Congreve points out a sort of critics, to whom he says that we are doubly obliged:-

"Rules for good writing they with pains indite,

Then show us what is bad, by what they write."

It is certain that Monsieur Hop, with the best heart in the world, and a thousand good qualities, has a thousand enemies, and hardly a friend; simply from the roughness of his manners.

N. B. I heartily wish you could have stayed long enough at Manheim to have been seriously and desperately in love with Madame de Taxis; who, I suppose, is a proud, insolent, fine lady, and who would consequently have expected attentions little short of adoration: nothing would do you more good than such a passion; and I live in hopes that somebody or other will be able to excite such an one in you; your hour may not yet be come, but it will come. Love has not been unaptly compared to the smallpox which most people have sooner or later. Iphigenia had a wonderful effect upon Cimon; I wish some Hanover Iphigenia may try her skill upon you.

I recommend to you again, though I have already done it twice or thrice, to speak German, even affectedly, while you are at Hanover; which will show that you prefer that language, and be of more use to you there with SOMEBODY, than you can imagine. When you carry my letters to Monsieur Munchausen and Monsieur Schwiegeldt, address yourself to them in German; the latter speaks French very well, but the former extremely ill. Show great attention to Madame, Munchausen's daughter, who is a great favorite; those little trifles please mothers, and sometimes fathers, extremely. Observe, and you will find, almost universally, that the least things either please or displease most; because they necessarily imply, either a very strong desire of obliging, or an unpardonable indifference about it. I will give you a ridiculous instance enough of this truth, from my own experience. When I was Ambassador the first time in Holland, Comte de Wassenaer and his wife, people of the first rank and consideration, had a little boy of about three years old, of whom they were exceedingly fond; in order to make my court to them, I was so too, and used to take the child often upon my lap, and play with him. One day his nose was very dirty, upon which I took out my handkerchief and wiped it for him; this raised a loud laugh, and they called me a very, handy nurse; but the father and mother were so pleased with it, that to this day it is an anecdote in the family, and I never receive a letter from Comte Wassenaer, but he makes me the compliments 'du morveux gue j'ai mouche autrefois'; who, by the way, I am assured, is now the prettiest young fellow in Holland. Where one would gain people, remember that nothing is little. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: As I have reason to fear, from your M last letter of the 18th, N. S., from Manheim, that all, or at least most of my letters to you, since you left Paris, have miscarried; I think it requisite, at all events, to repeat in this the necessary parts of those several letters, as far as they relate to your future motions.

I suppose that this will either find you, or be but a few days before you at Bonn, where it is directed; and I suppose too, that you have fixed your time for going from thence to Hanover. If things TURN OUT WELL AT HANOVER, as in my opinion they will, 'Chi sta bene non si muova', stay there till a week or ten days before the King sets out for England; but, should THEY TURN OUT ILL, which I cannot imagine, stay, however, a month, that your departure may not seem a step of discontent or peevishness; the very suspicion of which is by all means to be avoided. Whenever you leave Hanover, be it sooner or be it later, where would you go? 'Lei Padrone', and I give you your choice: would you pass the months of November and December at Brunswick, Cassel, etc.? Would you choose to go for a couple of months to Ratisbon, where you would be very well recommended to, and treated by the King's Electoral Minister, the Baron de Behr, and where you would improve your 'Jus publicum'? or would you rather go directly to Berlin, and stay there till the end of the Carnival? Two or three months at Berlin are, considering all circumstances, necessary for you; and the Carnival months are the best; 'pour le reste decidez en dernier ressort, et sans appel comme d'abus'. Let me know your decree, when you have formed it. Your good or ill success at Hanover will have a very great influence upon your subsequent character, figure, and fortune in the world; therefore I confess that I am more anxious about it, than ever bride was on her wedding night, when wishes, hopes, fears, and doubts, tumultuously agitate, please, and terrify her. It is your first crisis: the character which you will acquire there will, more or less, be that which will abide by you for the rest of your life. You will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a man; and from that moment there is no appeal for character; it is fixed. To form that character advantageously, you have three objects particularly to attend to: your character as a man of morality, truth, and honor; your knowledge in the objects of your destination, as a man of business; and your engaging and insinuating address, air and manners, as a courtier; the sure and only steps to favor.

Merit at courts, without favor, will do little or nothing; favor, without merit, will do a good deal; but favor and merit together will do everything. Favor at courts depends upon so many, such trifling, such unexpected, and unforeseen events, that a good courtier must attend to every circumstance, however little, that either does, or can happen; he must have no absences, no DISTRACTIONS; he must not say, "I did not mind it; who would have thought it?" He ought both to have minded, and to have thought it. A chamber-maid has sometimes caused revolutions in courts which have produced others in kingdoms. Were I to make my way to favor in a court, I would neither willfully, nor by negligence, give a dog or a cat there reason to dislike me. Two 'pies grieches', well instructed, you know, made the fortune of De Luines with Lewis XIII. Every step a man makes at court requires as much attention and circumspection, as those which were made formerly between hot plowshares, in the Ordeal, or fiery trials; which, in those times of ignorance and superstition, were looked upon as demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Direct your principal battery, at Hanover, at the D of N 's: there are many very weak places in that citadel; where, with a very little skill, you cannot fail making a great impression. Ask for his orders in everything you do; talk Austrian and Anti-gallican to him; and, as soon as you are upon a foot of talking easily to him, tell him 'en badinant', that his skill and success in thirty or forty elections in England leave you no reason to doubt of his carrying his election for Frankfort; and that you look upon the Archduke as his Member for the Empire. In his hours of festivity and compotation, drop that he puts you in mind of what Sir William Temple says of the Pensionary De Witt,-who at that time governed half Europe,-that he appeared at balls, assemblies, and public places, as if he had nothing else to do or to think of. When he talks to you upon foreign affairs, which he will often do, say that you really cannot presume to give any opinion of your own upon those matters, looking upon yourself at present only as a postscript to the corps diplomatique; but that, if his Grace will be pleased to make you an additional volume to it, though but in duodecimo, you will do your best that he shall neither be ashamed nor repent of it. He loves to have a favorite, and to open himself to that favorite. He has now no such person with him; the place is vacant, and if you have dexterity you may fill it. In one thing alone do not humor him; I mean drinking; for, as I believe, you have never yet been drunk, you do not yourself know how you can bear your wine, and what a little too much of it may make you do or say; you might possibly kick down all you had done before.

You do not love gaming, and I thank God for it; but at Hanover I would have you show, and profess a particular dislike to play, so as to decline it upon all occasions, unless where one may be wanted to make a fourth at whist or quadrille; and then take care to declare it the result of your complaisance, not of your inclinations. Without such precaution you may very possibly be suspected, though unjustly, of loving play, upon account of my former passion for it; and such a suspicion would do you a great deal of hurt, especially with the King, who detests gaming. I must end this abruptly. God bless you!

MY DEAR FRIEND: Versatility as a courtier may be almost decisive to you hereafter; that is, it may conduce to, or retard your preferment in your own destination. The first reputation goes a great way; and if you fix a good one at Hanover, it will operate also to your advantage in England. The trade of a courtier is as much a trade as that of a shoemaker; and he who applies himself the most, will work the best: the only difficulty is to distinguish (what I am sure you have sense enough to distinguish) between the right and proper qualifications and their kindred faults; for there is but a line between every perfection and its neighboring imperfection. As, for example, you must be extremely well-bred and polite, but without the troublesome forms and stiffness of ceremony. You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion; and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth or rank. You must be gay within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty.

With these qualifications, which, by the way, are all in your own power, I will answer for your success, not only at Hanover, but at any court in Europe. And I am not sorry that you begin your apprenticeship at a little one; because you must be more circumspect, and more upon your guard there, than at a great one, where every little thing is not known nor reported.

When you write to me, or to anybody else, from thence, take care that your letters contain commendations of all that you see and hear there; for they will most of them be opened and read; but, as frequent couriers will come from Hanover to England, you may sometimes write to me without reserve; and put your letters into a very little box, which you may send safely by some of them.

I must not omit mentioning to you, that at the Duke of Newcastle's table, where you will frequently dine, there is a great deal of drinking; be upon your guard against it, both upon account of your health, which would not bear it, and of the consequences of your being flustered and heated with wine: it might engage you in scrapes and frolics, which the King (who is a very sober man himself) detests. On the other hand, you should not seem too grave and too wise to drink like the rest of the company; therefore use art: mix water with your wine; do not drink all that is in the glass; and if detected, and pressed to drink more do not cry out sobriety; but say that you have lately been out of order, that you are subject to inflammatory complaints, and that you must beg to be excused for the present. 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.

During your stay at Hanover I would have you make two or three excursions to parts of that Electorate: the Hartz, where the silver mines are; Gottingen, for the University; Stade, for what commerce there is. You should also go to Zell. In short, see everything that is to be seen there, and inform yourself well of all the details of that country. Go to Hamburg for three or four days, and know the constitution of that little Hanseatic Republic, and inform yourself well of the nature of the King of Denmark's pretensions to it.

If all things turn out right for you at Hanover, I would have you make it your head-quarters, till about a week or ten days before the King leaves it; and then go to Brunswick, which, though a little, is a very polite, pretty court. You may stay there a fortnight or three weeks, as you like it; and from thence go to Cassel, and stay there till you go to Berlin; where I would have you be by Christmas. At Hanover you will very easily get good letters of recommendation to Brunswick and to Cassel. You do not want any to Berlin; however, I will send you one for Voltaire. 'A propos' of Berlin, be very reserved and cautious while at Hanover, as to that King and that country; both which are detested, because feared by everybody there, from his Majesty down to the meanest peasant; but, however, they both extremely deserve your utmost attention and you will see the arts and wisdom of government better in that country, now, than in any other in Europe. You may stay three months at Berlin, if you like it, as I believe you will; and after that I hope we shall meet there again.

Of all the places in the world (I repeat it once more), establish a good reputation at Hanover, 'et faites vous valoir la, autant qu'il est possible, par le brillant, les manieres, et les graces'. Indeed it is of the greatest importance to you, and will make any future application to the King in your behalf very easy. He is more taken by those little things, than any man, or even woman, that I ever knew in my life: and I do not wonder at him. In short, exert to the utmost all your means and powers to please: and remember that he who pleases the most, will rise the soonest and the highest. Try but once the pleasure and advantage of pleasing, and I will answer that you will never more neglect the means.

I send you herewith two letters, the one to Monsieur Munchausen, the other to Monsieur Schweigeldt, an old friend of mine, and a very sensible knowing man. They will both I am sure, be extremely civil to you, and carry you into the best company; and then it is your business to please that company. I never was more anxious about any period of your life, than I am about this, your Hanover expedition, it being of so much more consequence to you than any other. If I hear from thence, that you are liked and loved there, for your air, your manners, and address, as well as esteemed for your knowledge, I shall be the happiest man in the world. Judge then what I must be, if it happens otherwise. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: By my calculation this letter may probably arrive at Hanover three or four days before you; and as I am sure of its arriving there safe, it shall contain the most material points that I have mentioned in my several letters to you since you left Paris, as if you had received but few of them, which may very probably be the case.

As for your stay at Hanover, it must not IN ALL EVENTS be less than a month; but if things turn out to Your SATISFACTION, it may be just as long as you please. From thence you may go wherever you like; for I have so good an opinion of your judgment, that I think you will combine and weigh all circumstances, and choose the properest places. Would you saunter at some of the small courts, as Brunswick, Cassel, etc., till the Carnival at Berlin? You are master. Would you pass a couple of months at Ratisbon, which might not be ill employed? 'A la bonne heure'. Would you go to Brussels, stay a month or two there with Dayrolles, and from thence to Mr. Yorke, at The Hague? With all my heart. Or, lastly, would you go to Copenhagen and Stockholm? 'Lei e anche Padrone': choose entirely for yourself, without any further instructions from me; only let me know your determination in time, that I may settle your credit, in case you go to places where at present you have none. Your object should be to see the 'mores multorum hominum et urbes'; begin and end it where you please.

By what you have already seen of the German courts, I am sure you must have observed that they are much more nice and scrupulous, in points of ceremony, respect and attention, than the greater courts of France and England. You will, therefore, I am persuaded, attend to the minutest circumstances of address and behavior, particularly during your stay at Hanover, which (I will repeat it, though I have said it often to you already) is the most important preliminary period of your whole life. Nobody in the world is more exact, in all points of good-breeding, than the King; and it is the part of every man's character, that he informs himself of first. The least negligence, or the slightest inattention, reported to him, may do you infinite prejudice: as their contraries would service.

If Lord Albemarle (as I believe he did) trusted you with the secret affairs of his department, let the Duke of Newcastle know that he did so; which will be an inducement to him to trust you too, and possibly to employ you in affairs of consequence. Tell him that, though you are young, you know the importance of secrecy in business, and can keep a secret; that I have always inculcated this doctrine into you, and have, moreover, strictly forbidden you ever to communicate, even to me, any matters of a secret nature, which you may happen to be trusted with in the course of business.

As for business, I think I can trust you to yourself; but I wish I could say as much for you with regard to those exterior accomplishments, which are absolutely necessary to smooth and shorten the way to it. Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it. Air and address must begin, manners and attention must finish that work. I will let you into one secret concerning myself; which is, that I owe much more of the success which I have had in the world to my manners, than to any superior degree of merit or knowledge. I desired to please, and I neglected none of the means. This, I can assure you, without any false modesty, is the truth: You have more knowledge than I had at your age, but then I had much more attention and good-breeding than you. Call it vanity, if you please, and possibly it was so; but my great object was to make every man I met with like me, and every woman love me. I often succeeded; but why? By taking great pains, for otherwise I never should: my figure by no means entitled me to it; and I had certainly an up-hill game; whereas your countenance would help you, if you made the most of it, and proscribed for ever the guilty, gloomy, and funereal part of it. Dress, address, and air, would become your best countenance, and make your little figure pass very well.

If you have time to read at Hanover, pray let the books you read be all relative to the history and constitution of that country; which I would have you know as correctly as any Hanoverian in the whole Electorate. Inform yourself of the powers of the States, and of the nature and extent of the several judicatures; the particular articles of trade and commerce of Bremen, Harburg, and Stade; the details and value of the mines of the Hartz. Two or three short books will give you the outlines of all these things; and conversation turned upon those subjects will do the rest, and better than books can.

Remember of all things to speak nothing but German there; make it (to express myself pedantically) your vernacular language; seem to prefer it to any other; call it your favorite language, and study to speak it with purity and elegance, if it has any. This will not only make you perfect in it, but will please, and make your court there better than anything. A propos of languages: Did you improve your Italian while you were at Paris, or did you forget it? Had you a master there? and what Italian books did you read with him? If you are master of Italian, I would have you afterward, by the first convenient opportunity, learn Spanish, which you may very easily, and in a very little time do; you will then, in the course of your foreign business, never be obliged to employ, pay, or trust any translator for any European language.

As I love to provide eventually for everything that can possibly happen, I will suppose the worst that can befall you at Hanover. In that case I would have you go immediately to the Duke of Newcastle, and beg his Grace's advice, or rather orders, what you should do; adding, that his advice will always be orders to you. You will tell him that though you are exceedingly mortified, you are much less so than you should otherwise be, from the consideration that being utterly unknown to his M---, his objection could not be personal to you, and could only arise from circumstances which it was not in your power either to prevent or remedy; that if his Grace thought that your continuing any longer there would be disagreeable, you entreated him to tell you so; and that upon the whole, you referred yourself entirely to him, whose orders you should most scrupulously obey. But this precaution, I dare say, is 'ex abundanti', and will prove unnecessary; however, it is always right to be prepared for all events, the worst as well as the best; it prevents hurry and surprise, two dangerous, situations in business; for I know no one thing so useful, so necessary in all business, as great coolness, steadiness, and sangfroid: they give an incredible advantage over whoever one has to do with.

I have received your letter of the 15th, N. S., from Mayence, where I find that you have diverted yourself much better than I expected. I am very well acquainted with Comte Cobentzel's character, both of parts and business. He could have given you letters to Bonn, having formerly resided there himself. You will not be so agreeably ELECTRIFIED where this letter will find you, as you were both at Manheim and Mayence; but I hope you may meet with a second German Mrs. F---d, who may make you forget the two former ones, and practice your German. Such transient passions will do you no harm; but, on the contrary, a great deal of good; they will refine your manners and quicken your attention; they give a young fellow 'du brillant', and bring him into fashion; which last is a great article at setting out in the world.

I have wrote, about a month ago, to Lord Albemarle, to thank him for all his kindnesses to you; but pray have you done as much? Those are the necessary attentions which should never be omitted, especially in the beginning of life, when a character is to be established.

That ready wit; which you so partially allow me, and so justly Sir Charles Williams, may create many admirers; but, take my word for it, it makes few friends. It shines and dazzles like the noon-day sun, but, like that too, is very apt to scorch; and therefore is always feared. The milder morning and evening light and heat of that planet soothe and calm our minds. Good sense, complaisance, gentleness of manners, attentions and graces are the only things that truly engage, and durably keep the heart at long run. Never seek for wit; if it presents itself, well and good; but, even in that case, let your judgment interpose; and take care that it be not at the expense of anybody. Pope says very truly:

"There are whom heaven has blest with store of wit;

Yet want as much again to govern it."

