior
graces. [_Same date._]


FINERY UNFIT FOR THE OLD.--I am very glad that you have received the
diamond buckles safe: all I desire in return for them is, that they may
be buckled upon your feet, and that your stockings may not hide them. I
should be sorry you were an egregious fop; but I protest that, of the
two, I would rather have you a fop than a sloven. I think negligence
in my own dress, even at my age, when certainly I expect no advantages
from my dress, would be indecent with regard to others. I have done
with fine clothes; but I will have my plain clothes fit me, and made
like other people’s. In the evenings I recommend to you the company
of women of fashion, who have a right to attention, and will be paid
it. Their company will smooth your manners, and give you a habit of
attention and respect; of which you will find the advantage among men.

My plan for you, from the beginning, has been to make you shine equally
in the learned and in the polite world; the former part is almost
completed to my wishes, and will, I am persuaded, in a little time more
be quite so. The latter part is still in your power to complete; and I
flatter myself that you will do it, or else the former part will avail
you very little; especially in your department, where the exterior
address and graces do half the business; they must be the harbingers of
your merit, or your merit will be very coldly received: all can and do
judge of the former, few of the latter.

Mr. Harte tells me that you have grown very much since your illness;
if you get up to five feet ten, or even nine inches, your figure will,
probably, be a good one. [_Same date._]


MIS-SENT LETTERS.--Our letters go, at best, so irregularly, and so
often miscarry totally, that, for greater security, I repeat the same
things. So, though I acknowledge by last post Mr. Harte’s letter of
the 8th September, N. S., I acknowledge it again by this to you.[41]
[_Same date._]


BEND TO CEREMONY.--_Apropos_ of the Pope, remember to be presented to
him before you leave Rome, and go through the necessary ceremonies for
it, whether of kissing his slipper or his breech; for I would never
deprive myself of anything that I wanted to do or see by refusing to
comply with an established custom. When I was in Catholic countries,
I never declined kneeling in their churches at the elevation, nor
elsewhere, when the host went by. It is a complaisance due to the
custom of the place, and by no means, as some silly people have
imagined, an implied approbation of their doctrine. Bodily attitudes
and situations are things so very indifferent in themselves, that I
would quarrel with nobody about them. It may, indeed, be improper for
Mr. Harte to pay that tribute of complaisance, upon account of his
character. [_Same date._]


THE VULGAR MAN--TRIFLES--VULGARISM.--A vulgar man is captious and
jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be
slighted, thinks everything that is said meant at him; if the company
happens to laugh, he is persuaded they laugh at him; he grows angry
and testy, says something very impertinent, and draws himself into
a scrape, by showing what he calls a proper spirit, and asserting
himself. A man of fashion does not suppose himself to be either the
sole or principal object of the thoughts, looks, or words of the
company; and never suspects that he is either slighted or laughed at,
unless he is conscious that he deserves it. And if (which very seldom
happens) the company is absurd or ill-bred enough to do either, he
does not care twopence, unless the insult be so gross and plain as to
require satisfaction of another kind. As he is above trifles, he is
never vehement and eager about them; and, wherever they are concerned,
rather acquiesces than wrangles. A vulgar man’s conversation always
savors strongly of the lowness of his education and company. It turns
chiefly upon his domestic affairs, his servants, the excellent order he
keeps in his own family, and the little anecdotes of the neighborhood;
all which he relates with emphasis, as interesting matters. He is a man
gossip.

Vulgarism in language is the next and distinguishing characteristic of
bad company and a bad education. A man of fashion avoids nothing with
more care than that. Proverbial expressions, and trite sayings, are the
flowers of the rhetoric of a vulgar man. Would he say, that men differ
in their tastes, he both supports and adorns that opinion, by the good
old saying, as he respectfully calls it, that _what is one man’s meat
is another man’s poison_. If anybody attempts being _smart_, as he
calls it, upon him, he gives them _tit for tat_, ay, that he does. He
has always some favorite word for the time being, which, for the sake
of using often, he commonly abuses. Such as _vastly_ angry, _vastly_
kind, _vastly_ handsome, and _vastly_ ugly. Even his pronunciation of
proper words carries the mark of the beast along with it. He calls the
earth _yearth_; he is _obleiged_[42] not _obliged_ to you. He goes _to
wards_, and not towards such a place. He sometimes affects hard words,
by way of ornament, which he always mangles like a learned woman. A man
of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms: uses
neither favorite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak
very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is,
according to the usage of the best companies. [_Sept. 27, 1749._]


LEFT-HANDEDNESS.--An awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions,
and a certain left-handedness (if I may use that word) loudly proclaim
low education and low company; for it is impossible to suppose that a
man can have frequented good company without having catched something,
at least, of their air and motions. A new-raised man is distinguished
in a regiment by his awkwardness; but he must be impenetrably dull if,
in a month or two’s time, he cannot perform at least the common manual
exercise, and look like a soldier. The very accoutrements of a man of
fashion are grievous incumbrances to a vulgar man. He is at a loss
what to do with his hat, when it is not upon his head; his cane (if
unfortunately he wears one) is at perpetual war with every cup of tea
or coffee he drinks; destroys them first, and then accompanies them in
their fall.


A NOBLE EASE AND GRACE.--Do not imagine that these accomplishments
are only useful with women; they are much more so with men. In a
public assembly, what an advantage has a graceful speaker, with
genteel motions, a handsome figure, and a liberal air, over one, who
shall speak full as much sense, but destitute of these ornaments! In
business, how prevalent are the graces, how detrimental is the want
of them! By the help of these I have known some men refuse favors
less offensively than others granted them. The utility of them in
courts and negotiations is inconceivable. You gain the hearts, and
consequently the secrets, of nine in ten that you have to do with, in
spite even of their prudence; which will, nine times in ten, be the
dupe of their hearts and of their senses. Consider the importance of
these things as they deserve, and you will not lose one moment in the
pursuit of them. [_Same date._]


THE FRIBBLE AND THE VIRTUOSO.--No piping nor fiddling, I beseech you;
no days lost in poring upon almost imperceptible _intaglios_ and
_cameos_: and do not become a virtuoso of small wares. Form a taste
of painting, sculpture, and architecture, if you please, by a careful
examination of the works of the best ancient and modern artists; those
are liberal arts, and a real taste and knowledge of them become a man
of fashion very well. But, beyond certain bounds, the man of taste
ends, and the frivolous virtuoso begins.

Your friend Mendes, the good Samaritan, dined with me yesterday. He
has more good nature and generosity, than parts. However, I will show
him all the civilities that his kindness to you so justly deserves;
he tells me that you are taller than I am, which I am very glad of.
I desire you may excel me in everything else too; and, far from
repining, I shall rejoice at your superiority. [_Same date._]


FREQUENT LETTERS.--Indeed the irregularity and negligence of the post
provoke me, as they break the thread of the accounts I want to receive
from you, and of the instructions and orders which I send you almost
every post. Of these last twenty posts, I am sure that I have wrote
eighteen, either to you or to Mr. Harte, and it does not appear, by
your letter, that all, or even any of my letters have been received. I
desire, for the future, that both you and Mr. Harte will constantly, in
your letters, mention the dates of mine. [_Oct. 2, 1749._]


PROPER EXPENSES TO BE PAID.--As to the expense which you mention, I
do not regard it in the least; from your infancy to this day, I never
grudged any expense in your education, and still less do it now, that
it is become more important and decisive. I attend to the objects
of your expenses, but not to the sums. I will certainly not pay one
shilling for your losing your nose, your money, or your reason; that
is, I will not contribute to women, gaming, and drinking. But I will
most cheerfully supply, not only every necessary, but every decent
expense you can make. I do not care what the best masters cost. I would
have you as well dressed, lodged, and attended, as any reasonable man
of fashion in his travels. I would have you have that pocket-money that
should enable you to make the proper expense, _d’un honnête homme_.
In short, I bar no expense, that has neither vice nor folly for its
object; and under those two reasonable restrictions, draw and welcome.
[_Same date._]


A PORTRAIT.--So many of my letters have miscarried, and I know so
little which, that I am forced to repeat the same thing over and over
again eventually. This is one. I have wrote twice to Mr. Harte, to
have your picture drawn in miniature, while you were at Venice, and
to send it me in a letter: it is all one to me, whether in enamel or
in water-colors, provided it is but very like you. I would have you
drawn exactly as you are, and in no whimsical dress. I lay more stress
upon the likeness of the picture, than upon the taste and skill of the
painter. If this be not already done, I desire that you will have it
done forthwith, before you leave Venice; and enclose it in a letter
to me; which letter, for greater security, I would have you desire
Sir James Gray to enclose in his packet to the office; as I, for the
same reason, send this under his cover. If the picture be done upon
vellum, it will be the most portable. Send me, at the same time, a
thread or silk of your own length, exactly. I am solicitous about
your figure; convinced, by a thousand instances, that a good one is a
real advantage. _Mens sana in corpore sano_, is the first and greatest
blessing. I would add, _et pulchro_, to complete it. May you have that,
and every other! Adieu. [_Same date._]


A CENTURY AGO.--The papal power, founded originally upon the ignorance
and superstition of mankind, extended by the weakness of some princes,
and the ambition of others; is declining of late, in proportion as
knowledge has increased; and owing its present precarious security not
to the religion, the affection, or the fear, of the temporal powers,
but to their jealousy of each other. The Pope’s excommunications are no
longer dreaded; his indulgences little solicited, and sell very cheap;
and his territories, formidable to no power, are coveted by many, and
will, most undoubtedly, within a century, be scantled out among the
great powers, who have now a footing in Italy; whenever they can agree
upon the division of the bear’s skin. [_Oct. 9, 1749._]


THE JESUITS.--They have, by turns, been banished, and with infamy,
almost every country in Europe; and have always found means to be
restored, even with triumph. In short, I know no government in the
world that is carried on upon such deep principles of policy, I will
not add morality. Converse with them, frequent them, court them; _but
know them_.

Inform yourself too of that infernal court, the inquisition; which,
though not so considerable at Rome as in Spain and Portugal, will,
however, be a good sample to you of what the villainy of some men can
contrive, the folly of others receive, and both together establish; in
spite of the first natural principles of reason, justice, and equity.
[_Same date._]


MILITARY STUDY.--Go with some engineer or old officer, and view, with
care, the real fortifications of some strong place; and you will get
a clearer idea of bastions, half-moons, horn-works, ravelins, glacis,
etc., than all the masters in the world could give you upon paper.
And thus much I would, by all means, have you know of both civil and
military architecture. [_Oct. 17, 1749._]


A FATHER’S OBJECT.--DEAR BOY: From the time that you have had life,
it has been the principal and favorite object of mine, to make you as
perfect as the imperfections of human nature will allow; in this view
I have grudged no pains nor expense in your education; convinced that
education, more than nature, is the cause of that great difference
which we see in the characters of men. While you, were a child, I
endeavored to form your heart habitually to virtue and honor, before
your understanding was capable of showing you their beauty and utility.
Those principles, which you then got like your grammar rules, only
by rote, are now, I am persuaded, fixed and confirmed by reason. And
indeed they are so plain and clear, that they require but a very
moderate degree of understanding, either to comprehend or practice
them. Lord Shaftesbury says, very prettily, that he would be virtuous
for his own sake, though nobody were to know it; as he would be clean
for his own sake, though nobody were to see him. I have therefore,
since you have had the use of your reason, never written to you upon
those subjects; they speak best for themselves; and I should, now, just
as soon think of warning you gravely not to fall into the dirt or the
fire, as into dishonor or vice. [_Nov. 5, 1749._]


GOOD BREEDING.--A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined
good breeding to be _the result of much good sense, some good nature,
and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to
obtain the same indulgence from them_. Taking this for granted (as I
think it cannot be disputed), it is astonishing to me, that anybody,
who has good sense and good nature (and I believe you have both), can
essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they
vary according to persons, places, and circumstances; and are only to
be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is
everywhere and eternally the same. Good-manners are, to particular
societies, what good morals are to society in general--their cement
and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals,
or at least to prevent the ill-effects of bad ones, so there are
certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce
good manners, and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to be less
difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one
would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another’s property, is
justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who, by his ill-manners,
invades and disturbs the quiet comforts of private life, is by common
consent as justly banished from society. Mutual complaisances,
attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an
implied compact between civilized people, as protection and obedience
are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that
compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own
part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good
action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet
which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that
of well-bred. [_Same date._]


MIXED COMPANY--LEARNING--PEDANTS.--In mixed companies, whoever is
admitted to make part of them is, for the time at least, supposed to be
upon a footing of equality with the rest; and, consequently, as there
is no one principal object of awe and respect, people are apt to take
a greater latitude in their behavior, and to be less upon their guard;
and so they may, provided it be within certain bounds, which are upon
no occasion to be transgressed. But, upon these occasions, though no
one is entitled to distinguished marks of respect, every one claims,
and very justly, every mark of civility and good breeding. Ease is
allowed, but carelessness and negligence are strictly forbidden. If
a man accosts you, and talks to you ever so dully or frivolously, it
is worse than rudeness, it is brutality, to show him, by a manifest
inattention to what he says, that you think him a fool or a blockhead,
and not worth hearing. It is much more so with regard to women; who, of
whatever rank they are, are entitled, in consideration of their sex,
not only to an attentive, but an officious good breeding from men.