And in another place, I doubt with too much truth:

"For wit and judgment ever are at strife

Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife."

The Germans are very seldom troubled with any extraordinary ebullitions or effervescenses of wit, and it is not prudent to try it upon them; whoever does, 'ofendet solido'.

Remember to write me very minute accounts of all your transactions at Hanover, for they excite both my impatience and anxiety. Adieu!

MY DEAR FRIEND: I am extremely concerned at the return of your old asthmatic complaint, of which your letter from Cassel of the 28th July, N. S., in forms me. I believe it is chiefly owing to your own negligence; for, notwithstanding the season of the year, and the heat and agitation of traveling, I dare swear you have not taken one single dose of gentle, cooling physic, since that which I made you take at Bath. I hope you are now better, and in better hands. I mean in Dr. Hugo's at Hanover: he is certainly a very skillful physician, and therefore I desire that you will inform him most minutely of your own case, from your first attack in Carniola, to this last at Marpurgh; and not only follow his prescriptions exactly at present, but take his directions, with regard to the regimen that he would have you observe to prevent the returns of this complaint; and, in case of any returns, the immediate applications, whether external or internal, that he would have you make use of. Consider, it is very worth your while to submit at present to any course of medicine or diet, to any restraint or confinement, for a time, in order to get rid, once for all, of so troublesome and painful a distemper; the returns of which would equally break in upon your business or your pleasures. Notwithstanding all this, which is plain sense and reason, I much fear that, as soon as ever you are got out of your present distress, you will take no preventive care, by a proper course of medicines and regimen; but, like most people of your age, think it impossible that you ever should be ill again. However, if you will not be wise for your own sake, I desire you will be so for mine, and most scrupulously observe Dr. Hugo's present and future directions.

Hanover, where I take it for granted you are, is at present the seat and centre of foreign negotiations; there are ministers from almost every court in Europe; and you have a fine opportunity of displaying with modesty, in conversation, your knowledge of the matters now in agitation. The chief I take to be the Election of the King of the Romans, which, though I despair of, heartily wish were brought about for two reasons. The first is, that I think it may prevent a war upon the death of the present Emperor, who, though young and healthy, may possibly die, as young and healthy people often do. The other is, the very reason that makes some powers oppose it, and others dislike it, who do not openly oppose it; I mean, that it may tend to make the imperial dignity hereditary in the House of Austria; which I heartily wish, together with a very great increase of power in the empire: till when, Germany will never be anything near a match for France. Cardinal Richelieu showed his superior abilities in nothing more, than in thinking no pains or expense too great to break the power of the House of Austria in the empire. Ferdinand had certainly made himself absolute, and the empire consequently formidable to France, if that Cardinal had not piously adopted the Protestant cause, and put the empire, by the treaty of Westphalia, in pretty much the same disjointed situation in which France itself was before Lewis the Eleventh; when princes of the blood, at the head of provinces, and Dukes of Brittany, etc., always opposed, and often gave laws to the crown. Nothing but making the empire hereditary in the House of Austria, can give it that strength and efficiency, which I wish it had, for the sake of the balance of power. For, while the princes of the empire are so independent of the emperor, so divided among themselves, and so open to the corruption of the best bidders, it is ridiculous to expect that Germany ever will, or can act as a compact and well-united body against France. But as this notion of mine would as little please SOME OF OUR FRIENDS, as many of our enemies, I would not advise you, though you should be of the same opinion, to declare yourself too freely so. Could the Elector Palatine be satisfied, which I confess will be difficult, considering the nature of his pretensions, the tenaciousness and haughtiness of the court of Vienna (and our inability to do, as we have too often done, their work for them); I say, if the Elector Palatine could be engaged to give his vote, I should think it would be right to proceed to the election with a clear majority of five votes; and leave the King of Prussia and the Elector of Cologne, to protest and remonstrate as much as ever they please. The former is too wise, and the latter too weak in every respect, to act in consequence of these protests. The distracted situation of France, with its ecclesiastical and parliamentary quarrels, not to mention the illness and possibly the death of the Dauphin, will make the King of Prussia, who is certainly no Frenchman in his heart, very cautious how he acts as one. The Elector of Saxony will be influenced by the King of Poland, who must be determined by Russia, considering his views upon Poland, which, by the by, I hope he will never obtain; I mean, as to making that crown hereditary in his family. As for his sons having it by the precarious tenure of election, by which his father now holds it, 'a la bonne heure'. But, should Poland have a good government under hereditary kings, there would be a new devil raised in Europe, that I do not know who could lay. I am sure I would not raise him, though on my own side for the present.

I do not know how I came to trouble my head so much about politics today, which has been so very free from them for some years: I suppose it was because I knew that I was writing to the most consummate politician of this, and his age. If I err, you will set me right; 'si quid novisti rectius istis, candidus imperti', etc.

I am excessively impatient for your next letter, which I expect by the first post from Hanover, to remove my anxiety, as I hope it will, not only with regard to your health, but likewise to OTHER THINGS; in the meantime in the language of a pedant, but with the tenderness of a parent, 'jubeo te bene valere'.

Lady Chesterfield makes you many compliments, and is much concerned at your indisposition.

LONDON, August 27, O. S. 1752.

SIR: As a most convincing proof how infinitely I am interested in everything which concerns Mr. Stanhope, who will have the honor of presenting you this letter, I take the liberty of introducing him to you. He has read a great deal, he has seen a great deal; whether or not he has made a proper use of that knowledge, is what I do not know: he is only twenty years of age. He was at Berlin some years ago, and therefore he returns thither; for at present people are attracted toward the north by the same motives which but lately drew them to the south.

Permit me, Sir, to return you thanks for the pleasure and instruction I have received from your 'History of Lewis XIV'. I have as yet read it but four times, because I wish to forget it a little before I read it a fifth; but I find that impossible: I shall therefore only wait till you give us the augmentation which you promised; let me entreat you not to defer it long. I thought myself pretty conversant in the history of the reign of Lewis XIV., by means of those innumerable histories, memoirs, anecdotes, etc., which I had read relative to that period of time. You have convinced me that I was mistaken, and had upon that subject very confused ideas in many respects, and very false ones in others. Above all, I cannot but acknowledge the obligation we have to you, Sir, for the light which you have thrown upon the follies and outrages of the different sects; the weapons you employ against those madmen, or those impostors, are the only suitable ones; to make use of any others would be imitating them: they must be attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt. 'A propos' of those fanatics; I send you here inclosed a piece upon that subject, written by the late Dean Swift: I believe you will not dislike it. You will easily guess why it never was printed: it is authentic, and I have the original in his own handwriting. His Jupiter, at the Day of judgment, treats them much as you do, and as they deserve to be treated.

Give me leave, Sir, to tell you freely, that I am embarrassed upon your account, as I cannot determine what it is that I wish from you. When I read your last history, I am desirous that you should always write history; but when I read your 'Rome Sauvee' (although ill-printed and disfigured), yet I then wish you never to deviate from poetry; however, I confess that there still remains one history worthy of your pen, and of which your pen alone is worthy. You have long ago given us the history of the greatest and most outrageous madman (I ask your pardon if I cannot say the greatest hero) of Europe; you have given us latterly the history of the greatest king; give us now the history of the greatest and most virtuous man in Europe; I should think it degrading to call him king. To you this cannot be difficult, he is always before your eyes: your poetical invention is not necessary to his glory, as that may safely rely upon your historical candor. The first duty of an historian is the only one he need require from his, 'Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat'. Adieu, Sir! I find that I must admire you every day more and more; but I also know that nothing ever can add to the esteem and attachment with which I am actually, your most humble and most obedient servant, CHESTERFIELD.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Since you have been at Hanover, your correspondence has been both unfrequent and laconic. You made indeed one great effort in folio on the 18th, with a postscript of the 22d August, N. S., and since that, 'vous avez rate in quarto'. On the 31st August, N. S., you give me no informations of what I want chiefly to know; which is, what Dr. Hugo (whom I charged you to consult) said of your asthmatic complaint, and what he prescribed you to prevent the returns of it; and also what is the company that, you keep there, who has been kind and civil to you, and who not.

You say that you go constantly to the parade; and you do very well; for though you are not of that trade, yet military matters make so great a part both of conversation and negotiation, that it is very proper not to be ignorant of them. I hope you mind more than the mere exercise of the troops you see; and that you inform yourself at the same time, of the more material details; such as their pay, and the difference of it when in and out of quarters; what is furnished them by the country when in quarters, and what is allowed them of ammunition, bread, etc., when in the field; the number of men and officers in the several troops and companies, together with the non-commissioned officers, as 'caporals, frey-caporals, anspessades', sergeants, quarter-masters, etc.; the clothing how frequent, how good, and how furnished; whether by the colonel, as here in England, from what we call the OFF-RECKONINGS, that is, deductions from the men's pay, or by commissaries appointed by the government for that purpose, as in France and Holland. By these inquiries you will be able to talk military with military men, who, in every country in Europe, except England, make at least half of all the best companies. Your attending the parades has also another good effect, which is, that it brings you, of course, acquainted with the officers, who, when of a certain rank and service, are generally very polite, well-bred people, 'et du bon ton'. They have commonly seen a great deal of the world, and of courts; and nothing else can form a gentleman, let people say what they will of sense and learning; with both which a man may contrive to be a very disagreeable companion. I dare say, there are very few captains of foot, who are not much better company than ever Descartes or Sir Isaac Newton were. I honor and respect such superior geniuses; but I desire to converse with people of this world, who bring into company their share, at least, of cheerfulness, good-breeding, and knowledge of mankind. 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; sixpences, 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. In this the French must be allowed to excel all people in the world: they have 'un certain entregent, un enjouement, un aimable legerete dans la conversation, une politesse aisee et naturelle, qui paroit ne leur rien couter', which give society all its charms. I am sorry to add, but it is too true, that the English and the Dutch are the farthest from this, of all the people in the world; I do by no means except even the Swiss.

Though you do not think proper to inform me, I know from other hands that you were to go to the Gohr with a Comte Schullemburg, for eight or ten days only, to see the reviews. I know also that you had a blister upon your arm, which did you a great deal of good. I know too, you have contracted a great friendship with Lord Essex, and that you two were inseparable at Hanover. All these things I would rather have known from you than from others; and they are the sort of things that I am the most desirous of knowing, as they are more immediately relative to yourself.

I am very sorry for the Duchess of Newcastle's illness, full as much upon your as upon her account, as it has hindered you from being so much known to the Duke as I could have wished; use and habit going a great way with him, as indeed they do with most people. I have known many people patronized, pushed up, and preferred by those who could have given no other reason for it, than that they were used to them. We must never seek for motives by deep reasoning, but we must find them out by careful observation and attention, no matter what they should be, but the point is, what they are. Trace them up, step by step, from the character of the person. I have known 'de par le monde', as Brantome says, great effects from causes too little ever to have been suspected. Some things must be known, and can never be guessed.

God knows where this letter will find you, or follow you; not at Hanover, I suppose; but wherever it does, may it find you in health and pleasure! Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: The day after the date of my last, I received your letter of the 8th. I approve extremely of your intended progress, and am very glad that you go to the Gohr with Comte Schullemburg. I would have you see everything with your own eyes, and hear everything with your own ears: for I know, by very long experience, that it is very unsafe to trust to other people's. Vanity and interest cause many misrepresentations, and folly causes many more. Few people have parts enough to relate exactly and judiciously: and those who have, for some reason or other, never fail to sink, or to add some circumstances.

The reception which you have met with at Hanover, I look upon as an omen of your being well received everywhere else; for to tell you the truth, it was the place that I distrusted the most in that particular. But there is a certain conduct, there are certaines 'manieres' that will, and must get the better of all difficulties of that kind; it is to acquire them that you still continue abroad, and go from court to court; they are personal, local, and temporal; they are modes which vary, and owe their existence to accidents, whim, and humor; all the sense and reason in the world would never point them out; nothing but experience, observation, and what is called knowledge of the world, can possibly teach them. For example, it is respectful to bow to the King of England, it is disrespectful to bow to the King of France; it is the rule to courtesy to the Emperor; and the prostration of the whole body is required by eastern monarchs. These are established ceremonies, and must be complied with: but why thev were established, I defy sense and reason to tell us. It is the same among all ranks, where certain customs are received, and must necessarily be complied with, though by no means the result of sense and reason. As for instance, the very absurd, though almost universal custom of drinking people's healths. Can there be anything in the world less relative to any other man's health, than my drinking a glass of wine? Common sense certainly never pointed it out; but yet common sense tells me I must conform to it. Good sense bids one be civil and endeavor to please; though nothing but experience and observation can teach one the means, properly adapted to time, place, and persons. This knowledge is the true object of a gentleman's traveling, if he travels as he ought to do. By frequenting good company in every country, he himself becomes of every country; he is no longer an Englishman, a Frenchman, or an Italian; but he is an European; he adopts, respectively, the best manners of every country; and is a Frenchman at Paris, an Italian at Rome, an Englishman at London.

This advantage, I must confess, very seldom accrues to my countrymen from their traveling; as they have neither the desire nor the means of getting into good company abroad; for, in the first place, they are confoundedly bashful; and, in the next place, they either speak no foreign language at all, or if they do, it is barbarously. You possess all the advantages that they want; you know the languages in perfection, and have constantly kept the best company in the places where you have been; so that you ought to be an European. Your canvas is solid and strong, your outlines are good; but remember that you still want the beautiful coloring of Titian, and the delicate, graceful touches of Guido. Now is your time to get them. There is, in all good company, a fashionable air, countenance, manner, and phraseology, which can only be acquired by being in good company, and very attentive to all that passes there. When you dine or sup at any well-bred man's house, observe carefully how he does the honors of his table to the different guests. Attend to the compliments of congratulation or condolence that you hear a well-bred man make to his superiors, to his equals, and to his inferiors; watch even his countenance and his tone of voice, for they all conspire in the main point of pleasing. There is a certain distinguishing diction of a man of fashion; he will not content himself with saying, like John Trott, to a new-married man, Sir, I wish you much joy; or to a man who lost his son, Sir, I am sorry for your loss; and both with a countenance equally unmoved; but he will say in effect the same thing in a more elegant and less trivial manner, and with a countenance adapted to the occasion. He will advance with warmth, vivacity, and a cheerful countenance, to the new-married man, and embracing him, perhaps say to him, "If you do justice to my attachment to you, you will judge of the joy that I feel upon this occasion, better than I can express it," etc.; to the other in affliction, he will advance slowly, with a grave composure of countenance, in a more deliberate manner, and with a lower voice, perhaps say, "I hope you do me the justice to be convinced that I feel whatever you feel, and shall ever be affected where you are concerned."

Your 'abord', I must tell you, was too cold and uniform; I hope it is now mended. It should be respectfully open and cheerful with your superiors, warm and animated with your equals, hearty and free with your inferiors. There is a fashionable kind of SMALL TALK which you should get; which, trifling as it is, is of use in mixed companies, and at table, especially in your foreign department; where it keeps off certain serious subjects, that might create disputes, or at least coldness for a time. Upon such occasions it is not amiss to know how to parley cuisine, and to be able to dissert upon the growth and flavor of wines. These, it is true, are very little things; but they are little things that occur very often, and therefore should be said 'avec gentillesse et grace'. I am sure they must fall often in your way; pray take care to catch them. There is a certain language of conversation, a fashionable diction, of which every gentleman ought to be perfectly master, in whatever language he speaks. The French attend to it carefully, and with great reason; and their language, which is a language of phrases, helps them out exceedingly. That delicacy of diction is characteristical of a man of fashion and good company.

I could write folios upon this subject, and not exhaust it; but I think, and hope, that to you I need not. You have heard and seen enough to be convinced of the truth and importance of what I have been so long inculcating into you upon these points. How happy am I, and how happy are you, my dear child, that these Titian tints, and Guido graces, are all that you want to complete my hopes and your own character! But then, on the other hand, what a drawback would it be to that happiness, if you should never acquire them? I remember, when I was of age, though I had not near so good an education as you have, or seen a quarter so much of the world, I observed those masterly touches and irresistible graces in others, and saw the necessity of acquiring them myself; but then an awkward 'mauvaise honte', of which I had brought a great deal with me from Cambridge, made me ashamed to attempt it, especially if any of my countrymen and particular acquaintances were by. This was extremely absurd in me: for, without attempting, I could never succeed. But at last, insensibly, by frequenting a great deal of good company, and imitating those whom I saw that everybody liked, I formed myself, 'tant bien que mal'. For God's sake, let this last fine varnish, so necessary to give lustre to the whole piece, be the sole and single object now of your utmost attention. Berlin may contribute a great deal to it if you please; there are all the ingredients that compose it.

'A Propos' of Berlin, while you are there, take care to seem ignorant of all political matters between the two courts; such as the affairs of Ost Frise, and Saxe Lawemburg, etc., and enter into no conversations upon those points; but, however, be as well at court as you possibly can; live at it, and make one of it. Should General Keith offer you civilities, do not decline them; but return them, however, without being 'enfant de la maison chez lui': say 'des chores flatteuses' of the Royal Family, and especially of his Prussian Majesty, to those who are the most like to repeat them. In short, make yourself well there, without making yourself ill SOMEWHERE ELSE. Make compliments from me to Algarotti, and converse with him in Italian.

I go next week to the Bath, for a deafness, which I have been plagued with these four or five months; and which I am assured that pumping my head will remove. This deafness, I own, has tried my patience; as it has cut me off from society, at an age when I had no pleasures but those left. In the meantime, I have, by reading and writing, made my eyes supply the defect of my ears. Madame H---, I suppose, entertained both yours alike; however, I am very glad that you were well with her; for she is a good 'proneuse', and puffs are very useful to a young fellow at his entrance into the world.

If you should meet with Lord Pembroke again, anywhere, make him many compliments from me; and tell him that I should have written to him, but that I knew how troublesome an old correspondent must be to a young one. He is much commended in the accounts from Hanover.

You will stay at Berlin just as long as you like it, and no longer; and from thence you are absolutely master of your own motions, either to The Hague, or to Brussels; but I think that you had better go to The Hague first, because that from thence Brussels will be in your way to Calais, which is a much better passage to England than from Helvoetsluys. The two courts of The Hague and Brussels are worth your seeing; and you will see them both to advantage, by means of Colonel Yorke and Dayrolles. Adieu. Here is enough for this time.

MY DEAR FRIEND: As you chiefly employ, or rather wholly engross my thoughts, I see every day, with increasing pleasure, the fair prospect which you have before you. I had two views in your education; they draw nearer and nearer, and I have now very little reason to distrust your answering them fully. Those two were, parliamentary and foreign affairs. In consequence of those views, I took care, first, to give you a sufficient stock of sound learning, and next, an early knowledge of the world. Without making a figure in parliament, no man can make any in this country; and eloquence alone enables a man to make a figure in parliament, unless, it be a very mean and contemptible one, which those make there who silently vote, and who do 'pedibus ire in sententiam'. Foreign affairs, when skillfully managed, and supported by a parliamentary reputation, lead to whatever is most considerable in this country. You have the languages necessary for that purpose, with a sufficient fund of historical and treaty knowledge; that is to say, you have the matter ready, and only want the manner. Your objects being thus fixed, I recommend to you to have them constantly in your thoughts, and to direct your reading, your actions, and your words, to those views. Most people think only 'ex re nata', and few 'ex professo': I would have you do both, but begin with the latter. I explain myself: Lay down certain principles, and reason and act consequently from them. As, for example, say to yourself, I will make a figure in parliament, and in order to do that, I must not only speak, but speak very well. Speaking mere common sense will by no means do; and I must speak not only correctly but elegantly; and not only elegantly but eloquently. In order to do this, I will first take pains to get an habitual, but unaffected, purity, correctness and elegance of style in my common conversation; I will seek for the best words, and take care to reject improper, inexpressive, and vulgar ones. I will read the greatest masters of oratory, both ancient and modern, and I will read them singly in that view. I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents, mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method, their distribution, their exordia, to engage the favor and attention of their audience; and their perorations, to enforce what they have said, and to leave a strong impression upon the passions. Nor will I be pedant enough to neglect the modern; for I will likewise study Atterbury, Dryden, Pope, and Bolingbroke; nay, I will read everything that I do read in that intention, and never cease improving and refining my style upon the best models, till at last I become a model of eloquence myself, which, by care, it is in every man's power to be. If you set out upon this principle, and keep it constantly in your mind, every company you go into, and every book you read, will contribute to your improvement, either by showing you what to imitate, or what to avoid. Are you to give an account of anything to a mixed company? or are you to endeavor to persuade either man or woman? This principle, fixed in your mind, will make you carefully attend to the choice of your words, and to the clearness and harmony of your diction.

So much for your parliamentary object; now to the foreign one.

Lay down first those principles which are absolutely necessary to form a skillful and successful negotiator, and form yourself accordingly. What are they? First, the clear historical knowledge of past transactions of that kind. That you have pretty well already, and will have daily more and more; for, in consequence of that principle, you will read history, memoirs, anecdotes, etc., in that view chiefly. The other necessary talents for negotiation are: the great art of pleasing and engaging the affection and confidence, not only of those with whom you are to cooperate, but even of those whom you are to oppose: to conceal your own thoughts and views, and to discover other people's: to engage other people's confidence by a seeming cheerful frankness and openness, without going a step too far: to get the personal favor of the king, prince, ministers, or mistresses of the court to which you are sent: to gain the absolute command over your temper and your countenance, that no heat may provoke you to say, nor no change of countenance to betray, what should be a secret: to familiarize and domesticate yourself in the houses of the most considerable people of the place, so as to be received there rather as a friend to the family than as a foreigner. Having these principles constantly in your thoughts, everything you do and everything you say will some way or other tend to your main view; and common conversation will gradually fit you for it. You will get a habit of checking any rising heat; you will be upon your guard against any indiscreet expression; you will by degrees get the command of your countenance, so as not to change it upon any the most sudden accident; and you will, above all things, labor to acquire the great art of pleasing, without which nothing is to be done. Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep your own secret, and get out other people's. Keep your own temper and artfully warm other people's. Counterwork your rivals, with diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them; and be firm without heat. Messieurs d'Avaux and Servien did no more than this. I must make one observation, in confirmation of this assertion; which is, that the most eminent negotiators have allways been the politest and bestbred men in company; even what the women call the PRETTIEST MEN. For God's sake, never lose view of these two your capital objects: bend everything to them, try everything by their rules, and calculate everything for their purposes. What is peculiar to these two objects, is, that they require nothing, but what one's own vanity, interest, and pleasure, would make one do independently of them. If a man were never to be in business, and always to lead a private life, would he not desire to please and to persuade? So that, in your two destinations, your fortune and figure luckily conspire with your vanity and your pleasures. Nay more; a foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures; his views are carried on, and perhaps best and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.

These objects now draw very near you, and you have no time to lose in preparing yourself to meet them. You will be in parliament almost as soon as your age will allow, and I believe you will have a foreign department still sooner, and that will be earlier than ever any other body had one. If you set out well at one-and-twenty, what may you not reasonably hope to be at one-and-forty? All that I could wish you! Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience) for you young fellows, than to know how to behave yourselves prudently toward those whom you do not like. Your passions are warm, and your heads are light; you hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition or love; and a rival, in either, is almost a synonymous term for an enemy. Whenever you meet such a man, you are awkwardly cold to him, at best; but often rude, and always desirous to give him some indirect slap. This is unreasonable; for one man has as good a right to pursue an employment, or a mistress, as another; but it is, into the bargain, extremely imprudent; because you commonly defeat your own purpose by it, and while you are contending with each other, a third often prevails. I grant you that the situation is irksome; a man cannot help thinking as he thinks, nor feeling what he feels; and it is a very tender and sore point to be thwarted and counterworked in one's pursuits at court, or with a mistress; but prudence and abilities must check the effects, though they cannot remove the cause. Both the pretenders make themselves disagreeable to their mistress, when they spoil the company by their pouting, or their sparring; whereas, if one of them has command enough over himself (whatever he may feel inwardly) to be cheerful, gay, and easily and unaffectedly civil to the other, as if there were no manner of competition between them, the lady will certainly like him the best, and his rival will be ten times more humbled and discouraged; for he will look upon such a behavior as a proof of the triumph and security of his rival, he will grow outrageous with the lady, and the warmth of his reproaches will probably bring on a quarrel between them. It is the same in business; where he who can command his temper and his countenance the best, will always have an infinite advantage over the other. This is what the French call un 'procede honnete et galant', to PIQUE yourself upon showing particular civilities to a man, to whom lesser minds would, in the same case, show dislike, or perhaps rudeness. I will give you an instance of this in my own case; and pray remember it, whenever you come to be, as I hope you will, in a like situation.

When I went to The Hague, in 1744, it was to engage the Dutch to come roundly into the war, and to stipulate their quotas of troops, etc.; your acquaintance, the Abbe de la Ville, was there on the part of France, to endeavor to hinder them from coming into the war at all. I was informed, and very sorry to hear it, that he had abilities, temper, and industry. We could not visit, our two masters being at war; but the first time I met him at a third place, I got somebody to present me to him; and I told him, that though we were to be national enemies, I flattered myself we might be, however, personal friends, with a good deal more of the same kind; which he returned in full as polite a manner. Two days afterward, I went, early in the morning, to solicit the Deputies of Amsterdam, where I found l'Abbe de la Ville, who had been beforehand with me; upon which I addressed myself to the Deputies, and said, smilingly, I am very sorry, Gentlemen, to find my enemy with you; my knowledge of his capacity is already sufficient to make me fear him; we are not upon equal terms; but I trust to your own interest against his talents. If I have not this day had the first word, I shall at least have the last. They smiled: the Abbe was pleased with the compliment, and the manner of it, stayed about a quarter of an hour, and then left me to my Deputies, with whom I continued upon the same tone, though in a very serious manner, and told them that I was only come to state their own true interests to them, plainly and simply, without any of those arts, which it was very necessary for my friend to make use of to deceive them. I carried my point, and continued my 'procede' with the Abbe; and by this easy and polite commerce with him, at third places, I often found means to fish out from him whereabouts he was.

Remember, there are but two 'procedes' in the world for a gentleman and a man of parts; either extreme politeness or knocking down. If a man notoriously and designedly insults and affronts you, knock him down; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behavior, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest. This is not perfidy nor dissimulation; it would be so if you were, at the same time, to make professions of esteem and friendship to this man; which I by no means recommend, but on the contrary abhor. But all acts of civility are, by common consent, understood to be no more than a conformity to custom, for the quiet and conveniency of society, the 'agremens' of which are not to be disturbed by private dislikes and jealousies. Only women and little minds pout and spar for the entertainment of the company, that always laughs at, and never pities them. For my own part, though I would by no means give up any point to a competitor, yet I would pique myself upon showing him rather more civility than to another man. In the first place, this 'procede' infallibly makes all 'les rieurs' of your side, which is a considerable party; and in the next place, it certainly pleases the object of the competition, be it either man or woman; who never fail to say, upon such an occasion, that THEY MUST OWN YOU HAVE BEHAVED YOURSELF VERY, HANDSOMELY IN THE WHOLE AFFAIR. The world judges from the appearances of things, and not from the reality, which few are able, and still fewer are inclined to fathom: and a man, who will take care always to be in the right in those things, may afford to be sometimes a little in the wrong in more essential ones: there is a willingness, a desire to excuse him. With nine people in ten, good-breeding passes for good-nature, and they take attentions for good offices. At courts there will be always coldnesses, dislikes, jealousies, and hatred, the harvest being but small in proportion to the number of laborers; but then, as they arise often, they die soon, unless they are perpetuated by the manner in which they have been carried on, more than by the matter which occasioned them. The turns and vicissitudes of courts frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends; you must labor, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.

Few, (especially young) people know how to love, or how to hate; their love is an unbounded weakness, fatal to the person they love; their hate is a hot, rash, and imprudent violence, always fatal to themselves.

Nineteen fathers in twenty, and every mother, who had loved you half as well as I do, would have ruined you; whereas I always made you feel the weight of my authority, that you might one day know the force of my love. Now, I both hope and believe, my advice will have the same weight with you from choice that my authority had from necessity. My advice is just eight-and-twenty years older than your own, and consequently, I believe you think, rather better. As for your tender and pleasurable passions, manage them yourself; but let me have the direction of all the others. Your ambition, your figure, and your fortune, will, for some time at least, be rather safer in my keeping than in your own. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I consider you now as at the court of Augustus, where, if ever the desire of pleasing animated you, it must make you exert all the means of doing it. You will see there, full as well, I dare say, as Horace did at Rome, how states are defended by arms, adorned by manners, and improved by laws. Nay, you have an Horace there as well as an Augustus; I need not name Voltaire, 'qui nil molitur inept?' as Horace himself said of another poet. I have lately read over all his works that are published, though I had read them more than once before. I was induced to this by his 'Siecle de Louis XIV', which I have yet read but four times. In reading over all his works, with more attention I suppose than before, my former admiration of him is, I own, turned into astonishment. There is no one kind of writing in which he has not excelled. You are so severe a classic that I question whether you will allow me to call his 'Henriade' an epic poem, for want of the proper number of gods, devils, witches and other absurdities, requisite for the machinery; which machinery is, it seems, necessary to constitute the 'epopee'. But whether you do or not, I will declare (though possibly to my own shame) that I never read any epic poem with near so much pleasure. I am grown old, and have possibly lost a great deal of that fire which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke; but now I must have all sense, and cannot, for the sake of five righteous lines, forgive a thousand absurd ones.

In this disposition of mind, judge whether I can read all Homer through 'tout de suite'. I admire its 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. Besides, I profess myself an ally of Turnus against the pious AEneas, who, like many 'soi-disant' pious people, does the most flagrant injustice and violence in order to execute what they impudently call the will of Heaven. But what will you say, when I tell you truly, that I cannot possibly read our countryman Milton through? I acknowledge him to have some most sublime passages, some prodigious flashes of light; but then you must acknowledge that light is often followed by darkness visible, to use his own expression. Besides, not having the honor to be acquainted with any of the parties in this poem, except the Man and the Woman, the characters and speeches of a dozen or two of angels and of as many devils, are as much above my reach as my entertainment. Keep this secret for me: for if it should be known, I should be abused by every tasteless pedant, and every solid divine in England.

'Whatever I have said to the disadvantage of these three poems, holds much stronger against Tasso's 'Gierusalemme': it is true he has very fine and glaring rays of poetry; but then they are only meteors, they dazzle, then disappear, and are succeeded by false thoughts, poor 'concetti', and absurd impossibilities; witness the Fish and the Parrot; extravagancies unworthy of an heroic poem, and would much better have become Ariosto, who professes 'le coglionerie'.

I have never read the "Lusiade of Camoens," except in prose translation, consequently I have never read it at all, so shall say nothing of it; but the Henriade is all sense from the beginning to the end, often adorned by the justest and liveliest reflections, the most beautiful descriptions, the noblest images, and the sublimest sentiments; not to mention the harmony of the verse, in which Voltaire undoubtedly exceeds all the French poets: should you insist upon an exception in favor of Racine, I must insist, on my part, that he at least equals him. What hero ever interested more than Henry the Fourth; who, according to the rules of epic poetry, carries on one great and long action, and succeeds in it at last? What descriptions ever excited more horror than those, first of the Massacre, and then of the Famine at Paris? Was love ever painted with more truth and 'morbidezza' than in the ninth book? Not better, in my mind, even in the fourth of Virgil. Upon the whole, with all your classical rigor, if you will but suppose St. Louis a god, a devil, or a witch, and that he appears in person, and not in a dream, the Henriade will be an epic poem, according to the strictest statute laws of the 'epopee'; but in my court of equity it is one as it is.

I could expatiate as much upon all his different works, but that I should exceed the bounds of a letter and run into a dissertation. How delightful is his history of that northern brute, the King of Sweden, for I cannot call him a man; and I should be sorry to have him pass for a hero, out of regard to those true heroes, such as Julius Caesar, Titus, Trajan, and the present King of Prussia, who cultivated and encouraged arts and sciences; whose animal courage was accompanied by the tender and social sentiments of humanity; and who had more pleasure in improving, than in destroying their fellow-creatures. What can be more touching, or more interesting-what more nobly thought, or more happily expressed, than all his dramatic pieces? What can be more clear and rational than all his philosophical letters? and whatever was so graceful, and gentle, as all his little poetical trifles? You are fortunately 'a porte' of verifying, by your knowledge of the man, all that I have said of his works.

Monsieur de Maupertius (whom I hope you will get acquainted with) is, what one rarely meets with, deep in philosophy and, mathematics, and yet 'honnete et aimable homme': Algarotti is young Fontenelle. Such men must necessarily give you the desire of pleasing them; and if you can frequent them, their acquaintance will furnish you the means of pleasing everybody else.

'A propos' of pleasing, your pleasing Mrs. F---d is expected here in two or three days; I will do all that I can for you with her: I think you carried on the romance to the third or fourth volume; I will continue it to the eleventh; but as for the twelfth and last, you must come and conclude it yourself. 'Non sum qualis eram'.

Good-night to you, child; for I am going to bed, just at the hour at which I suppose you are going to live, at Berlin.