NOT TOO MUCH FAMILIARITY.--The most familiar and intimate habitudes,
connections, and friendships require a degree of good breeding both
to preserve and cement them. If ever a man and his wife, or a man and
his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely
lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into
a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
The best of us have our bad sides; and it is as imprudent, as it is
ill-bred, to exhibit them. I shall certainly not use ceremony with you;
it would be misplaced between us: but I shall certainly observe that
degree of good breeding with you, which is, in the first place, decent,
and which, I am sure, is absolutely necessary to make us like one
another’s company long.

The deepest learning, without good breeding, is unwelcome and
tiresome pedantry, and of use nowhere but in a man’s own closet; and
consequently of little or no use at all.

A man, who is not perfectly well-bred, is unfit for good company, and
unwelcome in it; will consequently dislike it soon, afterward renounce
it; and be reduced to solitude, or, what is worse, low and bad company.

A man, who is not well-bred, is full as unfit for business as for
company.

Make then, my dear child, I conjure you, good breeding the great object
of your thoughts and actions at least half the day. Observe carefully
the behavior and manners of those who are distinguished by their
good breeding; imitate, nay, endeavor to excel, that you may at least
reach them; and be convinced that good breeding is, to all worldly
qualifications, what charity is to all Christian virtues. Observe how
it adorns merit, and how often it covers the want of it. May you wear
it to adorn, and not to cover you! Adieu. [_Same date._]


PERSONAL GRACES.--These personal graces are of very great consequence.
They anticipate the sentiments, before merit can engage the
understanding; they captivate the heart, and gave rise, I believe, to
the extravagant notions of charms and philters. Their efforts were so
surprising, that they were reckoned supernatural. The most graceful and
best-bred men, and the handsomest and genteelest women, give the most
philters; and, as I verily believe, without the least assistance of
the Devil. Pray be not only well dressed, but shining in your dress;
let it have _du brillant_: I do not mean by a clumsy load of gold and
silver, but by the taste and fashion of it. Women like and require it;
they think it an attention due to them. [_Nov. 14, 1749._]


DANCING YOUTH.--You danced pretty well here, and ought to dance very
well before you come home; for what one is obliged to do sometimes, one
ought to be able to do well. Besides, _la belle danse donne du brillant
à un jeune homme_. And you should endeavor to shine. A calm serenity,
negative merit and graces, do not become your age. You should be
_alerte_, _adroit_, _vif_; be wanted, talked of, impatiently expected,
and unwillingly parted with in company. I should be glad to hear half
a dozen women of fashion say: “_Où est donc le petit Stanhope? Que ne
vient-il? Il faut avouer qu’il est aimable._” All this I do not mean
singly with regard to women as the principal object; but with regard to
men, and with a view of your making yourself considerable. For, with
very small variations, the same things that please women please men.
[_Same date._]


ILL BREEDING.--My last was upon the subject of good breeding; but, I
think, it rather set before you the unfitness and disadvantages of
ill breeding, than the utility and necessity of good; it was rather
negative than positive. This, therefore, shall go further, and
explain to you the necessity, which you, of all people living, lie
under, not only of being positively and actively well-bred, but of
shining and distinguishing yourself by your good breeding. Consider
your own situation in every particular, and judge whether it is not
essentially your interest, by your own good breeding to others, to
secure theirs to you; and that, let me assure you, is the only way of
doing it; for people will repay, and with interest too, inattention
with inattention, neglect with neglect, and ill-manners with worse;
which may engage you in very disagreeable affairs. In the next place
your profession requires, more than any other, the nicest and most
distinguished good breeding. You will negotiate with very little
success, if you do not, previously, by your manners, conciliate and
engage the affections of those with whom you are to negotiate. Can
you ever get into the confidence and the secrets of the courts where
you may happen to reside, if you have not those pleasing, insinuating
manners, which alone can procure them? Upon my word, I do not say too
much, when I say that superior good breeding, insinuating manners, and
genteel address are half your business. Your knowledge will have but
very little influence upon the mind, if your manners prejudice the
heart against you; but, on the other hand, how easily will you _dupe_
the understanding, where you have first engaged the heart? and hearts
are, by no means, to be gained by that mere common civility which
everybody practises. Bowing again to those who bow to you, answering
dryly those who speak to you, and saying nothing offensive to anybody,
is such negative good breeding that it is only not being a brute; as it
would be but a very poor commendation of any man’s cleanliness to say
that he did not stink. It is an active, cheerful, officious, seducing
good breeding that must gain you the good-will and first sentiments
of the men, and the affections of the women. You must carefully watch
and attend to their passions, their tastes, their little humors
and weaknesses, and _aller au devant_. You must do it, at the same
time, with alacrity and _empressement_, and not as if you graciously
condescended to humor their weaknesses.

For instance; suppose you invited anybody to dine or sup with you,
you ought to recollect if you had observed that they had any favorite
dish, and take care to provide it for them: and, when it came, you
should say: “_You seemed to me, at such and such a place, to give this
dish a preference, and therefore I ordered it. This is the wine that I
observed you liked, and therefore I procured some._” The more trifling
these things are, the more they prove your attention for the person,
and are consequently the more engaging. Consult your own breast, and
recollect how these little attentions, when shown you by others,
flatter that degree of self-love and vanity, from which no man living,
is free. Reflect how they incline and attract you to that person, and
how you are propitiated afterward to all which that person says or
does. The same causes will have the same effects in your favor.


ATTENTIONS TO LADIES.--Women, in a great degree, establish or destroy
every man’s reputation of good breeding; you must, therefore, in a
manner, overwhelm them with the attentions of which I have spoken;
they are used to them, they expect them; and, to do them justice, they
commonly requite them. You must be sedulous, and rather over officious
than under, in procuring them their coaches, their chairs, their
conveniences in public places; not see what you should not see; and
rather assist, where you cannot help seeing. Opportunities of showing
these attentions present themselves perpetually; but if they do not,
make them. As Ovid advises his lover, when he sits in the _circus_ near
his mistress, to wipe the dust off her neck, even if there be none.
_Si nullus, tamen excute nullum._ Your conversation with women should
always be respectful; but, at the same time, _enjoué_, and always
addressed to their vanity. Everything you say or do should convince
them of the regard you have (whether you have it or not) for their
beauty, their wit, or their merit. Men have possibly as much vanity as
women, though of another kind; and both art and good breeding require
that, instead of mortifying, you should please and flatter it, by words
and looks of approbation. Suppose (which is by no means improbable)
that, at your return to England, I should place you near the person
of some one of the royal family; in that situation, good breeding,
engaging address, adorned with all the graces that dwell at courts,
would very probably make you a favorite, and from a favorite, a
minister; but all the knowledge and learning in the world, without
them, never would. The penetration of princes seldom goes deeper than
the surface. It is the exterior that always engages their hearts; and
I would never advise you to give yourself much trouble about their
understandings. Princes in general (I mean those _Porphyrogenets_
who are born and bred in purple) are about the pitch of women; bred
up like them, and are to be addressed and gained in the same manner.
They always see, they seldom weigh. Your lustre, not your solidity,
must take them; your inside will afterward support and secure what
your outside has acquired. With weak people (and they undoubtedly are
three parts in four of mankind) good breeding, address, and manners are
everything; they can go no deeper; but let me assure you that they are
a great deal, even with people of the best understandings. Where the
eyes are not pleased, the heart is not flattered, the mind will be apt
to stand out. Be this right or wrong, I confess I am so made myself.
Awkwardness and ill breeding shock me, to that degree, that where I
meet with them, I cannot find in my heart to inquire into the intrinsic
merit of that person; I hastily decide in myself that he can have none;
and am not sure I should not even be sorry to know that he had any. I
often paint you in my imagination, in your present _lontananza_; and,
while I view you in the light of ancient and modern learning, useful
and ornamental knowledge, I am charmed with the prospect; but when
I view you in another light, and represent you awkward, ungraceful,
ill-bred, with vulgar air and manners, shambling towards me with
inattention and _distractions_, I shall not pretend to describe to you
what I feel; but will do as a skilful painter did formerly, draw a veil
before the countenance of the father.

I dare say you know already enough of architecture, to know that the
Tuscan is the strongest and most solid of all the orders; but, at the
same time, it is the coarsest and clumsiest of them. Its solidity does
extremely well for the foundation and base floor of a great edifice;
but, if the whole building be Tuscan, it will attract no eyes, it will
stop no passengers, it will invite no interior examination; people
will take it for granted that the finishing and furnishing cannot
be worth seeing, where the front is so unadorned and clumsy. But
if, upon the solid Tuscan foundation, the Doric, the Ionic, and the
Corinthian orders, rise gradually with all their beauty, proportions,
and ornaments, the fabric seizes the most incurious eye, and stops the
most careless passenger; who solicits admission as a favor, nay, often
purchases it. Just so will it fare with your little fabric, which, at
present, I fear, has more of the Tuscan than the Corinthian order.
You must absolutely change the whole front, or nobody will knock at
the door. The several parts, which must compose this new front, are
elegant, easy, natural, superior good breeding; an engaging address;
genteel motions; an insinuating softness in your looks, words, and
actions; a spruce, lively air, and fashionable dress; and all the
glitter that a young fellow should have. [_No date._]


LEARNING AND POLITENESS.--I have often asserted, that the profoundest
learning, and the politest manners, were by no means incompatible,
though so seldom found united in the same person; and I have engaged
myself to exhibit you, as a proof of the truth of this assertion.
Should you, instead of that, happen to disprove me, the concern indeed
will be mine, but the loss will be yours. Lord Bolingbroke is a
strong instance on my side of the question; he joins, to the deepest
erudition, the most elegant politeness and good breeding that ever any
courtier and man of the world was adorned with. And Pope very justly
called him All Accomplished St. John, with regard to his knowledge
and his manners. He had, it is true, his faults; which proceeded from
unbounded ambition and impetuous passions; but they have now subsided
by age and experience; and I can wish you nothing better than to be,
what he is now, without being what he has been formerly. His address
pre-engages, his eloquence persuades, and his knowledge informs all
who approach him. Upon the whole, I do desire, and insist, that, from
after dinner till you go to bed, you make good breeding, address, and
manners your serious object and your only care. Without them, you will
be nobody; with them, you may be anything. [_No date._]


PROPER DISTINCTION.--Every rational being (I take it for granted)
proposes to himself some object more important than mere respiration
and obscure animal existence. He desires to distinguish himself among
his fellow-creatures; and _alicui negotio intentus, præclari facinoris,
aut artis bonæ, famam quærit_. Cæsar, when embarking, in a storm, said,
that it was not necessary he should live; but that it was absolutely
necessary he should get to the place to which he was going. And Pliny
leaves mankind this only alternative; either of doing what deserves to
be written, or of writing what deserves to be read. As for those who
do neither, _eorum vitam mortemque juxta æstumo; quoniam de utraque
siletur_. You have, I am convinced, one or both of these objects in
view; but you must know, and use the necessary means, or your pursuit
will be vain and frivolous. In either case, _capere est principium et
fons_; but it is by no means all. That knowledge must be adorned, it
must have lustre as well as weight, or it will be oftener taken for
lead than for gold. Knowledge you have, and will have; I am easy upon
that article. But my business, as your friend, is not to compliment you
upon what you have, but to tell you with freedom what you want; and I
must tell you plainly, that I fear you want everything but knowledge.
[_Nov. 24, 1749._]


STYLE.--It is not every understanding that can judge of matter; but
every ear can and does judge, more or less, of style; and were I
either to speak or write to the public, I should prefer moderate
matter, adorned with all the beauties and elegancies of style, to the
strongest matter in the world, ill worded and ill delivered. Your
business is, negotiation abroad, and oratory in the House of Commons
at home. What figure can you make in either case, if your style be
inelegant, I do not say bad? Imagine yourself writing an office-letter
to a secretary of state, which letter is to be read by the whole
cabinet council, and very possibly afterward, laid before parliament;
any one barbarism, solecism, or vulgarism in it would, in a very
few days, circulate through the whole kingdom, to your disgrace and
ridicule. For instance; I will suppose you had written the following
letter from The Hague to the secretary of state at London, and leave
you to suppose the consequences of it:

“MY LORD,--I _had_, last night, the honor of your lordship’s letter, of
the 24th; and will _set about doing_ the orders contained _therein_;
and _if so be_ that I can get that affair done by the next post, I will
not fail _for to_ give your lordship an account of it by _next post_.
I have told the French minister _as how_, _that if_ that affair be not
soon concluded, your lordship would think it _all long of him_; and
that he must have neglected _for to_ have wrote to his court about
it. I must beg leave to put your lordship in mind, _as how_, that I am
now full three quarters in arrear; and if _so be_ that I do not very
soon receive at least one half year, I shall _cut a very bad figure_;
for _this here_ place is very dear. I shall be _vastly beholden_ to
your lordship for _that there_ mark of your favor; and so I _rest_, or
_remain_, Yours,” etc.