MY DEAR FRIEND: It is a very old and very true maxim, that those kings reign the most secure and the most absolute, who reign in the hearts of their people. Their popularity is a better guard than their army, and the affections of their subjects a better pledge of their obedience than their fears. This rule is, in proportion, full as true, though upon a different scale, with regard to private people. A man who possesses that great art of pleasing universally, and of gaining the affections of those with whom he converses, possesses a strength which nothing else can give him: a strength which facilitates and helps his rise; and which, in case of accidents, breaks his fall. Few people of your age sufficiently consider this great point of popularity; and when they grow older and wiser, strive in vain to recover what they have lost by their negligence. There are three principal causes that hinder them from acquiring this useful strength: pride, inattention, and 'mauvaise honte'. The first I will not, I cannot suspect you of; it is too much below your understanding. You cannot, and I am sure you do not think yourself superior by nature to the Savoyard who cleans your room, or the footman who cleans your shoes; but you may rejoice, and with reason, at the difference that fortune has made in your favor. Enjoy all those advantages; but without insulting those who are unfortunate enough to want them, or even doing anything unnecessarily that may remind them of that want. For my own part, I am more upon my guard as to my behavior to my servants, and others who are called my inferiors, than I am toward my equals: for fear of being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment of desiring to make others feel that difference which fortune has, and perhaps too, undeservedly, made between us. Young people do not enough attend to this; and falsely imagine that the imperative mood, and a rough tone of authority and decision, are indications of spirit and courage. Inattention is always looked upon, though sometimes unjustly, as the effect of pride and contempt; and where it is thought so, is never forgiven. In this article, young people are generally exceedingly to blame, and offend extremely. Their whole attention is engrossed by their particular set of acquaintance; and by some few glaring and exalted objects of rank, beauty, or parts; all the rest they think so little worth their care, that they neglect even common civility toward them. I will frankly confess to you, that this was one of my great faults when I was of your age. Very attentive to please that narrow court circle in which I stood enchanted, I considered everything else as bourgeois, and unworthy of common civility; I paid my court assiduously and skillfully enough to shining and distinguished figures, such as ministers, wits, and beauties; but then I most absurdly and imprudently neglected, and consequently offended all others. By this folly I made myself a thousand enemies of both sexes; who, though I thought them very insignificant, found means to hurt me essentially where I wanted to recommend myself the most. I was thought proud, though I was only imprudent. A general easy civility and attention to the common run of ugly women, and of middling men, both which I sillily thought, called, and treated, as odd people, would have made me as many friends, as by the contrary conduct I made myself enemies. All this too was 'a pure perte'; for I might equally, and even more successfully, have made my court, when I had particular views to gratify. I will allow that this task is often very unpleasant, and that one pays, with some unwillingness, that tribute of attention to dull and tedious men, and to old and ugly women; but it is the lowest price of popularity and general applause, which are very well worth purchasing were they much dearer. I conclude this head with this advice to you: Gain, by particular assiduity and address, the men and women you want; and, by an universal civility and attention, please everybody so far as to have their good word, if not their goodwill; or, at least, as to secure a partial neutrality.

'Mauvaise honte' not only hinders young people from making, a great many friends, but makes them a great many enemies. They are ashamed of doing the thing they know to be right, and would otherwise do, for fear of the momentary laugh of some fine gentleman or lady, or of some 'mauvais plaisant'. I have been in this case: and have often wished an obscure acquaintance at the devil, for meeting and taking notice of me when I was in what I thought and called fine company. I have returned their notice shyly, awkwardly, and consequently offensively; for fear of a momentary joke, not considering, as I ought to have done, that the very people who would have joked upon me at first, would have esteemed me the more for it afterward. An example explains a rule best: Suppose you were walking in the Tuileries with some fine folks, and that you should unexpectedly meet your old acquaintance, little crooked Grierson; what would you do? I will tell you what you should do, by telling you what I would now do in that case myself. I would run up to him, and embrace him; say some kind of things to him, and then return to my company. There I should be immediately asked: 'Mais qu'est ce que c'est donc que ce petit Sapajou que vous avez embrasse si tendrement? Pour cela, l'accolade a ete charmante'; with a great deal more festivity of that sort. To this I should answer, without being the least ashamed, but en badinant: O je ne vous dirai tas qui c'est; c'est un petit ami que je tiens incognito, qui a son merite, et qui, a force d'etre connu, fait oublier sa figure. Que me donnerez-vous, et je vous le presenterai'? And then, with a little more seriousness, I would add: 'Mais d'ailleurs c'est que je ne desavoue jamais mes connoissances, a cause de leur etat ou de leur figure. Il faut avoir bien peu de sentimens pour le faire'. This would at once put an end to that momentary pleasantry, and give them all a better opinion of me than they had before. Suppose another case, and that some of the finest ladies 'du bon ton' should come into a room, and find you sitting by, and talking politely to 'la vieille' Marquise de Bellefonds, the joke would, for a moment, turn upon that 'tete-a-tete': He bien! avez vous a la fin fixd la belle Marquise? La partie est-elle faite pour la petite maison? Le souper sera galant sans doute: Mais ne faistu donc point scrupule de seduire une jeune et aimable persone comme celle-la'? To this I should answer: 'La partie n'etoit pas encore tout-a fait liee, vous nous avez interrompu; mais avec le tems que fait-on? D'ailleurs moquezvous de mes amours tant qu'il vous plaira, je vous dirai que je respecte tant les jeunes dames, que je respecte meme les vieilles, pour l'avoir ete. Apre cela il y a souvent des liaisons entre les vieilles et les jeunes'. This would at once turn the pleasantry into an esteem for your good sense and your good-breeding. Pursue steadily, and without fear or shame, whatever your reason tells you is right, and what you see is practiced by people of more experience than yourself, and of established characters of good sense and good-breeding.

After all this, perhaps you will say, that it is impossible to please everybody. I grant it; but it does not follow that one should not therefore endeavor to please as many as one can. Nay, I will go further, and admit that it is impossible for any man not to have some enemies. But this truth from long experience I assert, that he who has the most friends and the fewest enemies, is the strongest; will rise the highest with the least envy; and fall, if he does fall, the gentlest, and the most pitied. This is surely an object worth pursuing. Pursue it according to the rules I have here given you. I will add one observation more, and two examples to enforce it; and then, as the parsons say, conclude.

There is no one creature so obscure, so low, or so poor, who may not, by the strange and unaccountable changes and vicissitudes of human affairs, somehow or other, and some time or other, become an useful friend or a trouble-some enemy, to the greatest and the richest. The late Duke of Ormond was almost the weakest but at the same time the best-bred, and most popular man in this kingdom. His education in courts and camps, joined to an easy, gentle nature, had given him that habitual affability, those engaging manners, and those mechanical attentions, that almost supplied the place of every talent he wanted; and he wanted almost every one. They procured him the love of all men, without the esteem of any. He was impeached after the death of Queen Anne, only because that, having been engaged in the same measures with those who were necessarily to be impeached, his impeachment, for form's sake, became necessary. But he was impeached without acrimony, and without the lest intention that he should suffer, notwithstanding the party violence of those times. The question for his impeachment, in the House of Commons, was carried by many fewer votes than any other question of impeachment; and Earl Stanhope, then Mr. Stanhope, and Secretary' of State, who impeached him, very soon after negotiated and concluded his accommodation with the late King; to whom he was to have been presented the next day. But the late Bishop of Rochester, Atterbury, who thought that the Jacobite cause might suffer by losing the Duke of Ormond, went in all haste, and prevailed with the poor weak man to run away; assuring him that he was only to be gulled into a disgraceful submission, and not to be pardoned in consequence of it. When his subsequent attainder passed, it excited mobs and disturbances in town. He had not a personal enemy in the world; and had a thousand friends. All this was simply owing to his natural desire of pleasing, and to the mechanical means that his education, not his parts, had given him of doing it. The other instance is the late Duke of Marlborough, who studied the art of pleasing, because he well knew the importance of it: he enjoyed and used it more than ever man did. He gained whoever he had a mind to gain; and he had a mind to gain everybody, because he knew that everybody was more or less worth gaining. Though his power, as Minister and General, made him many political and party enemies, they did not make him one personal one; and the very people who would gladly have displaced, disgraced, and perhaps attainted the Duke of Marlborough, at the same time personally loved Mr. Churchill, even though his private character was blemished by sordid avarice, the most unamiable of all vices. He had wound up and turned his whole machine to please and engage. He had an inimitable sweetness and gentleness in his countenance, a tenderness in his manner of speaking, a graceful dignity in every motion, and an universal and minute attention to the least things that could possibly please the least person. This was all art in him; art of which he well knew and enjoyed the advantages; for no man ever had more interior ambition, pride, and avarice, than he had.

Though you have more than most people of your age, you have yet very little experience and knowledge of the world; now, I wish to inoculate mine upon you, and thereby prevent both the dangers and the marks of youth and inexperience. If you receive the matter kindly, and observe my prescriptions scrupulously, you will secure the future advantages of time and join them to the present inestimable ones of one-and-twenty.

I most earnestly recommend one thing to you, during your present stay at Paris. I own it is not the most agreeable; but I affirm it to be the most useful thing in the world to one of your age; and therefore I do hope that you will force and constrain yourself to do it. I mean, to converse frequently, or rather to be in company frequently with both men and women much your superiors in age and rank. I am very sensible that, at your age, 'vous y entrez pour peu de chose, et meme souvent pour rien, et que vous y passerez meme quelques mauvais quart-d'heures'; but no matter; you will be a solid gainer by it: you will see, hear, and learn the turn and manners of those people; you will gain premature experience by it; and it will give you a habit of engaging and respectful attentions. Versailles, as much as possible, though probably unentertaining: the Palais Royal often, however dull: foreign ministers of the first rank, frequently, and women, though old, who are respectable and respected for their rank or parts; such as Madame de Pusieux, Madame de Nivernois, Madame d'Aiguillon, Madame Geoffrain, etc. This 'sujetion', if it be one to you, will cost you but very little in these three or four months that you are yet to pass in Paris, and will bring you in a great deal; nor will it, nor ought it, to hinder you from being in a more entertaining company a great part of the day. 'Vous pouvez, si vous le voulex, tirer un grand parti de ces quatre mois'. May God make you so, and bless you! Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Vanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle of human actions; I do not say that it is the best; and I will own that it is sometimes the cause of both foolish and criminal effects. But it is so much oftener the principle of right things, that though they ought to have a better, yet, considering human nature, that principle is to be encouraged and cherished, in consideration of its effects. Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert; we do not exert our powers; and we appear to be as much below ourselves as the vainest man living can desire to appear above what he really is.

As I have made you my confessor, and do not scruple to confess even my weaknesses to you, I will fairly own that I had that vanity, that weakness, if it be one, to a prodigious degree; and, what is more, I confess it without repentance: nay, I am glad I had it; since, if I have had the good fortune to please in the world, it is to that powerful and active principle that I owe it. I began the world, not with a bare desire, but with an insatiable thirst, a rage of popularity, applause, and admiration. If this made me do some silly things on one hand, it made me, on the other hand, do almost all the right things that I did; it made me attentive and civil to the women I disliked, and to the men I despised, in hopes of the applause of both: though I neither desired, nor would I have accepted the favors of the one, nor the friendship of the other. I always dressed, looked, and talked my best; and, I own, was overjoyed whenever I perceived, that by all three, or by any one of them, the company was pleased with me. To men, I talked whatever I thought would give them the best opinion of my parts and learning; and to women, what I was sure would please them; flattery, gallantry, and love. And, moreover, I will own to you, under the secrecy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make a woman in love with me, if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff. In company with men, I always endeavored to outshine, or at least, if possible, to equal the most shining man in it. This desire elicited whatever powers I had to gratify it; and where I could not perhaps shine in the first, enabled me, at least, to shine in a second or third sphere. By these means I soon grew in fashion; and when a man is once in fashion, all he does is right. It was infinite pleasure to me to find my own fashion and popularity. I was sent for to all parties of pleasure, both of men or women; where, in some measure, I gave the 'ton'. This gave me the reputation of having had some women of condition; and that reputation, whether true or false, really got me others. With the men I was a Proteus, and assumed every shape, in order to please them all: among the gay, I was the gayest; among the grave, the gravest; and I never omitted the least attentions of good-breeding, or the least offices of friendship, that could either please, or attach them to me: and accordingly I was soon connected with all the men of any fashion or figure in town.

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe great part of the figure which I have made in life. I wish you had as much, but I fear you have too little of it; and you seem to have a degree of laziness and listlessness about you that makes you indifferent as to general applause. This is not in character at your age, and would be barely pardonable in an elderly and philosophical man. It is a vulgar, ordinary saying, but it is a very true one, that one should always put the best foot foremost. One should please, shine, and dazzle, wherever it is possible. At Paris, I am sure you must observe 'que chacun se fait valoir autant qu'il est possible'; and La Bruyere observes, very justly, qu'on ne vaut dans ce monde que ce qu'on veut valoir': wherever applause is in question, you will never see a French man, nor woman, remiss or negligent. Observe the eternal attentions and politeness that all people have there for one another. 'Ce n'est pas pour leurs beaux yeux au moins'. No, but for their own sakes, for commendations and applause. Let me then recommend this principle of vanity to you; act upon it 'meo periculo'; I promise you it will turn to your account. Practice all the arts that ever coquette did, to please. Be alert and indefatigable in making every man admire, and every woman in love with you. I can tell you too, that nothing will carry you higher in the world.

I have had no letter from you since your arrival at Paris, though you must have been long enough there to have written me two or three. In about ten or twelve days I propose leaving this place, and going to London; I have found considerable benefit by my stay here, but not all that I want. Make my compliments to Lord Albemarle.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Since my last to you, I have read Madame Maintenon's "Letters"; I am sure they are genuine, and they both entertained and informed me. They have brought me acquainted with the character of that able and artful lady; whom I am convinced that I now know much better than her directeur the Abby de Fenelon (afterward Archbishop of Cambray) did, when he wrote her the 185th letter; and I know him the better too for that letter. The Abby, though brimful of the divine love, had a great mind to be first minister, and cardinal, in order, NO DOUBT, to have an opportunity of doing the more good. His being 'directeur' at that time to Madame Maintenon, seemed to be a good step toward those views. She put herself upon him for a saint, and he was weak enough to believe it; he, on the other hand, would have put himself upon her for a saint too, which, I dare say, she did not believe; but both of them knew that it was necessary for them to appear saints to Lewis the Fourteenth, who they were very sure was a bigot. It is to be presumed, nay, indeed, it is plain by that 185th letter that Madame Maintenon had hinted to her directeur some scruples of conscience, with relation to her commerce with the King; and which I humbly apprehend to have been only some scruples of prudence, at once to flatter the bigot character, and increase the desires of the King. The pious Abbe, frightened out of his wits, lest the King should impute to the 'directeur' any scruples or difficulties which he might meet with on the part of the lady, writes her the above-mentioned letter; in which he not only bids her not tease the King by advice and exhortations, but to have the utmost submission to his will; and, that she may not mistake the nature of that submission, he tells her it is the same that Sarah had for Abraham; to which submission Isaac perhaps was owing. No bawd could have written a more seducing letter to an innocent country girl, than the 'directeur' did to his 'penitente'; who I dare say had no occasion for his good advice. Those who would justify the good 'directeur', alias the pimp, in this affair, must not attempt to do it by saying that the King and Madame Maintenon were at that time privately married; that the directeur knew it; and that this was the meaning of his 'enigme'. That is absolutely impossible; for that private marriage must have removed all scruples between the parties; nay, could not have been contracted upon any other principle, since it was kept private, and consequently prevented no public scandal. It is therefore extremely evident that Madame Maintenon could not be married to the King at the time when she scrupled granting, and when the 'directeur' advised her to grant, those favors which Sarah with so much submission granted to Abraham: and what the 'directeur' is pleased to call 'le mystere de Dieu', was most evidently a state of concubinage. The letters are very well worth your reading; they throw light upon many things of those times.

I have just received a letter from Sir William Stanhope, from Lyons; in which he tells me that he saw you at Paris, that he thinks you a little grown, but that you do not make the most of it, for that you stoop still: 'd'ailleurs' his letter was a panegyric of you.

The young Comte de Schullemburg, the Chambellan whom you knew at Hanover, is come over with the King, 'et fait aussi vos eloges'.

Though, as I told you in my last, I have done buying pictures, by way of 'virtu', yet there are some portraits of remarkable people that would tempt me. For instance, if you could by chance pick up at Paris, at a reasonable price, and undoubted originals (whether heads, half lengths, or whole lengths, no matter) of Cardinals Richelieu, Mazarin, and Retz, Monsieur de Turenne, le grand Prince de Condo; Mesdames de Montespan, de Fontanges, de Montbazon, de Sevigne, de Maintenon, de Chevreuse, de Longueville, d'Olonne, etc., I should be tempted to purchase them. I am sensible that they can only be met with, by great accident, at family sales and auctions, so I only mention the affair to you eventually.

I do not understand, or else I do not remember, what affair you mean in your last letter; which you think will come to nothing, and for which, you say, I had once a mind that you should take the road again. Explain it to me.

I shall go to town in four or five days, and carry back with me a little more hearing than I brought; but yet, not half enough for common wants. One wants ready pocket-money much oftener than one wants great sums; and to use a very odd expression, I want to hear at sight. I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holydays is good for very little. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: A tyrant with legions at his com mand may say, Oderint modo timeant; though he is a fool if he says it, and a greater fool if he thinks it. But a private man who can hurt but few, though he can please many, must endeavor to be loved, for he cannot be feared in general. Popularity is his only rational and sure foundation. The good-will, the affections, the love of the public, can alone raise him to any considerable height. Should you ask me how he is to acquire them, I will answer, By desiring them. No man ever deserved, who did not desire them; and no man both deserved and desired them who had them not, though many have enjoyed them merely by desiring, and without deserving them. You do not imagine, I believe, that I mean by this public love the sentimental love of either lovers or intimate friends; no, that is of another nature, and confined to a very narrow circle; but I mean that general good-will which a man may acquire in the world, by the arts of pleasing respectively exerted according to the rank, the situation, and the turn of mind of those whom he hath to do with. The pleasing impressions which he makes upon them will engage their affections and their good wishes, and even their good offices as far (that is) as they are not inconsistent with their own interests; for further than that you are not to expect from three people in the course of your life, even were it extended to the patriarchal term. Could I revert to the age of twenty, and carry back with me all the experience that forty years more have taught me, I can assure you, that I would employ much the greatest part of my time in engaging the good-will, and in insinuating myself into the predilection of people in general, instead of directing my endeavors to please (as I was too apt to do) to the man whom I immediately wanted, or the woman I wished for, exclusively of all others. For if one happens (and it will sometimes happen to the ablest man) to fail in his views with that man or that woman, one is at a loss to know whom to address one's self to next, having offended in general, by that exclusive and distinguished particular application. I would secure a general refuge in the good-will of the multitude, which is a great strength to any man; for both ministers and mistresses choose popular and fashionable favorites. A man who solicits a minister, backed by the general good-will and good wishes of mankind, solicits with great weight and great probability of success; and a woman is strangely biassed in favor of a man whom she sees in fashion, and hears everybody speak well of. This useful art of insinuation consists merely of various little things. A graceful motion, a significant look, a trifling attention, an obliging word dropped 'a propos', air, dress, and a thousand other undefinable things, all severally little ones, joined together, make that happy and inestimable composition, THE ART OF PLEASING. I have in my life seen many a very handsome woman who has not pleased me, and many very sensible men who have disgusted me. Why? only for want of those thousand little means to please, which those women, conscious of their beauty, and those men of their sense, have been grossly enough mistaken to neglect. I never was so much in love in my life, as I was with a woman who was very far from being handsome; but then she was made up of graces, and had all the arts of pleasing. The following verses, which I have read in some congratulatory poem prefixed to some work, I have forgot which, express what I mean in favor of what pleases preferably to what is generally called mare solid and instructive:

"I would an author like a mistress try,

Not by a nose, a lip, a cheek, or eye,

But by some nameless power to give me joy."

Lady Chesterfield bids me make you many compliments; she showed me your letter of recommendation of La Vestres; with which I was very well pleased: there is a pretty turn in it; I wish you would always speak as genteelly. I saw another letter from a lady at Paris, in which there was a high panegyrical paragraph concerning you. I wish it were every word of it literally true; but, as it comes from a very little, pretty, white hand, which is suspected, and I hope justly, of great partiality to you: 'il en faut rabattre quelque chose, et meme en le faisant it y aura toujours d'assez beaux restes'. Adieu.

LETTER CLXXXV

LONDON, New Years' Day, 1753

MY DEAR FRIEND: It is now above a fortnight since I have received a letter from you. I hope, however, that you are well, but engrossed by the business of Lord Albemarle's 'bureau' in the mornings, and by business of a genteeler nature in the evenings; for I willingly give up my own satisfaction to your improvement, either in business or manners.

Here have been lately imported from Paris two gentlemen, who, I find, were much acquainted with you there Comte Zinzendorf, and Monsieur Clairant the Academician. The former is a very pretty man, well-bred, and with a great deal of useful knowledge; for those two things are very consistent. I examined him about you, thinking him a competent judge. He told me, 'que vous parliez l'Allemand comme un Allemand; que vous saviez le droit public de l'empire parfaitement bien; que vous aviez le gout sur, et des connoissances fort etendues'. I told him that I knew all this very well; but that I wanted to know whether you had l'air, les manieres, les attentions, en fin le brillant d'un honnete homme': his answer was, 'Mais oui en verite, c'est fort bien'. This, you see, is but cold in comparison of what I do wish, and of what you ought to wish. Your friend Clairant interposed, and said, 'Mais je vous assure qu'il est fort poli'; to which I answered, 'Je le crois bien, vis-a-vis des Lapons vos amis; je vous recuse pour juge, jusqu'a ce que vous ayez ete delaponne, au moins dix ans, parmi les honnetes gens'. These testimonies in your favor are such as perhaps you are satisfied with, and think sufficient; but I am not; they are only the cold depositions of disinterested and unconcerned witnesses, upon a strict examination. When, upon a trial, a man calls witnesses to his character, and that those witnesses only say that they never heard, nor do not know any ill of him, it intimates at best a neutral and insignificant, though innocent character. Now I want, and you ought to endeavor, that 'les agremens, les graces, les attentions', etc., should be a distinguishing part of your character, and specified of you by people unasked. I wish to hear people say of you, 'Ah qu'il est aimable! Quelles manieres, quelles graces, quel art de Claire'! Nature, thank God, has given you all the powers necessary; and if she has not yet, I hope in God she will give you the will of exerting them.

I have lately read with great pleasure Voltaire's two little histories of 'Les Croisades', and 'l'Esprit Humain'; which I recommend to your perusal, if you have not already read them. They are bound up with a most poor performance called 'Micromegas', which is said to be Voltaire's too, but I cannot believe it, it is so very unworthy of him; it consists only of thoughts stolen from Swift, but miserably mangled and disfigured. But his history of the 'Croisades' shows, in a very short and strong light, the most immoral and wicked scheme that was ever contrived by knaves, and executed by madmen and fools, against humanity. There is a strange but never-failing relation between honest madmen and skillful knaves; and whenever one meets with collected numbers of the former, one may be very sure that they are secretly directed by the latter. The popes, who have generally been both the ablest and the greatest knaves in Europe, wanted all the power and money of the East; for they had all that was in Europe already. The times and the minds favored their design, for they were dark and uniformed; and Peter the Hermit, at once a knave and a madman, was a fine papal tool for so wild and wicked an undertaking. I wish we had good histories of every part of Europe, and indeed of the world, written upon the plan of Voltaire's 'de l'Esprit Humain'; for, I own, I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general: one would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and ministers.

I have never seen in any of the newspapers any mention of the affairs of the Cevennes, or Grenoble, which you gave me an account of some time ago; and the Duke de Mirepoix pretends, at least, to know nothing of either. Were they false reports? or does the French court choose to stifle them? I hope that they are both true, because I am very willing that the cares of the French government should be employed and confined to themselves.

Your friend, the Electress Palatine, has sent me six wild boars' heads, and other 'pieces de sa chasse', in return for the fans, which she approved of extremely. This present was signified to me by one Mr. Harold, who wrote me a letter in very indifferent English; I suppose he is a Dane who has been in England.

Mr. Harte came to town yesterday, and dined with me to-day. We talked you over; and I can assure you, that though a parson, and no member 'du beau monde', he thinks all the most shining accomplishments of it full as necessary for you as I do. His expression was, THAT IS ALL THAT HE WANTS; BUT IF HE WANTS THAT, CONSIDERING HIS SITUATION AND DESTINATION, HE MIGHT AS WELL WANT EVERYTHING ELSE.

This is the day when people reciprocally offer and receive the kindest and the warmest wishes, though, in general, without meaning them on one side, or believing them on the other. They are formed by the head, in compliance with custom, though disavowed by the heart, in consequence of nature. His wishes upon this occasion are the best that are the best turned; you do not, I am sure, doubt the truth of mine, and therefore I will express them with a Quaker-like simplicity. May this new year be a very new one indeed to you; may you put off the old, and put on the new man! but I mean the outward, not the inward man. With this alteration, I might justly sum up all my wishes for you in these words:

Dii tibi dent annos, de to nam caetera sumes.

This minute, I receive your letter of the 26th past, which gives me a very disagreeable reason for your late silence. By the symptoms which you mention of your illness, I both hope and believe that it was wholly owing to your own want of care. You are rather inclined to be fat, you have naturally a good stomach, and you eat at the best tables; which must of course make you plethoric: and upon my word you will be very subject to these accidents, if you will not, from time to time, when you find yourself full, heated, or your head aching, take some little, easy, preventative purge, that would not confine you; such as chewing a little rhubarb when you go to bed at night; or some senna tea in the morning. You do very well to live extremely low, for some time; and I could wish, though I do not expect it, that you would take one gentle vomit; for those giddinesses and swimmings in the head always proceed from some foulness of the stomach. However, upon the whole, I am very glad that your old complaint has not mixed itself with this, which I am fully convinced arises simply from your own negligence. Adieu.

I am sorry for Monsieur Kurze, upon his sister's account.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I never think my time so well employed, as when I think it employed to your advantage. You have long had the greatest share of it; you now engross it. The moment is now decisive; the piece is going to be exhibited to the public; the mere out lines and the general coloring are not sufficient to attract the eyes and to secure applause; but the last finishing, artful, and delicate strokes are necessary. Skillful judges will discern and acknowledge their merit; the ignorant will, without knowing why, feel their power. In that view, I have thrown together, for your perusal, some maxims; or, to speak more properly, observations on 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. I wish you would consider them seriously, and separately, and recur to them again 'pro re nata' in similar cases. Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit, without experience, is dangerous, experience, without spirit, is languid and defective. Their union, which is very rare, is perfection; you may join them, if you please; for all my experience is at your service; and I do not desire one grain of your spirit in return. Use them both, and let them reciprocally animate and check each other. I mean here, by the spirit of youth, only the vivacity and presumption of youth, which hinder them from seeing the difficulties or dangers of an undertaking, but I do not mean what the silly vulgar call spirit, by which they are captious, jealous of their rank, suspicious of being undervalued, and tart (as they call it) in their repartees, upon the slightest occasions. This is an evil, and a very silly spirit, which should be driven out, and transferred to an herd of swine. This is not the spirit of a man of fashion, who has kept good company. People of an ordinary, low education, when they happen to fail into good company, imagine themselves the only object of its attention; if the company whispers, it is, to be sure, concerning them; if they laugh, it is at them; and if anything ambiguous, that by the most forced interpretation can be applied to them, happens to be said, they are convinced that it was meant at them; upon which they grow out of countenance first, and then angry. This mistake is very well ridiculed in the "Stratagem," where Scrub says, I AM SURE THEY TALKED OF ME FOR THEY LAUGHED CONSUMEDLY. A well-bred man seldom thinks, but never seems to think himself slighted, undervalued, or laughed at in company, unless where it is so plainly marked out, that his honor obliges him to resent it in a proper manner; 'mais les honnetes gens ne se boudent jamais'. I will admit that it is very difficult to command one's self enough, to behave with ease, frankness, and good-breeding toward those, who one knows dislike, slight, and injure one, as far as they can, without personal consequences; but I assert that it is absolutely necessary to do it: you must embrace the man you hate, if you cannot be justified in knocking him down; for otherwise you avow the injury which you cannot revenge. A prudent cuckold (and there are many such at Paris) pockets his horns when he cannot gore with them; and will not add to the triumph of his maker by only butting with them ineffectually. A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and when they say, Have you not heard of such a thing? to answer No, and to let them go on; though you know it already. Some have a pleasure in telling it, because they think that they tell it well; others have a pride in it, as being the sagacious discoverers; and many have a vanity in showing that they have been, though very undeservedly, trusted; all these would be disappointed, and consequently displeased, if you said Yes. Seem always ignorant (unless to one's most intimate friend) of all matters of private scandal and defamation, though you should hear them a thousand times; for the parties affected always look upon the receiver to be almost as bad as the thief: and, whenever they become the topic of conversation seem to be a skeptic, though you are really a serious believer; and always take the extenuating part. But all this seeming ignorance should be joined to thorough and extensive private informations: and, indeed, it is the best method of procuring them; for most people have such a vanity in showing a superiority over others, though but for a moment, and in the merest trifles, that they will tell you what they should not, rather than not show that they can tell what you did not know; besides that such seeming ignorance will make you pass for incurious and consequently undesigning. However, fish for facts, and take pains to be well informed of everything that passes; but fish judiciously, and not always, nor indeed often, in the shape of direct questions, which always put people upon their guard, and, often repeated, grow tiresome. But sometimes take the things that you would know for granted; upon which somebody will, kindly and officiously, set you right: sometimes say that you have heard so and so; and at other times seem to know more than you do, in order to know all that you want; but avoid direct questioning as much as you can. All these necessary arts of the world require constant attention, presence of mind, and coolness. Achilles, though invulnerable, never went to battle but completely armed. Courts are to be the theatres of your wars, where you should be always as completely armed, and even with the addition of a heel-piece. The least inattention, the least DISTRACTION, may prove fatal. I would fain see you what pedants call 'omnis homo', and what Pope much better calls ALL-ACCOMPLISHED: you have the means in your power; add the will; and you may bring it about. The vulgar have a coarse saying, of SPOILING A SHIP FOR A HALFPENNY WORTH OF TAR; prevent the application by providing the tar: it is very easily to be had in comparison with what you have already got.

The fine Mrs. Pitt, who it seems saw you often at Paris, speaking of you the other day, said, in French, for she speaks little English, . . . whether it is that you did not pay the homage due to her beauty, or that it did not strike you as it does others, I cannot determine; but I hope she had some other reason than truth for saying it. I will suppose that you did not care a pin for her; but, however, she surely deserved a degree of propitiatory adoration from you, which I am afraid you neglected. Had I been in your case, I should have endeavored, at least, to have supplanted Mr. Mackay in his office of nocturnal reader to her. I played at cards, two days ago, with your friend Mrs. Fitzgerald, and her most sublime mother, Mrs. Seagrave; they both inquired after you; and Mrs. Fitzgerald said, she hoped you went on with your dancing; I said, Yes, and that you assured me, you had made such considerable improvements in it, that you had now learned to stand still, and even upright. Your 'virtuosa', la Signora Vestri, sung here the other day, with great applause: I presume you are INTIMATELY acquainted with her merit. Good night to you, whoever you pass it with.

I have this moment received a packet, sealed with your seal, though not directed by your hand, for Lady Hervey. No letter from you! Are you not well?