You will tell me, possibly, that this is a _caricatura_ of an illiberal
and inelegant style; I will admit it; but assure you, at the same
time, that a dispatch with less than half these faults would blow you
up forever. It is by no means sufficient to be free from faults in
speaking and writing; you must do both correctly and elegantly. [_Same
date._]


MISPRONUNCIATION AND MISUSE OF WORDS.--A person of the House of
Commons, speaking two years ago upon naval affairs, asserted, that we
had then the finest navy _upon the face of the yearth_. This happy
mixture of blunder and vulgarism, you may easily imagine, was matter
of immediate ridicule; but I can assure you that it continues so
still, and will be remembered as long as he lives and speaks. Another,
speaking in defence of a gentleman, upon whom a censure was moved,
happily said that he thought that gentleman was more _liable_ to be
thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that _liable_
can never be used in a good sense. [_Same date._]


BOOKS FOR ORATORY.--You have read Quintilian--the best book in the
world to form an orator; pray read _Cicero, de Oratore_--the best book
in the world to finish one. Translate and retranslate, from and to
Latin, Greek, and English; make yourself a pure and elegant English
style: it requires nothing but application. I do not find that God has
made you a poet; and I am very glad that he has not; therefore, for
God’s sake, make yourself an orator, which you may do. Though I still
call you a boy, I consider you no longer as such; and when I reflect
upon the prodigious quantity of manure that has been laid upon you, I
expect you should produce more at eighteen, than uncultivated soils do
at eight and twenty. [_Same date._]


CHESTERFIELD A CENSOR-CRITIC.--While the Roman republic flourished,
while glory was pursued and virtue practised, and while even little
irregularities and indecencies, not cognizable by law, were, however,
not thought below the public care, censors were established,
discretionally to supply, in particular cases, the inevitable defects
of the law, which must, and can only be general. This employment I
assume to myself, with regard to your little republic, leaving the
legislative power entirely to Mr. Harte; I hope, and believe, that
he will seldom, or rather never, have occasion to exert his supreme
authority; and I do by no means suspect you of any faults that may
require that interposition. But, to tell you the plain truth, I am
of opinion, that my censorial power will not be useless to you, nor
a _sinecure_ to me. The sooner you make it both, the better for us
both. I can now exercise this employment only upon hearsay, or, at
most, written evidence; and therefore shall exercise it with great
lenity, and some diffidence; but when we meet, and that I can form
my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence, I shall no more let
the least impropriety, indecorum, or irregularity pass uncensured,
than my predecessor Cato did. I shall read you with the attention of
a critic, not with the partiality of an author: different in this
respect, indeed, from most critics, that I shall seek for faults only
to correct, and not to expose them. [_Nov. 26, 1749._]


NICKNAMES.--The little defects in manners, elocution, address, and
air (and even of figure, though very unjustly), are the objects of
ridicule, and the causes of nicknames. You cannot imagine the grief
it would give me, and the prejudice it would do you, if, by way of
distinguishing you from others of your name, you should happen to be
called Muttering Stanhope, Absent Stanhope, Ill-bred Stanhope, or
Awkward, Left-legged Stanhope; therefore, take great care to put it out
of the power of ridicule itself to give you any of these ridiculous
epithets; for, if you get one, it will stick to you like the envenomed
shirt. The very first day that I see you, I shall be able to tell you,
and certainly shall tell you, what degree of danger you are in; and I
hope that my admonitions, as censor, may prevent the censures of the
public. [_Same date._]


YOUNG STANHOPE’S PORTRAIT.--I send you here a portrait, drawn by a
lady at Venice, by my orders: “In compliance to your orders, I have
examined young Stanhope carefully, and think I have penetrated into
his character. This is his portrait, which I take to be a faithful
one. His face is pleasing, his countenance sensible, and his look
clever. His figure is at present rather too square; but if he shoots
up, which he has matter and years for, he will then be of a good size.
He has, undoubtedly, a great fund of acquired knowledge; I am assured
that he is master of the learned languages. As for French, I know he
speaks it perfectly, and I am told German, as well. The questions he
asks are judicious, and denote a thirst after knowledge. I cannot
say that he appears equally desirous of pleasing, for he seems to
neglect attentions and the graces. He does not come into a room well,
nor has he that easy, noble carriage, which would be proper for him.
It is true, he is as yet young and inexperienced; one may therefore
reasonably hope that his exercises, which he has not yet gone through,
and good company, in which he is still a novice, will polish, and give
all that is wanting to complete him. What seems necessary for that
purpose, would be an attachment to some woman of fashion, and who knows
the world. Some Madame de L’Ursay would be the proper person. In short,
I can assure you that he has everything which Lord Chesterfield can
wish him, excepting that carriage, those graces, and the style used
in the best company; which he will certainly acquire in time, and by
frequenting the polite world. If he should not, it would be great pity,
since he so well deserves to possess them. You know their importance.
My lord, his father, knows it too, he being master of them all. To
conclude, if little Stanhope acquires the graces, I promise you he will
make his way; if not, he will be stopped in a course, the goal of which
he might attain with honor.”[43]


MAN UNRATIONAL, YET ALL MEN THE SAME IN FEELING.--Those who suppose
that men in general act rationally, because they are called rational
creatures, know very little of the world; and if they act themselves
upon that supposition, will, nine times in ten, find themselves
grossly mistaken. That man is, _animal bipes_, _implume_, _risibile_,
I entirely agree; but for the _rationale_, I can only allow it him in
_actu primo_ (to talk logic), and seldom _in actu secundo_. Thus, the
speculative, cloistered pedant, in his solitary cell, forms systems of
things, as they should be, not as they are; and writes as decisively
and absurdly upon war, politics, manners, and characters, as that
pedant talked, who was so kind as to instruct Hannibal in the art of
war. Such closet politicians never fail to assign the deepest motives
for the most trifling actions; instead of often ascribing the greatest
actions to the most trifling causes, in which they would be much
seldomer mistaken. They read and write of kings, heroes, and statesmen,
as never do anything but upon the deepest principles of sound policy.
But those who see and observe kings, heroes, and statesmen, discover
that they have headaches, indigestions, humors, and passions, just
like other people; every one of which, in their turns, determine their
wills, in defiance of their reason. [_Dec. 5, 1749._]


CHARM OF MANNER.--The late Lord Townshend always spoke materially,
with argument and knowledge, but never pleased. Why? His diction was
not only inelegant, but frequently ungrammatical, always vulgar; his
cadences false, his voice unharmonious, and his action ungraceful.
Nobody heard him with patience; and the young fellows used to joke
upon him, and repeat his inaccuracies. The late Duke of Argyle, though
the weakest reasoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever knew in
my life. He charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience;
not by his matter certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A
most genteel figure, a graceful, noble air, an harmonious voice, an
elegancy of style, and a strength of emphasis, conspired to make him
the most affecting, persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever saw. I was
captivated like others; but when I came home, and coolly considered
what he had said, stripped of all those ornaments in which he had
dressed it, I often found the matter flimsy, the arguments weak,
and I was convinced of the power of those adventitious concurring
circumstances, which ignorance of mankind only, calls trifling ones.
[_Same date._]


TICKLING FOLLIES.--If you will please people, you must please them
in their own way; and, as you cannot make them what they should be,
you must take them as they are. I repeat it again, they are only to
be taken by _agrémens_, and by what flatters their senses and their
hearts. Rabelais first wrote a most excellent book, which nobody liked;
then, determined to conform to the public taste, he wrote “Gargantua
and Pantagruel,” which everybody liked, extravagant as it was. Adieu.
[_Same date._]


TRUE ELOCUTION.--What then does all this mighty heart and mystery of
speaking in Parliament amount to? Why, no more than this, that the man
who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that house, and to four
hundred people, that opinion, upon a given subject, which he would make
no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire, or
at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps,
and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the
House of Commons.

I have spoken frequently in Parliament, and not always without some
applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that
there is very little in it. The elegancy of the style, and the turn of
the periods, make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but
one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will
retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied, as people
do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favorite tunes that
have struck their ears and were easily caught. Most people have ears,
but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will
catch their judgments, such as they are. [_Dec. 9, 1749._]


HAMPDEN A LESSON.--Lord Clarendon, in his history, says of Mr. John
Hampden, _that he had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a
hand to execute, any mischief_. I shall not now enter into the justness
of this character of Mr. Hampden, to whose brave stand against the
illegal demand of ship-money, we owe our present liberties; but I
mention it to you as the character, which, with the alteration of one
single word, _good_, instead of _mischief_, I would have you aspire
to, and use your utmost endeavors to deserve. The head to contrive,
God must to a certain degree have given you; but it is in your own
power greatly to improve it, by study, observation, and reflection.
As for the _tongue to persuade_, it wholly depends upon yourself; and
without it the best head will contrive to very little purpose. The hand
to execute depends, likewise, in my opinion, in a great measure upon
yourself. Serious reflection will always give courage in a good cause;
and the courage arising from reflection is of a much superior nature to
the animal and constitutional courage of a foot-soldier. The former is
steady and unshaken, where the _nodus_ is _dignus vindice_; the latter
is oftener improperly than properly exerted, but always brutally.
[_Dec. 12, 1749._]


THINGS OF CONSEQUENCE--BOLINGBROKE.--He thought all these things of
consequence, and he thought right; pray do you think so too? It is
of the utmost consequence to you to be of that opinion. If you have
the least defect in your elocution, take the utmost care and pains to
correct it. Do not neglect your style, whatever language you speak in,
or whomever you speak to, were it your footman. Seek always for the
best words and the happiest expressions you can find. Do not content
yourself with being barely understood; but adorn your thoughts, and
dress them as you would your person; which, however well proportioned
it might be, it would be very improper and indecent to exhibit naked,
or even worse dressed than people of your sort are.