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this day been tired, jaded, nay, tormented, by the company of a most worthy, sensible, and learned man, a near relation of mine, who dined and passed the evening with me. This seems a paradox, but is a plain truth; he has no knowledge of the world, no manners, no address; far from talking without book, as is commonly said of people who talk sillily, he only talks by book; which in general conversation is ten times worse. He has formed in his own closet from books, certain systems of everything, argues tenaciously upon those principles, and is both surprised and angry at whatever deviates from them. His theories are good, but, unfortunately, are all impracticable. Why? because he has only read and not conversed. He is acquainted with books, and an absolute stranger to men. Laboring with his matter, he is delivered of it with pangs; he hesitates, stops in his utterance, and always expresses himself inelegantly. His actions are all ungraceful; so that, with all his merit and knowledge, I would rather converse six hours with the most frivolous tittle-tattle woman who knew something of the world, than with him. The preposterous notions of a systematical man who does not know the world, tire the patience of a man who does. It would be endless to correct his mistakes, nor would he take it kindly: for he has considered everything deliberately, and is very sure that he is in the right. Impropriety is a characteristic, and a never-failing one, of these people. Regardless, because ignorant, of customs and manners, they violate them every moment. They often shock, though they never mean to offend: never attending either to the general character, or the particular distinguishing circumstances of the people to whom, or before whom they talk; whereas the knowledge of the world teaches one, that the very same things which are exceedingly right and proper in one company, time and place, are exceedingly absurd in others. In short, a man who has great knowledge, from experience and observation, of the characters, customs, and manners of mankind, is a being as different from, and as superior to, a man of mere book and systematical knowledge, as a well-managed horse is to an ass. Study, therefore, cultivate, and frequent men and women; not only in their outward, and consequently, guarded, but in their interior, domestic, and consequently less disguised, characters and manners. Take your notions of things, as by observation and experience you find they really are, and not as you read that they are or should be; for they never are quite what they should be. For this purpose do not content yourself with general and common acquaintance; but wherever you can, establish yourself, with a kind of domestic familiarity, in good houses. For instance, go again to Orli, for two or three days, and so at two or three 'reprises'. Go and stay two or three days at a time at Versailles, and improve and extend the acquaintance you have there. Be at home at St. Cloud; and, whenever any private person of fashion invites you to, pass a few days at his country-house, accept of the invitation. This will necessarily give you a versatility of mind, and a facility to adopt various manners and customs; for everybody desires to please those in whose house they are; and people are only to be pleased in their own way. Nothing is more engaging than a cheerful and easy conformity to people's particular manners, habits, and even weaknesses; nothing (to use a vulgar expression) should come amiss to a young fellow. He should be, for good purposes, what Alcibiades was commonly for bad ones, a Proteus, assuming with ease, and wearing with cheerfulness, any shape. Heat, cold, luxury, abstinence, gravity, gayety, ceremony, easiness, learning, trifling, business, and pleasure, are modes which he should be able to take, lay aside, or change occasionally, with as much ease as he would take or lay aside his hat. All this is only to be acquired by use and knowledge of the world, by keeping a great deal of company, analyzing every character, and insinuating yourself into the familiarity of various acquaintance. A right, a generous ambition to make a figure in the world, necessarily gives the desire of pleasing; the desire of pleasing points out, to a great degree, the means of doing it; and the art of pleasing is, in truth, the art of rising, of distinguishing one's self, of making a figure and a fortune in the world. But without pleasing, without the graces, as I have told you a thousand times, 'ogni fatica e vana'. You are now but nineteen, an age at which most of your countrymen are illiberally getting drunk in port, at the university. You have greatly got the start of them in learning; and if you can equally get the start of them in the knowledge and manners of the world, you may be very sure of outrunning them in court and parliament, as you set out much earlier than they. They generally begin but to see the world at one-and-twenty; you will by that age have seen all Europe. They set out upon their travels unlicked cubs: and in their travels they only lick one another, for they seldom go into any other company. They know nothing but the English world, and the worst part of that too, and generally very little of any but the English language; and they come home, at three or four-and-twenty, refined and polished (as is said in one of Congreve's plays) like Dutch skippers from a whale-fishing. The care which has been taken of you, and (to do you justice) the care that you have taken of yourself, has left you, at the age of nineteen only, nothing to acquire but the knowledge of the world, manners, address, and those exterior accomplishments. But they are great and necessary acquisitions, to those who have sense enough to know their true value; and your getting them before you are one-and-twenty, and before you enter upon the active and shining scene of life, will give you such an advantage over all your contemporaries, that they cannot overtake you: they must be distanced. You may probably be placed about a young prince, who will probably be a young king. There all the various arts of pleasing, the engaging address, the versatility of manners, the brillant, the graces, will outweigh, and yet outrun all solid knowledge and unpolished merit. Oil yourself, therefore, and be both supple and shining, for that race, if you would be first, or early at the goal. Ladies will most probably too have something to say there; and those who are best with them will probably be best SOMEWHERE ELSE. Labor this great point, my dear child, indefatigably; attend to the very smallest parts, the minutest graces, the most trifling circumstances, that can possibly concur in forming the shining character of a complete gentleman, 'un galant homme, un homme de cour', a man of business and pleasure; 'estime des hommes, recherche des femmes, aime de tout le monde'. In this view, observe the shining part of every man of fashion, who is liked and esteemed; attend to, and imitate that particular accomplishment for which you hear him chiefly celebrated and distinguished: then collect those various parts, and make yourself a mosiac of the whole. No one body possesses everything, and almost everybody possesses some one thing worthy of imitation: only choose your models well; and in order to do so, choose by your ear more than by your eye. The best model is always that which is most universally allowed to be the best, though in strictness it may possibly not be so. We must take most things as they are, we cannot make them what we would, nor often what they should be; and where moral duties are not concerned, it is more prudent to follow than to attempt to lead. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: You have set out well at The Hague; you are in love with Madame Munter, which I am very glad of: you are in the fine company there, and I hope one of it: for it is not enough, at your age, to be merely in good company; but you should, by your address and attentions, make that good company think you one of them. There is a tribute due to beauty, even independently of further views; which tribute I hope you paid with alacrity to Madame Munter and Madame Degenfeldt: depend upon it, they expected it, and were offended in proportion as that tribute seemed either unwillingly or scantily paid. I believe my friend Kreuningen admits nobody now to his table, for fear of their communicating the plague to him, or at least the bite of a mad dog. Pray profit of the entrees libres that the French Ambassador has given you; frequent him, and SPEAK to him. I think you will not do amiss to call upon Mr. Burrish, at Aix-la-Chapelle, since it is so little out of your way; and you will do still better, if you would, which I know you will not, drink those waters for five or six days only, to scour your stomach and bowels a little; I am sure it would do you a great deal of good Mr. Burrish can, doubtless, give you the best letters to Munich; and he will naturally give you some to Comte Preysing, or Comte Sinsheim, and such sort of grave people; but I could wish that you would ask him for some to young fellows of pleasure, or fashionable coquettes, that, you may be 'dans l'honnete debauche de Munich'. A propos of your future motions; I leave you in a great measure the master of them, so shall only suggest my thoughts to you upon that subject.

You have three electoral courts in view, Bonn, Munich, and Manheim. I would advise you to see two of them rather cursorily, and fix your tabernacle at the third, whichever that may be, for a considerable time. For instance, should you choose (as I fancy you will), to make Manheim the place of your residence, stay only ten or twelve days at Bonn, and as long at Munich, and then go and fix at Manheim; and so, vice versa, if you should like Bonn or Munich better than you think you would Manheim, make that the place of your residence, and only visit the other two. It is certain that no man can be much pleased himself, or please others much, in any place where he is only a bird of passage for eight or ten days; neither party thinking it worth while to make an acquaintance, still less to form any connection, for so short a time; but when months are the case, a man may domesticate himself pretty well, and very soon not be looked upon as a stranger. This is the real utility of traveling, when, by contracting a familiarity at any place, you get into the inside of it, and see it in its undress. That is the only way of knowing the customs, the manners, and all the little characteristical peculiarities that distinguish one place from another; but then this familiarity is not to be brought about by cold, formal visits of half an hour: no; you must show a willingness, a desire, an impatience of forming connections, 'il faut s'y preter, et y mettre du liant, du desir de plaire. Whatever you do approve, you must be lavish in your praises of; and you must learn to commend what you do not approve of, if it is approved of there. You are not much given to praise, I know; but it is because you do not yet know how extremely people are engaged by a seeming sanction to their own opinions, prejudices, and weaknesses, even in the merest trifles. Our self-love is mortified when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemned; as on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation. I will give you a remarkable instance of this kind. The famous Earl of Shaftesbury, in the flagitious reign of Charles the Second, while he was Chancellor, had a mind to be a favorite, as well as a minister of the King; in order, therefore, to please his Majesty, whose prevailing passion was women, my Lord kept a w--e, whom he had no occasion for, and made no manner of use of. The King soon heard of it, and asked him if it was true; he owned it was; but that, though he kept that one woman, he had several others besides, for he loved variety. A few days afterward, the King, at his public levee, saw Lord Shaftesbury at some distance, and said in the circle, "One would not think that that little, weak man is the greatest whore-master in England; but I can assure you that he is." Upon Lord Shaftesbury's coming into the circle, there was a general smile; the King said, "This is concerning you, my Lord."-"Me, sir?" answered the Chancellor, with some surprise. "Yes, you," answered the King; "for I had just said that you were the greatest whore-master in England! Is it not true?"-"Of a SUBJECT, Sir," replied Lord Shaftesbury, "perhaps I am." It is the same in everything; we think a difference of opinion, of conduct, of manners, a tacit reproach, at least, upon our own; we must therefore use ourselves to a ready conformity to whatever is neither criminal nor dishonorable. Whoever differs from any general custom, is supposed both to think, and proclaim himself wiser than the rest of the world: which the rest of the world cannot bear, especially in a young man. A young fellow is always forgiven and often applauded, when he carries a fashion to an excess; but never if he stops short of it. The first is ascribed to youth and fire; but the latter is imputed to an affectation of singularity or superiority. At your age, one is allowed to 'outrer' fashion, dress, vivacity, gallantry, etc., but by no means to be behindhand in any one of them. And one may apply to youth in this case, 'Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus'. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Of all the various ingredients that compose the useful and necessary art of pleasing, no one is so effectual and engaging as that gentleness, that 'douceur' of countenance and manner, to which you are no stranger, though (God knows why) a sworn enemy. Other people take great pains to conceal or disguise their natural imperfections; some by the make of their clothes and other arts, endeavor to conceal the defects of their shape; women, who unfortunately have natural bad complexions, lay on good ones; and both men and women upon whom unkind nature has inflicted a surliness and ferocity of countenance, do at least all they can, though often without success, to soften and mitigate it; they affect 'douceur', and aim at smiles, though often in the attempt, like the Devil in Milton, they GRIN HORRIBLY A GHASTLY SMILE. But you are the only person I ever knew in the whole course of my life, who not only disdain, but absolutely reject and disguise a great advantage that nature has kindly granted. You easily guess I mean COUNTENANCE; for she has given you a very pleasing one; but you beg to be excused, you will not accept it; but on the contrary, take singular pains to put on the most 'funeste', forbidding, and unpleasing one that can possibly be imagined. This one would think impossible; but you know it to be true. If you imagine that it gives you a manly, thoughtful, and decisive air, as some, though very few of your countrymen do, you are most exceedingly mistaken; for it is at best the air of a German corporal, part of whose exercise is to look fierce, and to 'blasemeer-op'. You will say, perhaps, What, am I always to be studying my countenance, in order to wear this 'douceur'? I answer, No; do it but for a fortnight, and you never will have occasion to think of it more. Take but half the pains to recover the countenance that nature gave you, that you must have taken to disguise and deform it as you have, and the business will be done. Accustom your eyes to a certain softness, of which they are very capable, and your face to smiles, which become it more than most faces I know. Give all your motions, too, an air of 'douceur', which is directly the reverse of their present celerity and rapidity. I wish you would adopt a little of 'l'air du Couvent' (you very well know what I mean) to a certain degree; it has something extremely engaging; there is a mixture of benevolence, affection, and unction in it; it is frequently really sincere, but is almost always thought so, and consequently pleasing. Will you call this trouble? It will not be half an hour's trouble to you in a week's time. But suppose it be, pray tell me, why did you give yourself the trouble of learning to dance so well as you do? It is neither a religious, moral, or civil duty. You must own, that you did it then singly to please, and you were, in the right on't. Why do you wear fine clothes, and curl your hair? Both are troublesome; lank locks, and plain flimsy rags are much easier. This then you also do in order to please, and you do very right. But then, for God's sake, reason and act consequentially; and endeavor to please in other things too, still more essential; and without which the trouble you have taken in those is wholly thrown away. You show your dancing, perhaps six times a year, at most; but you show your countenance and your common motions every day, and all day. Which then, I appeal to yourself, ought you to think of the most, and care to render easy, graceful, and engaging? Douceur of countenance and gesture can alone make them so. You are by no means ill-natured; and would you then most unjustly be reckoned so? Yet your common countenance intimates, and would make anybody who did not know you, believe it. 'A propos' of this, I must tell you what was said the other day to a fine lady whom you know, who is very good-natured in truth, but whose common countenance implies ill-nature, even to brutality. It was Miss H--n, Lady M-y's niece, whom you have seen both at Blackheath and at Lady Hervey's. Lady M-y was saying to me that you had a very engaging countenance when you had a mind to it, but that you had not always that mind; upon which Miss H--n said, that she liked your countenance best, when it was as glum as her own. Why then, replied Lady M-y, you two should marry; for while you both wear your worst countenances, nobody else will venture upon either of you; and they call her now Mrs. Stanhope. To complete this 'douceur' of countenance and motions, which I so earnestly recommend to you, you should carry it also to your expressions and manner of thinking, 'mettez y toujours de l'affectueux de l'onction'; take the gentle, the favorable, the indulgent side of most questions. I own that the manly and sublime John Trott, your countryman, seldom does; but, to show his spirit and decision, takes the rough and harsh side, which he generally adorns with an oath, to seem more formidable. This he only thinks fine; for to do John justice, he is commonly as good-natured as anybody. These are among the many little things which you have not, and I have, lived long enough in the world to know of what infinite consequence they are in the course of life. Reason then, I repeat it again, within yourself, CONSEQUENTIALLY; and let not the pains you have taken, and still take, to please in some things be a 'pure perte', by your negligence of, and inattention to others of much less trouble, and much more consequence.

I have been of late much engaged, or rather bewildered, in Oriental history, particularly that of the Jews, since the destruction of their temple, and their dispersion by Titus; but the confusion and uncertainty of the whole, and the monstrous extravagances and falsehoods of the greatest part of it, disgusted me extremely. Their Talmud, their Mischna, their Targums, and other traditions and writings of their Rabbins and Doctors, who were most of them Cabalists, are really more extravagant and absurd, if possible, than all that you have read in Comte de Gabalis; and indeed most of his stuff is taken from them. Take this sample of their nonsense, which is transmitted in the writings of one of their most considerable Rabbins: "One Abas Saul, a man of ten feet high, was digging a grave, and happened to find the eye of Goliah, in which he thought proper to bury himself, and so he did, all but his head, which the Giant's eye was unfortunately not quite deep enough to receive." This, I assure you, is the most modest lie of ten thousand. I have also read the Turkish history which, excepting the religious part, is not fabulous, though very possibly not true. For the Turks, having no notion of letters and being, even by their religion, forbid the use of them, except for reading and transcribing the Koran, they have no historians of their own, nor any authentic records nor memorials for other historians to work upon; so that what histories we have of that country are written by foreigners; as Platina, Sir Paul Rycaut, Prince Cantimer, etc., or else snatches only of particular and short periods, by some who happened to reside there at those times; such as Busbequius, whom I have just finished. I like him, as far as he goes, much the best of any of them: but then his account is, properly, only an account of his own Embassy, from the Emperor Charles the Fifth to Solyman the Magnificent. However, there he gives, episodically, the best account I know of the customs and manners of the Turks, and of the nature of that government, which is a most extraordinary one. For, despotic as it always seems, and sometimes is, it is in truth a military republic, and the real power resides in the Janissaries; who sometimes order their Sultan to strangle his Vizir, and sometimes the Vizir to depose or strangle his Sultan, according as they happen to be angry at the one or the other. I own I am glad that the capital strangler should, in his turn, be STRANGLE-ABLE, and now and then strangled; for I know of no brute so fierce, nor no criminal so guilty, as the creature called a Sovereign, whether King, Sultan, or Sophy, who thinks himself, either by divine or human right, vested with an absolute power of destroying his fellow-creatures; or who, without inquiring into his right, lawlessly exerts that power. The most excusable of all those human monsters are the Turks, whose religion teaches them inevitable fatalism. A propos of the Turks, my Loyola, I pretend, is superior to your Sultan. Perhaps you think this impossible, and wonder who this Loyola is. Know then, that I have had a Barbet brought me from France, so exactly like the Sultan that he has been mistaken for him several times; only his snout is shorter, and his ears longer than the Sultan's. He has also the acquired knowledge of the Sultan; and I am apt to think that he studied under the same master at Paris. His habit and his white band show him to be an ecclesiastic; and his begging, which he does very earnestly, proves him to be of a mendicant order; which, added to his flattery and insinuation, make him supposed to be a Jesuit, and have acquired him the name of Loyola. I must not omit too, that when he breaks wind he smells exactly like the Sultan.

I do not yet hear one jot the better for all my bathings and pumpings, though I have been here already full half my time; I consequently go very little into company, being very little fit for any. I hope you keep company enough for us both; you will get more by that, than I shall by all my reading. I read simply to amuse myself and fill up my time, of which I have too much; but you have two much better reasons for going into company, pleasure and profit. May you find a great deal of both in a great deal of company! Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Two mails are now due from Holland, so that I have no letter from you to acknowledge; but that, you know, by long experience, does not hinder my writing to you. I always receive your letters with pleasure; but I mean, and endeavor, that you should receive mine with some profit; preferring always your advantage to my own pleasure.

If you find yourself well settled and naturalized at Manheim, stay there some time, and do not leave a certain for an uncertain good; but if you think you shall be as well, or better established at Munich, go there as soon as you please; and if disappointed, you can always return to Manheim I mentioned, in a former letter, your passing the Carnival at Berlin, which I think may be both useful and pleasing to you; however, do as you will; but let me know what you resolve: That King and that country have, and will have, so great a share in the affairs of Europe, that they are well worth being thoroughly known.

Whether, where you are now, or ever may be hereafter, you speak French, German, or English most, I earnestly recommend to you a particular attention to the propriety and elegance of your style; employ the best words you can find in the language, avoid cacophony, and make your periods as harmonious as you can. I need not, I am sure, tell you what you must often have felt, how much the elegance of diction adorns the best thoughts, and palliates the worst. In the House of Commons it is almost everything; and, indeed, in every assembly, whether public or private. Words, which are the dress of thoughts, deserve surely more care than clothes, which are only the dress of the person, and which, however, ought to have their share of attention. If you attend to your style in any one language, it will give you a habit of attending to it in every other; and if once you speak either French or German very elegantly, you will afterward speak much the better English for it. I repeat it to you again, for at least the thousandth time, exert your whole attention now in acquiring the ornamental parts of character. People know very little of the world, and talk nonsense, when they talk of plainness and solidity unadorned: they will do in nothing; mankind has been long out of a state of nature, and the golden age of native simplicity will never return. Whether for the better or the worse, no matter; but we are refined; and plain manners, plain dress, and plain diction, would as little do in life, as acorns, herbage, and the water of the neighboring spring, would do at table. Some people are just come, who interrupt me in the middle of my sermon; so good-night.

DEAR FRIEND: Fine doings at Manheim! If one may give credit to the weekly histories of Monsieur Roderigue, the finest writer among the moderns; not only 'des chasses brillantes et nombreuses des operas ou les acteurs se surpassent les jours des Saints de L. L. A. A. E. E. serenissimes celebres; en grand gala'; but to crown the whole, Monsieur Zuchmantel is happily arrived, and Monsieur Wartenslebeu hourly expected. I hope that you are 'pars magna' of all these delights; though, as Noll Bluff says, in the "Old Bachelor," THAT RASCALLY GAZETTEER TAKES NO MORE NOTICE OF YOU THAN IF YOU WERE NOT IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING. I should think that he might at least have taken notice that in these rejoicings you appeared with a rejoicing, and not a gloomy countenance; and you distinguished yourself in that numerous and shining company, by your air, dress, address, and attentions. If this was the case, as I will both hope and suppose it was, I will, if you require it, have him written to, to do you justice in his next 'supplement'. Seriously, I am very glad that you are whirled in that 'tourbillon' of pleasures; they smooth, polish, and rub off rough corners: perhaps too, you have some particular COLLISION, which is still more effectual.

Schannat's "History of the Palatinate" was, I find, written originally in German, in which language I suppose it is that you have read it; but, as I must humbly content myself with the French translation, Vaillant has sent for it for me from Holland, so that I have not yet read it. While you are in the Palatinate, you do very well to read everything relative to it; you will do still better if you make that reading the foundation of your inquiries into the more minute circumstances and anecdotes of that country, whenever you are in company with informed and knowing people.

The Ministers here, intimidated on the absurd and groundless clamors of the mob, have, very weakly in my mind, repealed, this session, the bill which they had passed in the last for rendering Jews capable of being naturalized by subsequent acts of parliament. The clamorers triumph, and will doubtless make further demands, which, if not granted, this piece of complaisance will soon be forgotten. Nothing is truer in politics, than this reflection of the Cardinal de Retz, 'Que le peuple craint toujours quand on ne le craint pas'; and consequently they grow unreasonable and insolent, when they find that they are feared. Wise and honest governors will never, if they can help it, give the people just cause to complain; but then, on the other hand, they will firmly withstand groundless clamor. Besides that this noise against the Jew bill proceeds from that narrow mobspirit of INTOLERATION in religious, and inhospitality in civil matters; both which all wise governments should oppose.

The confusion in France increases daily, as, no doubt, you are informed where you are. There is an answer of the clergy to the remonstrances of the parliament, lately published, which was sent me by the last post from France, and which I would have sent you, inclosed in this, were it not too bulky. Very probably you may see it at Manheim, from the French Minister: it is very well worth your reading, being most artfully and plausibly written, though founded upon false principles; the 'jus divinum' of the clergy, and consequently their supremacy in all matters of faith and doctrine are asserted; both which I absolutely deny. Were those two points allowed the clergy of any country whatsoever, they must necessarily govern that country absolutely; everything being, directly or indirectly, relative to faith or doctrine; and whoever is supposed to have the power of saving and damning souls to all eternity (which power the clergy pretend to), will be much more considered, and better obeyed, than any civil power that forms no pretensions beyond this world. Whereas, in truth, the clergy in every country are, like all other subjects, dependent upon the supreme legislative power, and are appointed by that power under whatever restrictions and limitations it pleases, to keep up decency and decorum in the church, just as constables are to keep peace in the parish. This Fra Paolo has clearly proved, even upon their own principles of the Old and New Testament, in his book 'de Beneficiis', which I recommend to you to read with attention; it is short. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday again I received two letters at once from you, the one of the 7th, the other of the 15th, from Manheim.

You never had in your life so good a reason for not writing, either to me or to anybody else, as your sore finger lately furnished you. I believe it was painful, and I am glad it is cured; but a sore finger, however painful, is a much less evil than laziness, of either body or mind, and attended by fewer ill consequences.

I am very glad to hear that you were distinguished at the court of Manheim from the rest of your countrymen and fellow-travelers: it is a sign that you had better manners and address than they; for take it for granted, the best-bred people will always be the best received wherever they go. Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial life; returns are equally expected for both; and people will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt. I really both hope and believe, that the German courts will do you a great deal of good; their ceremony and restraint being the proper correctives and antidotes for your negligence and inattention. I believe they would not greatly relish your weltering in your own laziness, and an easy chair; nor take it very kindly, if, when they spoke to you or you to them, you looked another way, as much as to say, kiss my b--h. As they give, so they require attention; and, by the way, take this maxim for an undoubted truth, That no young man can possibly improve in any company, for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.

I dare not trust to Meyssonier's report of his Rhenish, his Burgundy not having answered either his account or my expectations. I doubt, as a wine merchant, he is the 'perfidus caupo', whatever he may be as a banker. I shall therefore venture upon none of his wine; but delay making my provision of Old Hock, till I go abroad myself next spring: as I told you in the utmost secrecy, in my last, that I intend to do; and then probably I may taste some that I like, and go upon sure ground. There is commonly very good, both at Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, where I formerly got some excellent, which I carried with me to Spa, where I drank no other wine.

As my letters to you frequently miscarry, I will repeat in this that part of my last which related to your future motions. Whenever you shall be tired of Berlin, go to Dresden; where Sir Charles Williams will be, who will receive you with open arms. He dined with me to-day, and sets out for Dresden in about six weeks. He spoke of you with great kindness and impatience to see you again. He will trust and employ you in business (and he is now in the whole secret of importance) till we fix our place to meet in: which probably will be Spa. Wherever you are, inform yourself minutely of, and attend particularly to the affairs of France; they grow serious, and in my opinion will grow more and more so every day. The King is despised and I do not wonder at it; but he has brought it about to be hated at the same time, which seldom happens to the same man. His ministers are known to be as disunited as incapable; he hesitates between the Church and the parliaments, like the ass in the fable, that starved between two hampers of hay: too much in love with his mistress to part with her, and too much afraid of his soul to enjoy her; jealous of the parliaments, who would support his authority; and a devoted bigot to the Church, that would destroy it. The people are poor, consequently discontented; those who have religion, are divided in their notions of it; which is saying that they hate one another. The clergy never do forgive; much less will they forgive the parliament; the parliament never will forgive them. The army must, without doubt, take, in their own minds at last, different parts in all these disputes, which upon occasion would break out. Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it, too, by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it. This was the case of the Praetorian bands, who deposed and murdered the monsters they had raised to oppress mankind. The Janissaries in turkey, and the regiments of guards in Russia, do the same now. The French nation reasons freely, which they never did before, upon matters of religion and government, and begin to be 'sprejiudicati'; the officers do so too; in short, all the symptoms, which I have ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions in government, now exist, and daily increase, in France. I am glad of it; the rest of Europe will be the quieter, and have time to recover. England, I am sure, wants rest, for it wants men and money; the Republic of the United Provinces wants both still more; the other Powers cannot well dance, when neither France, nor the maritime powers, can, as they used to do, pay the piper. The first squabble in Europe, that I foresee, will be about the Crown of Poland, should the present King die: and therefore I wish his Majesty a long life and a merry Christmas. So much for foreign politics; but 'a propos' of them, pray take care, while you are in those parts of Germany, to inform yourself correctly of all the details, discussions, and agreements, which the several wars, confiscations, bans, and treaties, occasioned between the Bavarian and Palatine Electorates; they are interesting and curious.

I shall not, upon the occasion of the approaching new year, repeat to you the wishes which I continue to form for you; you know them all already, and you know that it is absolutely in your power to satisfy most of them. Among many other wishes, this is my most earnest one: That you would open the new year with a most solemn and devout sacrifice to the Graces; who never reject those that supplicate them with fervor; without them, let me tell you, that your friend Dame Fortune will stand you in little stead; may they all be your friends! Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 26th past from Munich. Since you are got so well out of the distress and dangers of your journey from Manheim, I am glad that you were in them:

"Condisce i diletti

Memorie di pene,

Ne sa che sia bene

Chi mal non soffri."

They were but little samples of the much greater distress and dangers which you must expect to meet within your great, and I hope, long journey through life. In some parts of it, flowers are scattered, with profusion, the road is smooth, and the prospect pleasant: but in others (and I fear the greater number) the road is rugged, beset with thorns and briars, and cut by torrents. Gather the flowers in your way; but, at the same time, guard against the briars that are either mixed with them, or that most certainly succeed them.

I thank you for your wild boar; who, now he is dead, I assure him, 'se laissera bien manger malgre qu'il en ait'; though I am not so sure that I should have had that personal valor which so successfully distinguished you in single combat with him, which made him bite the dust like Homer's heroes, and, to conclude my period sublimely, put him into that PICKLE, from which I propose eating him. At the same time that I applaud your valor, I must do justice to your modesty; which candidly admits that you were not overmatched, and that your adversary was about your own age and size. A Maracassin, being under a year old, would have been below your indignation. 'Bete de compagne', being under two years old, was still, in my opinion, below your glory; but I guess that your enemy was 'un Ragot', that is, from two to three years old; an age and size which, between man and boar, answer pretty well to yours.

If accidents of bad roads or waters do not detain you at Munich, I do not fancy that pleasures will: and I rather believe you will seek for, and find them, at the Carnival at Berlin; in which supposition, I eventually direct this letter to your banker there. While you are at Berlin (I earnestly recommend it to you again and again) pray CARE to see, hear, know, and mind, everything there. THE ABLEST PRINCE IN EUROPE is surely an object that deserves attention; and the least thing that he does, like the smallest sketches of the greatest painters, has its value, and a considerable one too.

Read with care the Code Frederick, and inform yourself of the good effects of it in those parts of, his dominions where it has taken place, and where it has banished the former chicanes, quirks, and quibbles of the old law. Do not think any detail too minute or trifling for your inquiry and observation. I wish that you could find one hour's leisure every day, to read some good Italian author, and to converse in that language with our worthy friend Signor Angelo Cori; it would both refresh and improve your Italian, which, of the many languages you know, I take to be that in which you are the least perfect; but of which, too, you already know enough to make yourself master of, with very little trouble, whenever you please.

Live, dwell, and grow at the several courts there; use them so much to your face, that they may not look upon you as a stranger. Observe, and take their 'ton', even to their affectations and follies; for such there are, and perhaps should be, at all courts. Stay, in all events, at Berlin, till I inform you of Sir Charles Williams's arrival at Dresden; where I suppose you would not care to be before him, and where you may go as soon after him as ever you please. Your time there will neither be unprofitably nor disagreeably spent; he will introduce you into all the best company, though he can introduce you to none so good as his own. He has of late applied himself very seriously to foreign affairs, especially those of Saxony and Poland; he knows them perfectly well, and will tell you what he knows. He always expresses, and I have good reason to believe very sincerely, great kindness and affection for you.

The works of the late Lord Bolingbroke are just published, and have plunged me into philosophical studies; which hitherto I have not been much used to, or delighted with; convinced of the futility of those researches; but I have read his "Philosophical Essay" upon the extent of human knowledge, which, by the way, makes two large quartos and a half. He there shows very clearly, and with most splendid eloquence, what the human mind can and cannot do; that our understandings are wisely calculated for our place in this planet, and for the link which we form in the universal chain of things; but that they are by no means capable of that degree of knowledge, which our curiosity makes us search after, and which our vanity makes us often believe we arrive at. I shall not recommend to you the reading of that work; but, when you return hither, I shall recommend to your frequent and diligent perusal all his tracts that are relative to our history and constitution; upon which he throws lights, and scatters graces, which no other writer has ever done.

Reading, which was always a pleasure to me, in the time even of my greatest dissipation, is now become my only refuge; and, I fear, I indulge it too much at the expense of my eyes. But what can I do? I must do something; I cannot bear absolute idleness; my ears grow every day more useless to me, my eyes consequently more necessary; I will not hoard them like a miser, but will rather risk the loss, than not enjoy the use of them.

Pray let me know all the particulars, not only of your reception at Munich, but also at Berlin; at the latter, I believe, it will be a good one; for his Prussian Majesty knows, that I have long been AN ADMIRER AND RESPECTER OF HIS GREAT AND VARIOUS TALENTS. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, yesterday, yours of the 12th, from Munich; in consequence of which, I direct this to you there, though I directed my three last to Berlin, where I suppose you will find them at your arrival. Since you are not only domesticated, but 'niche' at Munich, you are much in the right to stay there. It is not by seeing places that one knows them, but by familiar and daily conversations with the people of fashion. I would not care to be in the place of that prodigy of beauty, whom you are to drive 'dans la course de Traineaux'; and I am apt to think you are much more likely to break her bones, than she is, though ever so cruel, to break your heart. Nay, I am not sure but that, according to all the rules of gallantry, you are obliged to overturn her on purpose; in the first place, for the chance of seeing her backside; in the next, for the sake of the contrition and concern which it would give you an opportunity of showing; and, lastly, upon account of all the 'gentillesses et epigrammes', which it would naturally suggest. Voiture has made several stanzas upon an accident of that kind, which happened to a lady of his acquaintance. There is a great deal of wit in them, rather too much; for, according to the taste of those times, they are full of what the Italians call 'concetti spiritosissimi'; the Spaniards 'agudeze'; and we, affectation and quaintness. I hope you have endeavored to suit your 'Traineau' to the character of the fair-one whom it is to contain. If she is of an irascible, impetuous disposition (as fine women can sometimes be), you will doubtless place her in the body of a lion, a tiger, a dragon, or some tremendous beast of prey and fury; if she is a sublime and stately beauty, which I think more probable (for unquestionably she is 'hogh gebohrne'), you will, I suppose, provide a magnificent swan or proud peacock for her reception; but if she is all tenderness and softness, you have, to be sure, taken care amorous doves and wanton sparrows should seem to flutter round her. Proper mottos, I take it for granted, that you have eventually prepared; but if not, you may find a great many ready-made ones in 'Les Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugene, sur les Devises', written by Pere Bouhours, and worth your reading at any time. I will not say to you, upon this occasion, like the father in Ovid,

"Parce, puer, stimulis, et fortius utere loris."

On the contrary, drive on briskly; it is not the chariot of the sun that you drive, but you carry the sun in your chariot; consequently, the faster it goes, the less it will be likely to scorch or consume. This is Spanish enough, I am sure.

If this finds you still at Munich, pray make many compliments from me to Mr. Burrish, to whom I am very much obliged for all his kindness to you; it is true, that while I had power I endeavored to serve him; but it is as true too, that I served many others more, who have neither returned nor remembered those services.

I have been very ill this last fortnight, of your old Carniolian complaint, the 'arthritis vaga'; luckily, it did not fall upon my breast, but seized on my right arm; there it fixed its seat of empire; but, as in all tyrannical governments, the remotest parts felt their share of its severity. Last post I was not able to hold a pen long enough to write to you, and therefore desired Mr. Grevenkop to do it for me; but that letter was directed to Berlin. My pain is now much abated, though I have still some fine remains of it in my shoulder, where I fear it will tease me a great while. I must be careful to take Horace's advice, and consider well, 'Quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent'.

Lady Chesterfield bids me make you her compliments, and assure you that the music will be much more welcome to her with you, than without you.

In some of my last letters, which were directed to, and will, I suppose, wait for you at Berlin, I complimented you, and with justice, upon your great improvement of late in the epistolary way, both with regard to the style and the turn of your letters; your four or five last to me have been very good ones, and one that you wrote to Mr. Harte, upon the new year, was so pretty a one, and he was so much and so justly pleased with it, that he sent it me from Windsor the instant he had read it. This talent (and a most necessary one it is in the course of life) is to be acquired by resolving, and taking pains to acquire it; and, indeed, so is every talent except poetry, which is undoubtedly a gift. Think, therefore, night and day, of the turn, the purity, the correctness, the perspicuity, and the elegance of whatever you speak or write; take my word for it, your labor will not be in vain, but greatly rewarded by the harvest of praise and success which it will bring you. Delicacy of turn, and elegance of style, are ornaments as necessary to common sense, as attentions, address, and fashionable manners, are to common civility; both may subsist without them, but then, without being of the least use to the owner. The figure of a man is exactly the same in dirty rags, or in the finest and best chosen clothes; but in which of the two he is the most likely to please, and to be received in good company, I leave to you to determine.

Both my arm and my paper hint to me, to bid you good-night.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I take my aim, and let off this letter at you at Berlin; I should be sorry it missed you, because I believe you will read it with as much pleasure as I write it. It is to inform you, that, after some difficulties and dangers, your seat in the new parliament is at last absolutely secured, and that without opposition, or the least necessity of your personal trouble or appearance. This success, I must further inform you, is in a great degree owing to Mr. Eliot's friendship to us both; for he brings you in with himself at his surest borough. As it was impossible to act with more zeal and friendship than Mr. Eliot has acted in this whole affair, I desire that you will, by the very next post, write him a letter of thanks, warm and young thanks, not old and cold ones. You may inclose it in yours to me, and, I will send it to him, for he is now in Cornwall.