I have sent you, in a packet which your Leipsic acquaintance, Duval,
sends to his correspondent at Rome, Lord Bolingbroke’s book,[44] which
he published about a year ago. I desire that you will read it over
and over again, with particular attention to the style, and to all
those beauties of oratory with which it is adorned. Till I read that
book, I confess I did not know all the extent and powers of the English
language. Lord Bolingbroke has both a tongue and a pen to persuade.
[_Same date._]


COMPLICATED MACHINES.--I have often told you (and it is most true)
that, with regard to mankind, we must not draw general conclusions
from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We
must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will,
therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a
predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in
the pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have
one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity
of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and
sometimes stop that motion. [_Dec. 19, 1749._]


AMBITION AND AVARICE.--There are two inconsistent passions, which,
however, frequently accompany each other, like man and wife; and
which, like man and wife too, are commonly clogs upon each other. I
mean ambition and avarice: the latter is often the true cause of
the former; and then is the predominant passion. It seems to have
been so in Cardinal Mazarin; who did anything, submitted to anything,
and forgave anything, for the sake of plunder. He loved and courted
power like a usurer; because it carried profit along with it. Whoever
should have formed his opinion, or taken his measures, singly, from
the ambitious part of Cardinal Mazarin’s character, would have found
himself often mistaken. Some, who had found this out, made their
fortunes by letting him cheat them at play. On the contrary, Cardinal
Richelieu’s prevailing passion seems to have been ambition, and
his immense riches, only the natural consequences of that ambition
gratified; and yet, I make no doubt but that ambition had now and then
its turn with the former, and avarice with the latter. Richelieu (by
the way) is so strong a proof of the inconsistency of human nature,
that I cannot help observing to you that, while he absolutely governed
both his king and his country, and was, in a great degree, the arbiter
of the fate of all Europe, he was more jealous of the great reputation
of Corneille, than of the power of Spain; and more flattered with being
thought (what he was not) the best poet, than with being thought (what
he certainly was) the greatest statesman in Europe; and affairs stood
still, while he was concerting the criticism upon the _Cid_. Could one
think this possible, if one did not know it to be true? [_Same date._]


WOMEN, VANITY, AND LOVE.--Women are much more like each other than men;
they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love: these are their
universal characteristics. An Agrippina may sacrifice them to ambition,
or a Messalina to lust; but such instances are rare; and, in general,
all they say, and all they do, tends to the gratification of their
vanity, or their love. He who flatters them most pleases them best; and
they are most in love with him who they think is the most in love with
them. No adulation is too strong for them; no assiduity too great; no
simulation of passion too gross; as, on the other hand, the least word
or action, that can possibly be construed into a slight or contempt, is
unpardonable, and never forgotten. Men are, in this respect, tender,
too, and will sooner forgive an injury than an insult. Some men are
more captious than others; some are always wrongheaded; but every man
living has such a share of vanity, as to be hurt by marks of slight and
contempt. Every man does not pretend to be a poet, a mathematician,
or a statesman, and considered as such; but every man pretends to
common-sense, and to fill his place in the world with common decency;
and, consequently, does not easily forgive those negligencies,
inattentions, and slights, which seem to call in question, or utterly
deny him, both these pretensions. [_Same date._]


TOO READY FRIENDS.--Be upon your guard against those who, upon very
slight acquaintance, obtrude their unasked and unmerited friendship
and confidence upon you; for they probably cram you with them only
for their own eating; but, at the same time, do not roughly reject
them upon that general supposition. Examine further, and see whether
those unexpected offers flow from a warm heart and a silly head, or a
designing head and a cold heart; for knavery and folly have often the
same symptoms. In the first case, there is no danger in accepting them,
_valeant quantum valere possunt_. In the latter case, it may be useful
to seem to accept them, and artfully to turn the battery upon him who
raised it.

There is an incontinency of friendship among young fellows, who are
associated by their mutual pleasures only; which has, very frequently,
bad consequences. A parcel of warm hearts, and unexperienced heads,
heated by convivial mirth, and possibly a little too much wine, vow,
and really mean at the time, eternal friendships to each other, and
indiscreetly pour out their whole souls in common, and without the
least reserve. These confidences are as indiscreetly repealed, as they
were made; for new pleasures, and new places, soon dissolve this ill
cemented connection; and then very ill uses are made of these rash
confidences. Bear your part, however, in young companies; nay, excel,
if you can, in all the social and convivial joy and festivity that
become youth. Trust them with your love tales, if you please; but keep
your serious views secret. [_Same date._]


THE GENTLER VIRTUES.--Cæsar had all the great vices, and Cato all
the great virtues, that men could have. But Cæsar had the _leniores
virtutes_, which Cato wanted; and which made him beloved, even by
his enemies, and gained him the hearts of mankind, in spite of their
reason; while Cato was not even beloved by his friends, notwithstanding
the esteem and respect which they could not refuse to his virtues; and
I am apt to think that if Cæsar had wanted, and Cato possessed, those
_leniores virtutes_, the former would not have attempted (at least with
success), and the latter could have protected, the liberties of Rome.
Mr. Addison, in his Cato, says of Cæsar (and I believe with truth):

    “Curse on his virtues, they’ve undone his country.”


PRIDE AND PEDANTRY.--The costive liberality of a purse-proud man
insults the distresses it sometimes relieves; he takes care to make you
feel your own misfortunes, and the difference between your situation
and his; both which he insinuates to be justly merited: yours, by your
folly; his, by his wisdom. The arrogant pedant does not communicate,
but promulgates his knowledge. He does not give it to you, but he
inflicts it upon you; and is (if possible) more desirous to show you
your own ignorance, than his own learning. Such manners as these, not
only in the particular instances which I have mentioned, but likewise
in all others, shock and revolt that little pride and vanity, which
every man has in his heart; and obliterate in us the obligation for the
favor conferred, by reminding us of the motive which produced and the
manner which accompanied it. [_No date._]


GREETINGS AND GOOD WISHES.--The New Year is the season in which custom
seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the
name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes, which they
seldom form; and concern, which they seldom feel. That is not the case
between you and me, where truth leaves no room for compliments.

_Dii tibi dent annos, de te nam cætera sumes_, was said formerly to
one, by a man who certainly did not think it. With the variation of
one word only, I will with great truth say it to you. I will make the
first part conditional, by changing, in the second, the _nam_ into
_si_. May you live, as long as you are fit to live, but no longer! or,
may you rather die, before you cease to be fit to live, than after! My
true tenderness for you makes me think more of the manner than of the
length of your life, and forbids me to wish it prolonged, by a single
day, that should bring guilt, reproach, and shame upon you. I have not
malice enough in my nature to wish that to my greatest enemy. You are
the principal object of all my cares, the only object of all my hopes:
I have now reason to believe, that you will reward the former, and
answer the latter; in that case, may you live long, for you must live
happy; _de te nam cætera sumes_. Conscious virtue is the only solid
foundation of all happiness; for riches, power, rank, or whatever,
in the common acceptation of the word, is supposed to constitute
happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of
guilt. To that main wish I will add those of the good old nurse of
Horace, in his Epistle to Tibullus: _Sapere_, you have it in a good
degree already. _Et fari ut possit quæ sentiat._ Have you that? More,
much more, is meant by it, than common speech, or mere articulation.
I fear that still remains to be wished for, and I earnestly wish it
you. _Gratia_ and _fama_ will inevitably accompany the above-mentioned
qualifications. The _valetudo_ is the only one that is not in your own
power, Heaven alone can grant it you, and may it do so abundantly! As
for the _mundus victus, non deficiente crumenâ_, do you deserve, and I
will provide them. [_Dec. 26, 1749._]


POETS AND ORATORS.--A man who is not born with a poetical genius can
never be a poet, or, at best, an extreme bad one: but every man, who
can speak at all, can speak elegantly and correctly, if he pleases,
by attending to the best authors and orators; and, indeed, I would
advise those who do not speak elegantly, not to speak at all; for, I am
sure, they will get more by their silence than by their speech. As for
politeness; whoever keeps good company, and is not polite, must have
formed a resolution, and taken some pains not to be so; otherwise he
would naturally and insensibly acquire the air, the address, and the
tone of those he converses with. [_Same date._]


METHOD OF STUDY--THE WORLD AND BOOKS.--Your first morning hours, I
would have you devote to your graver studies with Mr. Harte; the
middle part of the day, I would have employed in seeing things;
and the evenings, in seeing people. You are not, I hope, of a lazy,
inactive turn, in either body or mind; and, in that case, the day is
full long enough for everything; especially at Rome, where it is not
the fashion, as it is here and at Paris, to embezzle at least half of
it at table. But if, by accident, two or three hours are sometimes
wanting for some useful purpose, borrow them from your sleep. Six,
or at most seven hours’ sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you
or anybody can want: more is only laziness and dozing; and is, I
am persuaded, both unwholesome and stupefying. If, by chance, your
business, or your pleasures, should keep you up till four or five
o’clock in the morning, I would advise you, however, to rise exactly
at your usual time, that you may not lose the precious morning hours;
and that the want of sleep may force you to go to bed earlier the next
night. This is what I was advised to do when very young, by a very wise
man; and what, I assure you, I always did in the most dissipated part
of my life. I have very often gone to bed at six in the morning, and
rose, notwithstanding, at eight; by which means I got many hours, in
the morning, that my companions lost; and the want of sleep obliged
me to keep good hours the next, or at least the third night. To this
method I owe the greatest part of my reading; for, from twenty to
forty, I should certainly have read very little, if I had not been
up while my acquaintances were in bed. Know the true value of time;
snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness,
no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do
to-day. That was the rule of the famous and unfortunate pensionary De
Witt; who, by strictly following it, found time, not only to do the
whole business of the republic, but to pass his evenings at assemblies
and suppers, as if he had nothing else to do or think of. [_Same date._]


RELIGION, WHY SILENT ON.--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 act or talk 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 half wits 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
indicate 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_ free-thinker, 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. [_Jan. 8, 1750._]


MORAL CHARACTER.--Your moral character must be not only pure, but,
like Cæsar’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 practise the doctrine they
preach. But put your private mark upon them, and shun them for ever
afterwards. [_Same date._]


VALUE OF CHARACTER.--Show yourself, upon all occasions, the advocate,
the friend, but not the bully, of virtue. Colonel Chartres,[45] 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? [_Same
date._]


A NICE DISTINCTION--EXAGGERATION.--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 marvellous; 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 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. [_Same date._]


THE NOVICE IN SOCIETY.--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 comæ et vox faucibus hæsit_. 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 _désœuvré_
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 to my acquaintance as such.” [_Jan. 11, 1750._]


THE CHAPERONE.--There is a sort of veteran women (_sic_) of condition,
who, having lived always in the _grand 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. [_Same date._]


NECESSARY ACCOMPLISHMENTS.--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 of 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
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. [_Jan. 18, 1750._]


TIME--ITS VALUE.--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 these two
important articles. Young people are apt to think 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 practised,
his two grandsons, at this time, owe the very considerable fortunes
that he left them. [_Feb. 5, 1750._]


LAZY PEOPLE--DISPATCH--HOW TO READ.--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
to-morrow 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 accompts, 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 immethodical 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 and
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. [_Feb. 5, 1750._]


DIGNITY IN PLEASURE.--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. 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 carefully 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 easier have it, as I give you
none that is inconsistent with your pleasure. [_Same date._]


FALSE WIT.--To do justice to the best English and French authors;
they have not given in to that false taste; they allow no thoughts
to be good, that are not just, and founded upon truth. The age of
Louis XIV. was very like the Augustan; Boileau, Molière, 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 tastes 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, having 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 ranfiement, 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.”

[_Same date._]


NO STOIC.--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. [_March 8, 1750._]


ETIQUETTE.--I did not think that the present Pope[46] 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’
taste of _vertu_ 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. [_March 19, 1750._]


BIBLIOMANIA.--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 Macchiavel of 1550. Beware of the
_Bibliomanie_. [_Same date._]


CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.--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. I cannot reckon Sweden and
Poland to be monarchies. [_March 29, 1750._]


AIM HIGH.--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 procellæ_, for men, as well as women. [_May 24, 1750._]


A DUE RETURN.--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 small price to pay for a very good reception. Were I in Africa, I
would pay it to a negro for his good-will. Adieu. [_June 5, 1750._]


USE OF ORATORY.--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 hearers, when murdered by an unskilful 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_; 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. [_July 9,
1750._]


SPEAK WELL.--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. [_Same date._]


A TRUTH.--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. [_Same date._]


LEARNED IGNORANCE.--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. [_Aug. 6, 1750._]


A PORTRAIT.--It is Lady Hervey,[47] 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 manières engageantes et le je ne sais quoi qui plaît_.
Desire her to reprove and correct any, and every, the least error and
inaccuracy in your manners, air, addresses, etc. No woman in Europe can
do it so well; none will do it more willingly, or in a more proper and
obliging manner. [_Oct. 22, 1750._]


HISTORY.--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 the 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 important parts of remote and fabulous
times. Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote. A general notion of
the history of France, from the conquest of that country by the Franks,
to the reign of Lewis 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. [_Nov. 1, 1750._]


SMALL TALK.--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
with triflers, and be serious only with the serious, but dance to those
who pipe. _Cur in theatrum Cato severe 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 all
republics, there are some 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. [_Same date._]


A RAKE.--Having mentioned the word rake, I must say a word or two
more upon 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 disease 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 by, 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 the character.[48] [_Nov. 8, 1750._]


KEEP THE PEACE.--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 maîtres_ by their behavior
seem to justify it; but those very _petits maîtres_, 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 the northern prejudices suppose it. [_No
date._]


A NEW CONSTITUTION.--This epigram in Martial:

  “Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare,
  Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te”--[49]

has puzzled a great many people; who cannot conceive how it
is possible not to love anybody, and yet not to know the reason why. I
think I conceive Martial’s meaning very clearly, though the nature of
epigram, which is to be short, would not allow him to explain it more
fully; and I take it to be this: “O Sabidis, you are a very worthy,
deserving man; you have a thousand good qualities, you have a great
deal of learning; I esteem, I respect, but for the soul of me, I cannot
love you, though I cannot particularly say why. You are not amiable;
you have not those engaging manners, those pleasing attentions, those
graces, and that address, which are absolutely necessary to please,
though impossible to define. I cannot say it is this or that particular
thing which hinders me from loving you, it is the whole together; and
upon the whole you are not agreeable.” How often have I, in the course
of my life, found myself in this situation, with regard to many of my
acquaintance, whom I have honored and respected, without being able
to love? I did not know why, because, when one is young, one does not
take the trouble, nor allow one’s self the time, to analyze one’s
sentiments, and to trace them up to their source. [_Feb. 28, 1751._]


CARRIAGE OF THE BODY.--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. [_No date._]


HOW TO PLEASE.--An air, a tone of voice, a composure of countenance to
mildness and softness, which are all easily acquired, do the business;
and without further examination, and possibly with the contrary
qualities, that man is reckoned the gentlest, the modestest, and the
best-natured man alive. Happy the man who, with a certain fund of
parts and knowledge, gets acquainted with the world early enough to
make it his bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the
world! for that is the common case of youth. They grow wiser when it
is too late; and, ashamed and vexed at having been bubbles so long,
too often turn knaves at last. Do not, therefore, trust to appearances
and outside yourself, but pay other people with them, because you may
be sure that nine in ten of mankind do, and ever will, trust to them.
This is by no means a criminal or blamable simulation, if not used
with an ill intention. I am by no means blamable in desiring to have
other people’s good word, good-will, and affection, if I do not mean to
abuse them. Your heart, I know, is good, your sense is sound, and your
knowledge extensive. [_May 6, 1751._]


PICTURES.--I received yesterday, at the same time, your letters of the
4th and the 11th, N. S., and being much more careful of my commissions
than you are of yours, I do not delay one moment sending you my final
instructions concerning the pictures. The man, you allow to be a
Titian, and in good preservation; the woman is an indifferent and a
damaged picture; but, as I want them for furniture for a particular
room, companions are necessary; and therefore I am willing to take
the woman, for better for worse, upon account of the man; and if she
is not too much damaged, I can have her tolerably repaired, as many
a fine woman is, by a skilful hand here; but then I expect the lady
should be, in a manner, thrown into the bargain with the man; and in
this state of affairs, the woman being worth little or nothing, I will
not go above fourscore louis for the two together. As for the Rembrandt
you mention, though it is very cheap, if good, I do not care for it. I
love _la belle nature_; Rembrandt paints caricatures. Now for your own
commissions, which you seem to have forgotten. [_May 10, 1751._]


DANCING AND DEPORTMENT.--Lady Hervey, who is your puff and panegyrist,
writes me word, that she saw you lately dance at a ball, and that you
dance very genteelly. I am extremely glad to hear it; for (by the
maxim that _omne majus continet in se minus_) if you dance genteelly,
I presume you walk, sit, and stand genteelly too; things which are
much more easy, though much more necessary, than dancing well. I have
known many very genteel people, who could not dance well; but I never
knew anybody dance very well, who was not genteel in other things. You
will probably often have occasion to stand in circles, at the levees
of princes and ministers, when it is very necessary, _de payer de
sa personne, et d’être bien planté_, with your feet not too near nor
too distant from each other. More people stand and walk, than sit
genteelly. Awkward, ill-bred people, being ashamed, commonly sit up
bolt upright and stiff; others, too negligent and easy, _se vautrent
dans leur fauteuil_, which is ungraceful and ill-bred, unless where the
familiarity is extreme. [_June 10, 1751._]


LITTLE NOTHINGS.--I know a man, and so do you, who, without a grain of
merit, knowledge, or talents, has raised himself millions of degrees
above his level, simply by a good air and engaging manners; insomuch
that the very prince, who raised him so high, calls him, _mon aimable
vaurien_[50]: but of this do not open your lips, _pour cause_. I give
you this secret, as the strongest proof imaginable, of the efficacy of
air, address, _tournure, et tous ces petits riens_. [_Same date._]


EASE OF MANNER.--_Les bienséances_[51] are a most necessary part of
the knowledge of the world. They consist in the relations of persons,
things, time, and place; good sense points them out, good company
perfects them (supposing always an attention and a desire to please),
and good policy recommends them.

Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and
unembarrassed as with your own valet de chambre; but yet every look,
word, and action should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper
and well-bred with others much your superiors, would be absurd and
ill-bred with one so very much so. You must wait till you are spoken
to; you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation, and you
must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not
lead you into any impropriety. [_June 13, 1751._]


SOCIAL RESPECT.--In mixed companies with your equals (for in mixed
companies all people are to a certain degree equal) greater ease
and liberty are allowed; but they too have their bounds within
_bienséance_. There is a social respect necessary; you may start your
own subject of conversation with modesty, taking great care, however,
_de ne jamais parler de cordes dans la maison d’un pendu_. Your words,
gestures, and attitudes have a greater degree of latitude, though by
no means an unbounded one. You may have your hands in your pockets,
take snuff, sit, stand, or occasionally walk, as you like; but I
believe you would not think it very _bienséant_ to whistle, put on
your hat, loosen your garters or your buckles, lie down upon a couch,
or go to bed, and welter in an easy chair. These are negligences and
freedoms which one can only take when quite alone; they are injurious
to superiors, shocking and offensive to equals, brutal and insulting to
inferiors. That easiness of carriage and behavior, which is exceedingly
engaging, widely differs from negligence and inattention, and by no
means implies that one may do whatever one pleases. [_Same date._]


RESPECT DUE TO WOMAN.--To women you should always address yourself with
great outward respect and attention, whatever you feel inwardly; their
sex is by long prescription entitled to it; and it is among the duties
of _bienséance_; at the same time that respect is very properly, and
very agreeably, mixed with a degree of _enjouement_, if you have it;
but then, that _badinage_ must either directly or indirectly tend to
their praise, and even not be liable to a malicious construction to
their disadvantage. But here, too, great attention must be had to the
difference of age, rank, and situation. A _maréchale_ of fifty must not
be played with like a young coquette of fifteen; respect and _serious
enjouement_, if I may couple those two words, must be used with the
former, and mere _badinage, zesté même d’un peu de polissonerie_, is
pardonable with the latter. [_Same date._]


HORSE-LAUGHTER.--Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with _les
bienséances_, as it is only the illiberal and noisy testimony of the
joy of the mob, at some very silly thing. A gentleman is often seen,
but very seldom heard, to laugh. Nothing is more contrary to _les
bienséances_ than horse-play, or _jeux de main_ of any kind whatever,
and has often very serious, sometimes very fatal consequences. Romping,
struggling, throwing things at one another’s head, are the becoming
pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a gentleman; _giuoco di mano,
giuoco di villano_, is a very true saying, among the few true sayings
of the Italians.

There is a _bienséance_ also with regard to people of the lowest
degree; a gentleman observes it with his footman, even with the beggar
in the street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of
insult; he speaks to neither _d’un ton brusque_, but corrects the one
coolly, and refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion
in the world in which _le ton brusque_ is becoming a gentleman. In
short, _les bienséances_ are another word for _manners_. [_Same date._]


THE TWO AGES.--Now that all tumultuous passions and quick sensations
have subsided with me, and that I have no tormenting cares nor
boisterous pleasures to agitate me, my greatest joy is to consider the
fair prospect you have before you, and to hope and believe you will
enjoy it. You are already in the world, at an age when others have
hardly heard of it. Your character is hitherto not only unblemished
in its moral part, but even unsullied by any low, dirty, and
ungentlemanlike vice; and will, I hope, continue so. Your knowledge
is sound, extensive, and avowed, especially in everything relative to
your destination. With such materials to begin, what then is wanting?
Not fortune, as you have found by experience. You have had, and shall
have, fortune sufficient to assist your merit and your industry; and,
if I can help it, you never shall have enough to make you negligent
of either. You have, too, _mens sana in corpore sano_, the greatest
blessing of all. All, therefore, that you want is as much in your power
to acquire, as to eat your breakfast when set before you; it is only
that knowledge of the world, that elegancy of manners, that universal
politeness, and those graces, which keeping good company, and seeing
variety of places and characters, must inevitably, with the least
attention on your part, give you. Your foreign destination leads to
the greatest things, and your parliamentary situation will facilitate
your progress; consider then this pleasing prospect as attentively for
yourself, as I consider it for you. Labor on your part to realize it,
as I will on mine to assist and enable you to do it. _Nullum numen
abest, si sit prudentia._ [_Same date._]


A REFERENCE AT COURT.--I would wish you to be able to talk upon all
these things, better and with more knowledge than other people;
insomuch that, upon those occasions, you should be applied to, and that
people should say, _I dare say Mr. Stanhope can tell us_. Second-rate
knowledge, and middling talents, carry a man farther at courts, and
in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining
parts. Tacitus very justly accounts for a man’s having always kept in
favor, and enjoyed the best employments, under the tyrannical reigns
of three or four of the very worst emperors, by saying that it was
not _propter aliquam eximiam artem, sed quia par negotiis neque supra
erat_. Discretion is the great article; all those things are to be
learned and only learned by keeping a great deal of the best company.
Frequent those good houses where you have already a footing, and
wriggle yourself somehow or other into every other. Haunt the courts
particularly, in order to get that _routine_. [_June 20, 1751._]


FRENCH AND ENGLISH HUNTING.--Our abbé writes me word that you were gone
to Compiègne; I am very glad of it; other courts must form you for your
own. He tells me, too, that you have left off riding at the _manège_; I
have no objection to that, it takes up a great deal of the morning; and
if you have got a genteel and firm seat on horseback, it is enough for
you, now that tilts and tournaments are laid aside. I suppose you have
hunted at Compiègne. The king’s hunting there, I am told, is a fine
sight. The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for
bumpkins and boobies. The poor beasts here are pursued and run down by
much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is
most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country,
which no other part of the globe produces. [_June 30, 1751._]


POLITE AFFECTION.--Remember to bring your mother some little presents;
they need not be of value, but only marks of your affection and duty
for one who has always been tenderly fond of you. You may bring Lady
Chesterfield a little Martin snuff-box, of about five louis; and you
need bring over no other presents; you and I not wanting _les petits
présens pour entretenir l’amitié_. [_July 8, 1751._]


INATTENTION.--Laziness of mind, or inattention, are as great enemies
to knowledge, as incapacity; for, in truth, what difference is there
between a man who will not, and a man who cannot, be informed? This
difference only, that the former is justly to be blamed, and the latter
to be pitied. And yet how many are there, very capable of receiving
knowledge, who, from laziness, inattention, and incuriousness, will not
so much as ask for it, much less take the least pains to acquire it.

Our young English travellers generally distinguish themselves by a
voluntary privation of all that useful knowledge for which they are
sent abroad; and yet, at that age, the most useful knowledge is the
most easy to be acquired; conversation being the book, and the best
book, in which it is contained. [_Jan. 2, 1752._]


THE DRAMA.--I could wish there were a treaty made between the
French and the English theatres, in which both parties should make
considerable concessions. The English ought to give up their notorious
violations of all the unities; and all their massacres, racks, dead
bodies, and mangled carcasses, which they so frequently exhibit upon
their stage. The French should engage to have more action, and less
declamation; and not to cram and crowd things together to almost a
degree of impossibility, from a too scrupulous adherence to the
unities. The English should restrain the licentiousness of their
poets, and the French enlarge the liberty of theirs: their poets are
the greatest slaves in their country, and that is a bold word; ours
are the most tumultuous subjects in England, and that is saying a
good deal. Under such regulations, one might hope to see a play, in
which one should not be lulled to sleep by the length of a monotonical
declamation, nor frightened and shocked by the barbarity of the
action. The unity of time extended occasionally to three or four days,
and the unity of place broke into, as far as the same street, or
sometimes the same town; both which, I will affirm, are as probable, as
four-and-twenty hours, and the same room.

More indulgence, too, in my mind, should be shown, than the French are
willing to allow, to bright thoughts, and to shining images; for though
I confess, it is not very natural for a hero or a princess to say fine
things, in all the violence of grief, love, rage, etc., yet I can as
well suppose that, as I can that they should talk to themselves for
half an hour; which they must necessarily do, or no tragedy could be
carried on, unless they had recourse to a much greater absurdity, the
choruses of the ancients. Tragedy is of a nature, that one must see it
with a degree of self-deception; we must lend ourselves, a little, to
the delusion; and I am very willing to carry that complaisance a little
further than the French do.

Tragedy must be something bigger than life, or it would not affect us.
In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must
speak, and speak with dignity, too. Hence the necessity of their being
written in verse, and, unfortunately for the French, from the weakness
of their language, in rhymes. And for the same reason, Cato, the Stoic,
expiring at Utica, rhymes masculine and feminine,[52] at Paris; and
fetches his last breath at London, in most harmonious and correct blank
verse.

It is quite otherwise with comedy, which should be mere common life,
and not one jot bigger. Every character should speak upon the stage,
not only what it would utter in the situation there represented, but
in the same manner in which it would express it. For which reason, I
cannot allow rhymes in comedy, unless they were put into the mouth and
came out of the mouth of a mad poet. But it is impossible to deceive
one’s self enough (nor is it the least necessary in comedy) to suppose
a dull rogue of a usurer cheating, or _gros Jean_ blundering, in the
finest rhymes in the world.

As for operas, they are essentially too absurd and extravagant to
mention: I look upon them as a magic scene, contrived to please the
eyes and the ears, at the expense of the understanding; and I consider
singing, rhyming, and chiming heroes, and princesses, and philosophers,
as I do the hills, the trees, the birds, and the beasts, who amicably
joined in one common country dance, to the irresistible tune of
Orpheus’s lyre. Whenever I go to an opera, I leave my sense and reason
at the door with my half guinea, and deliver myself up to my eyes and
my ears. [_Jan. 23, 1752._]


RIDICULE.--It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord
Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will
not stick where it is not just. I deny it.[53] A truth learned in a
certain light, and attacked in certain words by men of wit and humor,
may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the
truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule. The
overturn of Mary of Medicis into a river, where she was half drowned,
would never have been remembered, if Madame de Vernueil, who saw
it, had not said _la Reine boit_. Pleasure or malignity often gives
ridicule a weight, which it does not deserve. [_Same date._]


COMEDIES.--I chiefly mind dialogue and character in comedies. Let
dull critics feed the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the
dressing. [_Feb. 6, 1752._]


THE WEIGHT OF LOW PEOPLE.--In courts a universal gentleness and
_douceur dans les manières_ is most absolutely necessary: an offended
fool, or a slighted _valet de chambre_, may, very possibly, do more
hurt at court, than ten men of merit can do you good. Fools, and low
people, are always jealous of their dignity; and never forget nor
forgive what they reckon a slight. [_Same date._]


AT COURT.--There is a court garment, as well as a wedding garment,
without which you will not be received. That garment is the _volto
sciolto_: an imposing air, an elegant politeness, easy and engaging
manners, universal attention, an insinuating gentleness, and all those
_je ne sais quoi_ that compose the _grâces_. [_Same date._]


PERFECTION.--In all systems whatsoever, whether of religion,
government, morals, etc., perfection is the object always proposed,
though possibly unattainable; hitherto, at least, certainly
unattained. However, those who aim carefully at the mark itself,
will unquestionably come nearer to it than those who, from despair,
negligence, or indolence, leave to chance the work of skill. This maxim
holds equally true in common life; those who aim at perfection will
come infinitely nearer it than those desponding or indolent spirits,
who foolishly say to themselves, nobody is perfect; perfection is
unattainable; to attempt it is chimerical; I shall do as well as
others; why then should I give myself trouble to be what I never can,
and what, according to the common course of things, I need not be,
_perfect_? [_Feb. 20, 1752._]


OMNIS HOMO.--I would have him have lustre as well as weight. Did you
ever know anybody that reunited all these talents? Yes, I did; Lord
Bolingbroke joined all the politeness, the manners, and the graces
of a courtier, to the solidity of a statesman, and to the learning
of a pedant. He was _omnis homo_; and pray what should hinder my
boy of doing so too, if he hath, as I think he hath, all the other
qualifications that you allow him? [_Same date._]


KNOWLEDGE OF LITERATURE.--A gentleman should know those which I call
classical works, in every language: such as Boileau, Corneille, Racine,
Molière, etc., in French; Milton, Dryden, Pope, Swift, etc., in
English; and the three authors above mentioned[54] in Italian: whether
you have any such in German I am not quite sure, nor, indeed, am I
inquisitive. These sort of books adorn the mind, improve the fancy, are
frequently alluded to by, and are often the subjects of conversations
of, the best companies. As you have languages to read, and memory to
retain them, the knowledge of them is very well worth the little pains
it will cost you, and will enable you to shine in company. It is not
pedantic to quote and allude to them, which it would be with regard to
the ancients. [_March 2, 1752._]


NOTHING BY HALVES.--Whatever business you have, do it the first moment
you can; never by halves, but finish it without interruption, if
possible. Business must not be sauntered and trifled with; and you must
not say to it, as Felix did to Paul, “at a more convenient season I
will speak to thee.” The most convenient season for business is the
first; but study and business, in some measure, point out their own
times to a man of sense; time is much oftener squandered away in the
wrong choice and improper methods of amusement and pleasures. [_March
5, 1752._]


FORMATION OF MANNERS.--Nothing forms a young man so much as being used
to keep respectable and superior company, where a constant regard and
attention is necessary. It is true, this is at first a disagreeable
state of restraint; but it soon grows habitual, and consequently easy;
and you are amply paid for it, by the improvement you make, and the
credit it gives you. [_Same date._]


THE BEST SCHOOL.--Company, various company, is the only school for this
knowledge. You ought to be, by this time, at least in the third form of
that school, from whence the rise to the uppermost is easy and quick;
but then you must have application and vivacity, you must not only bear
with, but even seek, restraint in some companies, instead of stagnating
in one or two only, where indolence and love of ease may be indulged.
[_March 16, 1752._]


CHESTERFIELD’S PROPHECY.--I do not know what the Lord’s anointed, His
vicegerent upon earth, divinely appointed by Him, and accountable to
none but Him for his actions, will either think or do, upon these
symptoms of reason and good sense, which seem to be breaking out all
over France; but this I foresee, that before the end of this century,
the trade of both king and priest will not be half so good a one as it
has been. Du Clos, in his reflections, hath observed, and very truly,
_qu’il y a un germe de raison qui commence à se développer en France_.
A _développement_ that must prove fatal to regal and papal pretensions.
Prudence may, in many cases, recommend an occasional submission to
either; but when that ignorance, upon which an implicit faith in both
could only be founded, is once removed, God’s vicegerent, and Christ’s
vicar, will only be obeyed and believed, as far as what the one orders,
and the other says, is conformable to reason and to truth. [_April 13,
1752._]


SMALL CHANGE.--In common life, one much oftener wants small money,
and silver, than gold. Give me a man who has ready cash about him for
present expenses, shillings, half-crowns, and crowns, which circulate
easily; but a man who has only an ingot of gold about him is much above
common purposes, and his riches are not handy nor convenient. Have as
much gold as you please in one pocket, but take care always to keep
change in the other; for you will much oftener have occasion for a
shilling than for a guinea. [_Sept, 19, 1752._]


MAXIMS.--My dear friend,--I never think my time so well employed, as
when I think it employed to your advantage. In that view, I have thrown
together, for your use, the enclosed maxims[55]; or, to speak more
properly, observations of men and things; for I have no merit as to
the invention; I am no system-monger; and, instead of giving way to my
imagination, I have only consulted my memory; and my conclusions are
all drawn from facts, not from fancy. Most maxim-mongers have preferred
the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth;
but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not
justify and confirm. [_Jan. 15, 1753._]


A WET SUMMER.--There never was so wet a summer as this has been, in the
memory of man; we have not had one single day, since March, without
some rain; but most days a great deal. I hope that does not affect your
health, as great cold does; for, with all these inundations, it has
not been cold. God bless you! [_Aug. 1, 1766._]


THE LAST GREETING.--Poor Harte is in a miserable condition, is
paralyzed in his left side, and can hardly speak intelligibly. I was
with him yesterday. He inquired after you with great affection, and was
in the utmost concern when I showed him your letter.

My own health is, as it has been ever since I was here last year. I am
neither well nor ill, but _unwell_. I have, in a manner, lost the use
of my legs; for though I can make a shift to crawl upon even ground for
a quarter of an hour, I cannot go up or down stairs, unless supported
by a servant.

God bless and grant you a speedy recovery! [_Oct. 17, 1768._]

    Here end the letters to Mr. Stanhope, as he died the 16th of
    November following.


_To Mrs. Stanhope, then at Paris._

MADAM:--A troublesome and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to
use another hand than my own to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
from Avignon, of the 27th past.

I am extremely surprised that Mrs. du Bouchet should have any objection
to the manner in which your late husband desired to be buried, and
which you, very properly, complied with. All I desire for my own burial
is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely
indifferent to every rational creature.

I have no commission to trouble you with during your stay at Paris,
from whence I wish you and the boys a good journey home, where I shall
be very glad to see you all, and assure you of my being, with great
truth, your faithful, humble servant, CHESTERFIELD. [_March 16, 1769._]


_To the same, at London._

MADAM:--The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you I was so
taken up in playing with the boys that I forgot their more important
affairs. How soon would you have them placed at school? When I know
your pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny to prepare
everything for their reception. In the meantime, I beg that you will
equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain,
and give me the account, which I will pay, for I do not intend that
from this time forward, the two boys should cost you one shilling.
I am, with great truth, madam, your faithful, humble servant,
CHESTERFIELD. [_Wednesday._]


STANHOPE’S CHILDREN.--Charles will be a scholar, if you please, but
our little Philip, without being one, will be something or other as
good, though I do not yet guess what. I am not of the opinion generally
entertained in this country, that man lives by Greek and Latin alone;
that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which
nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common
intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of
modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into
the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.

You are by this time certainly tired with this long letter, which I
could prove to you from Horace’s own words (for I am a _scholar_) to
be a bad one; he says that water drinkers can write nothing good, so
I am, with real truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant,
CHESTERFIELD. [_Nov. 4, 1770._]


_To Charles and Philip Stanhope._

THE LAST LETTER.--I received, a few days ago, two, the best-written
letters that I ever saw in my life: the one signed Charles Stanhope,
the other Philip Stanhope. As for you, Charles, I do not wonder at
it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters: but you idle
rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well, that one can almost
say of you two, _et cantare pares et respondere parati_? Charles will
explain this Latin to you.

I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your
intimacy with Master _Strangeways_; and that they call you Master
Strangerways; for, to be sure, you are a strange boy. Is this true?

Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will
bring it to you when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you
both!--CHESTERFIELD. [BATH, OCT. 27, 1771.]


MAXIMS.[56]

A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only
secrecy of weak and cunning ones.

A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing
told him.

If a fool knows a secret, he tells it because he is a fool; if a knave
knows one, he tells it wherever it is his interest to tell it. But
women and young men are very apt to tell what secrets they know, from
the vanity of having been trusted. Trust none of these, whenever you
can help it.

Inattention to the present business, be it what it will; the doing one
thing, and thinking at the same time of another, or the attempting
to do two things at once, are the never-failing signs of a little,
frivolous mind.

A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his
countenance, should not think of being a man of business. The weakest
man in the world can avail himself of the passion of the wisest. The
inattentive man cannot know the business, and consequently cannot do
it. And he who cannot command his countenance, may e’en as well tell
his thoughts as show them.

Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight
acquaintance, and without any visible reason. Be upon your guard, too,
against those, who confess, as their weaknesses, all the cardinal
virtues.

In your friendships, and in your enmities, let your confidence and your
hostilities have certain bounds: make not the former dangerous, nor the
latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business!

Smooth your way to the head, through the heart. The way of reason is a
good one; but it is commonly something longer, and perhaps not so sure.

Spirit is now a very fashionable word: to act with spirit, to speak
with spirit, means only, to act rashly, and to talk indiscreetly. An
able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions: he is
neither hot nor timid.

When a man of sense happens to be in that disagreeable situation, in
which he is obliged to ask himself more than once, _What shall I do?_
he will answer himself, Nothing. When his reason points out to him no
good way, or at least no one way less bad than another, he will stop
short, and wait for light. A little busy mind runs on at all events,
must be doing; and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers because he
sees none. _Il faut savoir s’ennuyer._

Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man
would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must
seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the
tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price a man
must pay for a high station.

It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it
is often very wrong to expose either. A man of business should always
have his eyes open; but must often seem to have them shut.

In courts, nobody should be below your management and attention: the
links that form the court-chain are innumerable and inconceivable.
You must hear with patience the dull grievances of a gentleman
usher, or a page of the back-stairs; who, very probably, lies with
some near relation of the favorite maid, of the favorite mistress,
of the favorite minister, or perhaps of the king himself; and who,
consequently, may do you more dark or indirect good, or harm, than the
first man of quality.

One good patron at court may be sufficient, provided you have no
personal enemies; and, in order to have none, you must sacrifice (as
the Indians do to the Devil) most of your passions, and much of your
time, to the numberless evil beings that infest it; in order to prevent
and avert the mischiefs they can do you.

A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but
must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of
great power and interest. You must belong to a minister some time,
before anybody will belong to you. And an inviolable fidelity to that
minister, even in his disgrace, will be meritorious, and recommend
you to the next. Ministers love a personal, much more than a party
attachment.

As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed
that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same
education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their
cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so
that they seem to be a species by themselves. No king ever said to
himself: _Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto_.

Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their
infancy, like old drinkers, they require drams.

They prefer a personal attachment to a public service, and reward it
better. They are vain and weak enough to look upon it as a free-will
offering to their merit, and not as a burnt sacrifice to their power.

If you would be a favorite of your king, address yourself to his
weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very
successful.

In courts, bashfulness and timidity are as prejudicial on one hand,
as impudence and rashness are on the other. A steady assurance, and a
cool intrepidity, with an exterior modesty, are the true and necessary
medium.

Never apply for what you see very little probability of obtaining;
for you will, by asking improper and unattainable things, accustom
the ministers to refuse you so often, that they will find it easy to
refuse you the properest and most reasonable ones. It is a common but
a most mistaken rule at court, to ask for everything, in order to get
something: you do get something by it, it is true; but that something
is refusals and ridicule.

There is a court jargon, a chit-chat, a small talk, which turns singly
upon trifles; and which, in a great many words, says little or nothing.
It stands fools instead of what they cannot say, and men of sense
instead of what they should not say. It is the proper language of
levees, drawing-rooms, and ante-chambers; it is necessary to know it.

Whatever a man is at court, he must be genteel and well-bred; that
cloak covers as many follies, as that of charity does sins. I knew a
man of great quality, and in a great station at court, considered and
respected, whose highest character was, that he was humbly proud, and
genteelly dull.

It is hard to say which is the greatest fool; he who tells the whole
truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in
business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.

At court, people embrace without acquaintance, serve one another
without friendship, and injure one another without hatred. Interest,
not sentiment, is the growth of that soil.

A difference of opinion, though in the merest trifles, alienates
little minds, especially of high rank. It is full as easy to commend as
to blame a great man’s cook, or his tailor; it is shorter, too; and the
objects are no more worth disputing about, than the people are worth
disputing with. It is impossible to inform, but very easy to displease
them.

A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful at court;
they make fools think you are a good-natured man; and they make
designing men think you are an undesigning one.

There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret,
in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man
should tell it all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and
where to stop.

Ceremony is necessary in courts, as the outwork and defence of manners.

Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket-money at court;
where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency, that it
is no longer a fraudulent, but a legal payment.

If a minister refuses you a reasonable request, and either slights or
injures you, if you have not the power to gratify your resentment, have
the wisdom to conceal and dissemble it. Seeming good humor on your part
may prevent rancor on his, and perhaps bring things aright again: but
if you have the power to hurt, hint modestly that, if provoked, you
may possibly have the will too. Fear, when real, and well founded, is
perhaps a more prevailing motive at courts than love.

At court, many more people can hurt, than can help you; please the
former, but engage the latter.

Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to
be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity.

A man’s own good breeding is his best security against other people’s
ill-manners.

Good breeding carries along with it a dignity, that is respected by
the most petulant. Ill breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity
of the most timid. No man ever said a pert thing to the Duke of
Marlborough. No man ever said a civil one (though many a flattering
one) to Sir Robert Walpole.

When the old clipped money was called in for a new coinage in King
William’s time, to prevent the like for the future, they stamped on the
edges of the crown pieces these words, _et decus et tutamen_. That is
exactly the case of good breeding.

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments only give lustre; and
many more people see than weigh.

Most arts require long study and application; but the most useful art
of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.

It is to be presumed that a man of common-sense, who does not desire
to please, desires nothing at all, since he must know that he cannot
obtain anything without it.

A skilful negotiator will most carefully distinguish between the little
and the great objects of his business, and will be as frank and open in
the former as he will be secret and pertinacious in the latter.

He will, by his manners and address, endeavor, at least, to make his
public adversaries his personal friends. He will flatter and engage the
man, while he counterworks the minister; and he will never alienate
people’s minds from him, by wrangling for points, either absolutely
unattainable, or not worth attaining. He will make even a merit of
giving up what he could not or would not carry, and sell a trifle for a
thousand times its value.

A foreign minister, who is concerned in great affairs, must necessarily
have spies in his pay; but he must not too easily credit their
informations, which are never exactly true, often very false. His
best spies will always be those whom he does not pay, but whom he has
engaged in his service by his dexterity and address, and who think
themselves nothing less than spies.

There is a certain jargon which in French I should call _un persiflage
d’affaires_, that a foreign minister ought to be perfectly master
of, and may use very advantageously at great entertainments in mixed
companies, and in all occasions where he must speak and should say
nothing. Well turned and well spoken, it seems to mean something,
though in truth it means nothing. It is a kind of political _badinage_,
which prevents or removes a thousand difficulties to which a foreign
minister is exposed in mixed conversations.

If ever the _volto sciolto_ and the _pensieri stretti_ are necessary,
they are so in these affairs. A grave, dark, reserved, and mysterious
air has _fœnum in cornu_. An even, easy, unembarrassed one invites
confidence, and leaves no room for guesses and conjectures.

Both stimulation and dissimulation are absolutely necessary for a
foreign minister; and yet they must stop short of falsehood and
perfidy: that middle point is the difficult one: there ability
consists. He must often seem pleased, when he is vexed; and grave,
when he is pleased; but he must never say either: that would be
falsehood--an indelible stain to character.

A foreign minister should be a most exact economist. An expense
proportioned to his appointments and fortune is necessary; but, on the
other hand, debt is inevitable ruin to him. It sinks him into disgrace
at the court where he resides, and into the most servile and abject
dependence on the court that sent him. As he cannot resent ill usage,
he is sure to have enough of it.

The Duc de Sully observes very justly, in his Memoirs, that nothing
contributed more to his rise, than that prudent economy which he had
observed from his youth, and by which he had always a sum of money
beforehand, in case of emergencies.

It is very difficult to fix the particular point of economy; the best
error of the two is on the parsimonious side. That may be corrected;
the other cannot.

The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does
not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon
his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for
instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for
covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so
that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one
shilling. A man’s character, in that particular, depends a great deal
upon the report of his own servants; a mere trifle above common wages
makes their report favorable.

Take care always to form your establishment so much within your income
as to leave a sufficient fund for unexpected contingencies and a
prudent liberality. There is hardly a year, in any man’s life, in which
a small sum of ready money may not be employed to great advantage.


POLITICAL MAXIMS FROM CARDINAL DE RETZ.[57]

It is often madness to engage in a conspiracy; but nothing is so
effectual to bring people afterward to their senses, at least for a
time. As in such undertakings, the danger subsists, even after the
business is over; this obliges to be prudent and circumspect in the
succeeding moments.

2. A middling understanding, being susceptible of unjust suspicions, is
consequently, of all characters, the least fit to head a faction; as
the most indispensable qualification in such a chief is to suppress,
in many occasions, and to conceal in all, even the best grounded
suspicions.

3. Nothing animates and gives strength to a commotion so much as the
ridicule of him against whom it is raised.

4. Among people used to affairs of moment, secrecy is much less
uncommon than is generally believed.

5. Descending to the little is the surest way of attaining to an
equality with the great.

6. Fashion, though powerful in all things, is not more so in any, than
in being well or ill at court. There are times when disgrace is a kind
of fire, that purifies all bad qualities, and illuminates every good
one. There are others, in which the being out of favor is unbecoming a
man of character.

7. Sufferings, in people of the first rank, supply the want of virtue.

8. There is a confused kind of jumble, which practice sometimes
teaches; but it is never to be understood by speculation.

9. The greatest powers cannot injure a man’s character, whose
reputation is unblemished among his party.

10. We are as often duped by diffidence, as by confidence.

11. The greatest evils are not arrived at their utmost period until
those who are in power have lost all sense of shame. At such a time
those who should obey shake off all respect and subordination. Then is
lethargic indolence roused; but roused by convulsions.

12. A veil ought always to be drawn over whatever may be said or
thought concerning the rights of the people, or of kings; which agree
best when least mentioned.[58]

13. There are, at times, situations so very unfortunate, that whatever
is undertaken must be wrong. Chance, alone, never throws people into
such dilemmas; and they happen only to those who bring them upon
themselves.

14. It is more unbecoming a minister to say, than to do, silly things.

15. The advice given to a minister, by an obnoxious person, is always
thought bad.

16. It is as dangerous, and almost as criminal, with princes, to have
the power of doing good, as the will of doing evil.

17. Timorous minds are much more inclined to deliberate than to resolve.

18. It appears ridiculous to assert, but it is not the less true, that
at Paris, during the popular commotions, the most violent will not quit
their homes past a stated hour.

19. Flexibility is the most requisite qualification for the management
of great affairs.

20. It is more difficult for the member of a faction to live with those
of his own party, than to act against those who oppose it.

21. The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success
is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are
horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of
ill success.

22. Violent measures are always dangerous, but when necessary, may
then be looked upon as wise. They have, however, the advantage of
never being matter of indifferency; and, when well concerted, must be
decisive.

23. There may be circumstances, in which even prudence directs us to
trust entirely to chance.

24. Everything in this world has its critical moment, and the height of
good conduct consists in knowing and seizing it.

25. Profligacy, joined to ridicule, forms the most abominable and most
dangerous of all characters.

26. Weak minds never yield when they ought.

27. Variety of sights have the greatest effect upon the mob, and also
upon numerous assemblies, who, in many respects, resemble mobs.

28. Examples taken from past times have infinitely more power over the
minds of men, than any of the age in which they live. Whatever we see,
grows familiar; and perhaps the consulship of Caligula’s horse might
not have astonished us so much as we are apt to imagine.

29. Weak minds are commonly overpowered by clamor.

30. We ought never to contend for what we are not likely to obtain.

31. The instant in which we receive the most favorable accounts, is
just that wherein we ought to redouble our vigilance, even in regard to
the most trifling circumstances.

32. It is dangerous to have a known influence over people; as thereby
we become responsible even for what is done against our will.

33. One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is
required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what
ought to be done against our enemies.

34. Nothing lowers a great man so much, as not seizing the decisive
moment of raising his reputation. This is seldom neglected, but with a
view to fortune; by which mistake, it is not unusual to miss both.

35. The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an
inducement to commit them.

36. Every numerous assembly is a mob; consequently everything there
depends upon instantaneous turns.

37. Whatever measure seems hazardous, and is in reality not so, is
generally a wise one.

38. Irresolute minds always adopt with facility whatever measure can
admit of different issues, and consequently do not require an absolute
decision.

39. In momentous affairs, no step is indifferent.

40. There are times in which certain people are always in the right.

41. Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually as
what they do not comprehend.

42. When factions are only upon the defensive, they ought never to
do that which may be delayed. Upon such occasions, nothing is so
troublesome as the restlessness of subalterns; who think a state of
inaction total destruction.

43. Those who head factions have no way of maintaining their authority,
but by preventing or quieting discontent.

44. A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.

45. In affairs of importance, the choice of words is of as much
consequence, as it would be superfluous in those of little moment.

46. During those calms which immediately succeed violent storms,
nothing is more difficult for ministers than to act properly; because,
while flattery increases, suspicions are not yet subsided.

47. The faults of our friends ought never to anger us so far as to give
an advantage to our enemies.

48. The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion,
as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.

49. In matters of a delicate nature, all unnecessary alterations are
dangerous, because odious.

50. The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is
to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

51. We must run all hazards, where we think ourselves in a situation to
reap some advantage, even from the want of success.

52. Irresolute men are diffident in resolving upon the means, even when
they are determined upon the end.

53. It is almost a sure game, with crafty men, to make them believe we
intend to deceive those whom we mean to serve.

54. One of the greatest difficulties with princes is in the being often
obliged, in order to serve them, to give advice, the true reasons of
which we dare not mention.

55. The saying things which we foresee will not be pleasing, can only
be softened by the greatest appearance of sincerity.

56. We ought never to trifle with favor. If real, we should hastily
seize the advantage; if pretended, avoid the allurement.

57. It is very inconsequent to enter into engagements upon suppositions
we think impossible, and yet it is very usual.

58. The generality of mankind pay less attention to arguments urged
against their opinion, than to such as may engage the disputant to
adopt their own.

59. In times of faction and intrigue, whatever appears inert is
reckoned mysterious by those who are not accustomed to affairs of
moment.

60. It is never allowable in an inferior to equal himself in words to a
superior, although he may rival him in actions.

61. Every man whom chance alone has, by some accident, made a public
character, hardly ever fails of becoming, in a short time, a ridiculous
private one.

62. The greatest imperfection of men is the complacency with which they
are willing to think others not free from faults, of which they are
themselves conscious.

63. Experience only can teach men not to prefer what strikes them for
the present moment, to what will have much greater weight with them
hereafter.

64. In the management of important business, all turn to raillery must
be more carefully avoided than in any other.

65. In momentous transactions, words cannot be sufficiently weighed.

66. The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of
good fortune.

67. Whoever assembles the multitude will raise commotions.


LORD CHESTERFIELD’S REMARKS UPON THE FOREGOING MAXIMS.

I have taken the trouble of extracting and collecting, for your
use, the foregoing Political Maxims of the Cardinal de Retz, in his
Memoirs. They are not aphorisms of his invention, but the true and just
observations of his own experience, in the course of great business.
My own experience attests the truth of them all. Read them over with
attention as here above, and then read with the same attention,
and _tout de suite_, the Memoirs, where you will find the facts and
characters from whence those observations are drawn, or to which they
are applied; and they will reciprocally help to fix each other in your
mind. I hardly know any book so necessary for a young man to read and
remember. You will there find how great business is really carried on;
very differently from what people, who have never been concerned in it,
imagine. You will there see what courts and courtiers really are, and
observe that they are neither so good as they should be, nor so bad
as they are thought by most people. The court poet, and the sullen,
cloistered pedant, are equally mistaken in their notions, or at least
in the accounts they give us of them. You will observe the coolness
in general, the perfidy in some cases, and the truth in a very few,
of court friendships. This will teach you the prudence of a general
distrust, and the imprudence of making no exception to that rule, upon
good and tried grounds. You will see the utility of good breeding
toward one’s greatest enemies, and the high imprudence and folly of
either insulting or injurious expressions.




FOOTNOTES

[1] The greatest English writer of the present day thus sums up the
eighteenth century:--“An age of which Hoadly was the bishop, and
Walpole the minister, and Pope the poet, and Chesterfield the wit,
and Tillotson the ruling doctor.”--Newman, _Essays Critical and
Historical_, i. 388.

[2] For another, very different, view of the life and studies at
Cambridge at the time, see the _Life of Ambrose Bonwicke_ (1694-1714).

[3] [“_Pasquin._ A Dramatic Satire on the Times, by Henry Fielding.
Acted at the Haymarket, 1736; 1740.” (Baker.)]

[4] [“_King Charles I._ Hist Tr. by W. Havard, 1737.” (Ibid.).]

[5] Chesterfield says he had been accustomed to read and translate the
great masterpieces to improve and form his style. His indebtedness to
Milton in his _Areopagitica_ in the above passage is obvious.

[6] See Letter CCXV., also CCXII.

[7] It is just possible, though I have nowhere seen it affirmed, that
Voltaire and Chesterfield may have met, still earlier, in Holland. For
in 1713 they were both there. Their attainments there were all but
parallel, Voltaire succumbing to a fatal passion in 1713, which did
not, to our knowledge, overtake Chesterfield till his second visit in
1729.

[8] He must just have escaped traveling from Leipzig to Berlin with
Lessing. Both took the journey in February, 1749.

[9] For his fine sense of the quality of words witness: “An
unharmonious and rugged period at this time shocks my ears, and I, like
all the rest of the world, will willingly exchange and give up some
degree of rough sense for a good degree of pleasing sound.”

[10] Characteristically, no mention is made of Shaftesbury nor of
Hutcheson.

[11] _Cf._ Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Every Man’s Folly ought to be his
greatest secret.”--(_Instructions to his Son._)

[12] “A wise Atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his own
interest and character in the world, pretend to some religion.”--Letter
CLXXX.

[13] In this Essay, by the late M. Sainte-Beuve, nothing has been
altered, although, in one or two places, even his critical acuteness
seems to have missed its point.

[14] This is no longer a conjecture, but a certainty, after what I read
in the edition of _Lord Chesterfield’s Letters_, published in London
by Lord Mahon in 1847 (4 vols.). See vol. iii., page 159. I was not
acquainted with this edition when I wrote my article.--C. DE S. B.

[15] This was written in June, 1850.

[16] This first letter will form a key to Chesterfield’s character. It
is partly badinage, and yet contains the elements of his lordship’s
idea. He has already begun to teach “Mr. Stanhope,” and addresses as
Monsieur a child of the mature age of five years. We have purposely
omitted other letters, some in Latin, _Phillipo Stanhope, adhuc
puerulo_, which contain merely historical and geographical information
fit for a little schoolboy.

[17] Lord Chesterfield was, as will be afterwards seen, particularly
anxious that his son should imbibe political, geographical, and
historical knowledge, hence these details to a child of five.

[18] Young Mr. Stanhope’s tutor.

[19] In a previous letter, which has been lost, Chesterfield has been
teaching rhetoric to a boy of about seven years old, for, referring
to it, he says: “En vérité je crois que vous êtes le premier garcon à
qui, _avant l’âge de huit ans_, on ait jamais parlé des figures de la
rhétorique, comme j’ai fait dans ma dernière.”

[20] We learn by a subsequent reference that the little fellow wished
not to be called Colas, but Polyglot, from knowing already three or
four languages.

[21] CAREFUL IMITATION.--_Philip Chesterfield to his dear little boy
Philip Stanhope, wishing health, etc._ Your last letter was very
grateful to me; not only was it nicely written, but in it you promise
to take great care and to win, deservedly, true praise. But I must
say plainly that I much suspect you of having had the help of a good
and able master in composing it; and he being your guide and adviser,
it will be your own fault if you do not acquire elegancy of style,
learning, and all that can make you good and wise. I entreat you,
therefore, carefully to imitate so good a pattern; the more you regard
him the more you will love me. [_About July, 1741._]

[22] In the beginning of this letter, which contains a lesson upon
Julius Cæsar, Chesterfield says: “You know so much more and learn so
much better than any boy of your age, that you see I do not treat you
like a boy, but write to you on subjects fit for men to consider.”

[23] So also Home,--

  “Amen! and virtue is its own reward.”

               _Douglas_, Act. iii. Sc. 1.

And Claudian, quoted by Chesterfield,

  “Ipsa quidem virtus pretium sibi, solaque latè
  Fortunæ secura nitet,” etc.

[24] Written in Latin. _Philippus Chesterfield, Phillippo Stanhope
adhuc puerulo, sed eras e pueritiâ egressuro. S. D._ Dated, Kalend,
Maii, 1741.

[25] In the compilation called “Lord Chesterfield’s Maxims,” wherein
part of this letter is given, all the characteristic points are left
out. Thus, where Chesterfield reminds his son that manner is of
consequence in pleasing, _especially the women_, the purist has excised
the words in italics.

[26] His Lordship’s badinage, or it may be sarcasm, which the little
boy quickly perceived.

[27] His lordship was then Viceroy of Ireland.

[28] Mr. Stanhope was then travelling with his tutor in Germany.

[29] A good natured but somewhat silly book in which M. L’Abbé
instructs certain young ladies and gentlemen by means of sundry
conversations and reflections.

[30] His lordship had during this year been made one of his Majesty’s
Secretaries of State.

[31] Chesterfield had inclosed in a letter from Mr. Stanhope’s mamma
one from his own sister, thanking the boy for some Arquebusade water.
His lordship sent a rough copy of a polite answer to this note.

[32] Lord Chesterfield had been urging his son to send a Dresden
tea-service to his mother, which he did.

[33] A pun; the pillars from Canons in Middlesex.

[34] It is well, in the present state of society, to reflect upon the
intimacy here shown between persons in trade and those in high life.

[35] A somewhat curious use of the phrase, but well explained by
Johnson.

[36] De Retz, from whose “Mémoires” Lord Chesterfield quoted a sentence
in the commencement of the letter.

[37] The author, as he says, often repeats himself; see _ante_, p. 180.

[38] Pic-nic. Johnson does not mention this word, nor do his
predecessors, Ashe and Bailey. Richardson does not give it even in his
supplement. Worcester cites Widegren, 1788; this then is the earliest
use of the word by an author of weight.

[39] On a German question.

[40] An open face with a close (or secret) mind.

[41] This little note is inserted to show that Lord Chesterfield’s
repetitions were not unknown to himself. The most flagrant we have
omitted.

[42] As indeed did George III. _teste_ the anecdote of Kemble: “Mr.
Kemble, _obleige_ me with a pinch of snuff.” “It would become your
Majesty’s royal mouth better to say _oblige_.”

[43] We retain this as a picture of the morals of the time, and to
satisfy the reader’s curiosity as to the subject of so much care on the
part of his father.

[44] “Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, on the Idea of a Patriot
King.”

[45] A notorious, wretched debauchee, who has been pilloried into a
miserable and degraded immortality by Arbuthnot, Pope and Hogarth; the
painter has given us his portrait in “The Harlot’s Progress,” plate 1.
Pope has set him up as an instance of that hardest trial to good men,
the success of the wicked:

  “Should some lone temple, nodding to its fall,
  For Chartres’ head reserve the nodding wall.”

And Arbuthnot wrote the most tremendously severe epitaph in the whole
range of literature on him while yet alive: “Here _continueth to rot_
the body of Colonel Francis Chartres,” etc. Finally, Chesterfield
points him out to his son as the most notorious blasted rascal in the
world--blasted, indeed, as by lightning. It is needless to say that
this word is not used as a vulgar oath, but to point out a man whose
name is, as the Bible of 1551 has it: “Marred forever by _blastynge_.”

[46] Benedict XIV.--the amiable Lambertini, who was thought by
Chesterfield too much of a savant and a man of the world to be
foolishly devout.

[47] The lady was turned fifty, and Chesterfield recommends her as a
chaperone.

[48] Strong as this reprobation is, it is as much needed to-day as when
written; the whole English race (if we credit _Westminster Review_,
March, 1869), especially the upper class, is suffering from the awful
effects of vice.

[49] Thus Englished by the famous Tom Brown:

  “I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,
  But this I know and know full well, I do _not_ love thee, Dr. Fell.”

[50] The Maréchal de Richelieu.

[51] This single word implies decorum, good breeding, and propriety.

[52] As to terminations, so careful were the best French poets of their
rhymes.

[53] Chesterfield had at once perceived the emptiness of the saying,
which is certainly not in _ipsissimis verbis_ of Lord Shaftesbury. “We
have,” says Carlyle, in his “Essay on Voltaire,” “oftener than once
endeavored to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to
Shaftesbury--which, however, _we can find nowhere in his works_,--that
ridicule is the test of truth.” In the “Characteristics of Enthusiasm,”
sec. 2, there is this sentence, which comes very near it:--“How is it,
etc., that we (Christians) appear such cowards in reasoning, and are
so afraid _to stand the test of ridicule_”; but further on (p. 11, ed.
1733, vol. i.) he asks: “For what ridicule can lie against reason? or
how can any one of the least justice of thought admire a ridicule wrong
placed? Nothing is more ridiculous than this itself.” Shaftesbury often
returns to this subject; see “Errors in Wit,” etc.

[54] Ariosto, Tasso, and Boccaccio: the Orlando, Gierusalemme, and
Decamerone.

[55] See “Maxims,” p. 328.

[56] These maxims are referred to on page 324.

[57] Upon the back of the original is written, in Mr. Stanhope’s hand,
“Excellent Maxims, but more calculated for the meridian of France or
Spain than of England.”

[58] This Maxim, as well as several others, evidently prove they were
written by a man subject to despotic government.




Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69855 ***