Thus, sure of being a senator, I dare say you do not propose to be one of the 'pedarii senatores, et pedibus ire in sententiam; for, as the House of Commons is the theatre where you must make your fortune and figure in the world, you must resolve to be an actor, and not a 'persona muta', which is just equivalent to a candle snuffer upon other theatres. Whoever does not shine there, is obscure, insignificant and contemptible; and you cannot conceive how easy it is for a man of half your sense and knowledge to shine there if he pleases. The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy.-Take of common sense 'quantum sufcit', add a little application to the rules and orders of the House, throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness, and elegance of style. Take it for granted, that by far the greatest part of mankind do neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface. All have senses to be gratified, very few have reason to be applied to. Graceful utterance and action please their eyes, elegant diction tickles their ears; but strong reason would be thrown away upon them. I am not only persuaded by theory, but convinced by my experience, that (supposing a certain degree of common sense) what is called a good speaker is as much a mechanic as a good shoemaker; and that the two trades are equally to be learned by the same degree of application. Therefore, for God's sake, let this trade be the principal object of your thoughts; never lose sight of it. Attend minutely to your style, whatever language you speak or write in; seek for the best words, and think of the best turns. Whenever you doubt of the propriety or elegance of any word, search the dictionary or some good author for it, or inquire of somebody, who is master of that language; and, in a little time, propriety and elegance of diction will become so habitual to you, that they will cost you no more trouble. As I have laid this down to be mechanical and attainable by whoever will take the necessary pains, there will be no great vanity in my saying, that I saw the importance of the object so early, and attended to it so young, that it would now cost me more trouble to speak or write ungrammatically, vulgarly, and inelegantly, than ever it did to avoid doing so. The late Lord Bolingbroke, without the least trouble, talked all day long, full as elegantly as he wrote. Why? Not by a peculiar gift from heaven; but, as he has often told me himself, by an early and constant attention to his style. The present Solicitor-General, Murray,-[Created Lord Mansfield in the year 1756.]-has less law than many lawyers, but has more practice than any; merely upon account of his eloquence, of which he has a never-failing stream. I remember so long ago as when I was at Cambridge, whenever I read pieces of eloquence (and indeed they were my chief study) whether ancient or modern, I used to write down the shining passages, and then translate them, as well and as elegantly as ever I could; if Latin or French, into English; if English, into French. This, which I practiced for some years, not only improved and formed my style, but imprinted in my mind and memory the best thoughts of the best authors. The trouble was little, but the advantage I have experienced was great. While you are abroad, you can neither have time nor opportunity to read pieces of English or parliamentary eloquence, as I hope you will carefully do when you return; but, in the meantime, whenever pieces of French eloquence come in your way, such as the speeches of persons received into the Academy, 'orasions funebres', representations of the several parliaments to the King, etc., read them in that view, in that spirit; observe the harmony, the turn and elegance of the style; examine in what you think it might have been better; and consider in what, had you written it yourself; you might have done worse. Compare the different manners of expressing the same thoughts in different authors; and observe how differently the same things appear in different dresses. Vulgar, coarse, and ill-chosen words, will deform and degrade the best thoughts as much as rags and dirt will the best figure. In short, you now know your object; pursue it steadily, and have no digressions that are not relative to, and connected with, the main action. Your success in parliament will effectually remove all OTHER OBJECTIONS; either a foreign or a domestic destination will no longer be refused you, if you make your way to it through Westminster.

I think I may now say, that I am quite recovered from my late illness, strength and spirits excepted, which are not yet restored. Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa will, I believe, answer all my purposes.

I long to hear an account of your reception at Berlin, which I fancy will be a most gracious one. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I can now with great truth apply your own motto to you, 'Nullum numen abest, si sit Prudentia'. You are sure of being, as early as your age will permit, a member of that House; which is the only road to figure and fortune in this country. Those, indeed, who are bred up to, and distinguish themselves in particular professions, as the army, the navy, and the law, may, by their own merit, raise themselves to a certain degree; but you may observe too, that they never get to the top, without the assistance of parliamentary talents and influence. The means of distinguishing yourself in parliament are, as I told you in my last, much more easily attained than I believe you imagine. Close attendance to the business of the House will soon give you the parliamentary routine; and strict attention to your style will soon make you, not only a speaker, but a good one. The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural being, and endowed with some peculiar gift of heaven; they stare at him, if he walks in the Park, and cry, THAT IS HE. You will, I am sure, view him in a juster light, and 'nulla formidine'. You will consider him only as a man of good sense, who adorns common thoughts with the graces of elocution, and the elegance of style. The miracle will then cease; and you will be convinced, that with the same application, and attention to the same objects, you may most certainly equal, and perhaps surpass, this prodigy. Sir W--Y----, with not a quarter of your parts, and not a thousandth part of your knowledge, has, by a glibness of tongue simply, raised him successively to the best employments of the kingdom; he has been Lord of the Admiralty, Lord of the Treasury, Secretary at War, and is now Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; and all this with a most sullied, not to say blasted character. Represent the thing to yourself, as it really is, easily attainable, and you will find it so. Have but ambition enough passionately to desire the object, and spirit enough to use the means, and I will be answerable for your success. When I was younger than you are, I resolved within myself that I would in all events be a speaker in parliament, and a good one too, if I could. I consequently never lost sight of that object, and never neglected any of the means that I thought led to it. I succeeded to a certain degree; and, I assure you, with great ease, and without superior talents. Young people are very apt to overrate both men and things, from not being enough acquainted with them. In proportion as you come to know them better, you will value them less. You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp its seat, and rule in its stead. You will find that the ablest have their weak sides too, and are only comparatively able, with regard to the still weaker herd: having fewer weaknesses themselves, they are able to avail themselves of the innumerable ones of the generality of mankind: being more masters of themselves, they become more easily masters of others. They address themselves to their weaknesses, their senses, their passions; never to their reason; and consequently seldom fail of success. But then analyze those great, those governing, and, as the vulgar imagine, those perfect characters, and you will find the great Brutus a thief in Macedonia, the great Cardinal Richelieu a jealous poetaster, and the great Duke of Marlborough a miser. Till you come to know mankind by your own experience, I know no thing, nor no man, that can in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as le Duc de la Rochefoucault: his little book of "Maxims," which I would advise you to look into, for some moments at least, every day of your life, is, I fear, too like, and too exact a picture of human nature.

I own, it seems to degrade it; but yet my experience does not convince me that it degrades it unjustly.

Now, to bring all this home to my first point. All these considerations should not only invite you to attempt to make a figure in parliament, but encourage you to hope that you shall succeed. To govern mankind, one must not overrate them: and to please an audience, as a speaker, one must not overvalue it. When I first came into the House of Commons, I respected that assembly as a venerable one; and felt a certain awe upon me, but, upon better acquaintance, that awe soon vanished; and I discovered, that, of the five hundred and sixty, not above thirty could understand reason, and that all the rest were 'peuple'; that those thirty only required plain common sense, dressed up in good language; and that all the others only required flowing and harmonious periods, whether they conveyed any meaning or not; having ears to hear, but not sense enough to judge. These considerations made me speak with little concern the first time, with less the second, and with none at all the third. I gave myself no further trouble about anything, except my elocution, and my style; presuming, without much vanity, that I had common sense sufficient not to talk nonsense. Fix these three truths strongly in your mind: First, that it is absolutely necessary for you to speak in parliament; secondly, that it only requires a little human attention, and no supernatural gifts; and, thirdly, that you have all the reason in the world to think that you shall speak well. When we meet, this shall be the principal subject of our conversations; and, if you will follow my advice, I will answer for your success.

Now from great things to little ones; the transition is to me easy, because nothing seems little to me that can be of any use to you. I hope you take great care of your mouth and teeth, and that you clean them well every morning with a sponge and tepid water, with a few drops of arquebusade water dropped into it; besides washing your mouth carefully after every meal, I do insist upon your never using those sticks, or any hard substance whatsoever, which always rub away the gums, and destroy the varnish of the teeth. I speak this from woeful experience; for my negligence of my teeth, when I was younger than you are, made them bad; and afterward, my desire to have them look better, made me use sticks, irons, etc., which totally destroyed them; so that I have not now above six or seven left. I lost one this morning, which suggested this advice to you.

I have received the tremendous wild boar, which your still more tremendous arm slew in the immense deserts of the Palatinate; but have not yet tasted of it, as it is hitherto above my low regimen. The late King of Prussia, whenever he killed any number of wild boars, used to oblige the Jews to buy them, at a high price, though they could eat none of them; so they defrayed the expense of his hunting. His son has juster rules of government, as the Code Frederick plainly shows.

I hope, that, by this time, you are as well 'ancre' at Berlin as you was at Munich; but, if not, you are sure of being so at Dresden. Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letters of the 4th, from Munich, and of the 11th from Ratisbon; but I have not received that of the 31st January, to which you refer in the former. It is to this negligence and uncertainty of the post, that you owe your accidents between Munich and Ratisbon: for, had you received my letters regularly, you would have received one from me before you left Munich, in which I advised you to stay, since you were so well there. But, at all events, you were in the wrong to set out from Munich in such weather and such roads; since you could never imagine that I had set my heart so much upon your going to Berlin, as to venture your being buried in the snow for it. Upon the whole, considering all you are very well off. You do very well, in my mind, to return to Munich, or at least to keep within the circle of Munich, Ratisbon, and Manheim, till the weather and the roads are good: stay at each or any of those places as long as ever you please; for I am extremely indifferent about your going to Berlin.

As to our meeting, I will tell you my plan, and you may form your own accordingly. I propose setting out from hence the last week in April, then drinking the Aix-la-Chapelle waters for a week, and from thence being at Spa about the 15th of May, where I shall stay two months at most, and then return straight to England. As I both hope and believe that there will be no mortal at Spa during my residence there, the fashionable season not beginning till the middle of July, I would by no means have you come there at first, to be locked up with me and some few Capucins, for two months, in that miserable hole; but I would advise you to stay where you like best, till about the first week in July, and then to come and pick me up at Spa, or meet me upon the road at Liege or Brussels. As for the intermediate time, should you be weary of Manheim and Munich, you may, if you please, go to Dresden, to Sir Charles Williams, who will be there before that time; or you may come for a month or six weeks to The Hague; or, in short, go or stay wherever you like best. So much for your motions.

As you have sent for all the letters directed to you at Berlin, you will receive from thence volumes of mine, among which you will easily perceive that some were calculated for a supposed perusal previous to your opening them. I will not repeat anything contained in them, excepting that I desire you will send me a warm and cordial letter of thanks for Mr. Eliot; who has, in the most friendly manner imaginable, fixed you at his own borough of Liskeard, where you will be elected jointly with him, without the least opposition or difficulty. I will forward that letter to him into Cornwall, where he now is.

Now that you are to be soon a man of business, I heartily wish that you would immediately begin to be a man of method; nothing contributing more to facilitate and dispatch business, than method and order. Have order and method in your accounts, in your reading, in the allotment of your time; in short, in everything. You cannot conceive how much time you will save by it, nor how much better everything you do will be done. The Duke of Marlborough did by no means spend, but he slatterned himself into that immense debt, which is not yet near paid off. The hurry and confusion of the Duke of Newcastle do not proceed from his business, but from his want of method in it. Sir Robert Walpole, who had ten times the business to do, was never seen in a hurry, because he always did it with method. The head of a man who has business, and no method nor order, is properly that 'rudis indigestaque moles quam dixere chaos'. As you must be conscious that you are extremely negligent and slatternly, I hope you will resolve not to be so for the future. Prevail with yourself, only to observe good method and order for one fortnight; and I will venture to assure you that you will never neglect them afterward, you will find such conveniency and advantage arising from them. Method is the great advantage that lawyers have over other people, in speaking in parliament; for, as they must necessarily observe it in their pleadings in the courts of justice, it becomes habitual to them everywhere else. Without making you a compliment, I can tell you with pleasure, that order, method, and more activity of mind, are all that you want, to make, some day or other, a considerable figure in business. You have more useful knowledge, more discernment of characters, and much more discretion, than is common at your age; much more, I am sure, than I had at that age. Experience you cannot yet have, and therefore trust in the meantime to mine. I am an old traveler; am well acquainted with all the bye as well as the great roads; I cannot misguide you from ignorance, and you are very sure I shall not from design.

I can assure you, that you will have no opportunity of subscribing yourself my Excellency's, etc. Retirement and quiet were my choice some years ago, while I had all my senses, and health and spirits enough to carry on business; but now that I have lost my hearing, and that I find my constitution declining daily, they are become my necessary and only refuge. I know myself (no common piece of knowledge, let me tell you), I know what I can, what I cannot, and consequently what I ought to do. I ought not, and therefore will not, return to business when I am much less fit for it than I was when I quitted it. Still less will I go to Ireland, where, from my deafness and infirmities, I must necessarily make a different figure from that which I once made there. My pride would be too much mortified by that difference. The two important senses of seeing and hearing should not only be good, but quick, in business; and the business of a Lord-lieutenant of Ireland (if he will do it himself) requires both those senses in the highest perfection. It was the Duke of Dorset's not doing the business himself, but giving it up to favorites, that has occasioned all this confusion in Ireland; and it was my doing the whole myself, without either Favorite, Minister, or Mistress, that made my administration so smooth and quiet. I remember, when I named the late Mr. Liddel for my Secretary, everybody was much surprised at it; and some of my friends represented to me, that he was no man of business, but only a very genteel, pretty young fellow; I assured them, and with truth, that that was the very reason why I chose him; for that I was resolved to do all the business myself, and without even the suspicion of having a minister; which the Lord-lieutenant's Secretary, if he is a man of business, is always supposed, and commonly with reason, to be. Moreover, I look upon myself now to be emeritus in business, in which I have been near forty years together; I give it up to you: apply yourself to it, as I have done, for forty years, and then I consent to your leaving it for a philosophical retirement among your friends and your books. Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay; and, too often sanguinely hoping to shine on in their meridian, often set with contempt and ridicule. I retired in time, 'uti conviva satur'; or, as Pope says still better, ERE TITTERING YOUTH SHALL SHOVE YOU FROM THE STAGE. My only remaining ambition 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, with your parts and knowledge, I promise you, you shall go far. You must bring, on your part, activity and attention; and I will point out to you the proper objects for them. I own I fear but one thing for you, and that is what one has generally the least reason to fear from one of your age; I mean your laziness; which, if you indulge, will make you stagnate in a contemptible obscurity all your life. It will hinder you from doing anything that will deserve to be written, or from writing anything that may deserve to be read; and yet one or other of those two objects should be at least aimed at by every rational being.

I look upon indolence as a sort of SUICIDE; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive. Business by no means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each other; and I will venture to affirm, that no man enjoys either in perfection, that does not join both. They whet the desire for each other. Use yourself, therefore, in time to be alert and diligent in your little concerns; never procrastinate, never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day; and never do two things at a time; pursue your object, be it what it will, steadily and indefatigably; and let any difficulties (if surmountable) rather animate than slacken your endeavors. Perseverance has surprising effects.

I wish you would use yourself to translate, every day, only three or four lines, from any book, in any language, into the correctest and most elegant English that you can think of; you cannot imagine how it will insensibly form your style, and give you an habitual elegance; it would not take you up a quarter of an hour in a day. This letter is so long, that it will hardly leave you that quarter of an hour, the day you receive it. So good-night.

MY DEAR FRIEND: A great and unexpected event has lately happened in our ministerial world. Mr. Pelham died last Monday of a fever and mortification, occasioned by a general corruption of his whole mass of blood, which had broke out into sores in his back. I regret him as an old acquaintance, a pretty near relation, and a private man, with whom I have lived many years in a social and friendly way. He meant well to the public; and was incorrupt in a post where corruption is commonly contagious. If he was no shining, enterprising minister, he was a safe one, which I like better. Very shining ministers, like the sun, are apt to scorch when they shine the brightest: in our constitution, I prefer the milder light of a less glaring minister. His successor is not yet, at least publicly, 'designatus'. You will easily suppose that many are very willing, and very few able, to fill that post. Various persons are talked of, by different people, for it, according as their interest prompts them to wish, or their ignorance to conjecture. Mr. Fox is the most talked of; he is strongly supported by the Duke of Cumberland. Mr. Legge, the Solicitor-General, and Dr. Lee, are likewise all spoken of, upon the foot of the Duke of Newcastle's, and the Chancellor's interest. Should it be any one of the last three, I think no great alterations will ensue; but should Mr. Fox prevail, it would, in my opinion, soon produce changes by no means favorable to the Duke of Newcastle. In the meantime, the wild conjectures of volunteer politicians, and the ridiculous importance which, upon these occasions, blockheads always endeavor to give themselves, by grave looks, significant shrugs, and insignificant whispers, are very entertaining to a bystander, as, thank God, I now am. One KNOWS SOMETHING, but is not yet at liberty to tell it; another has heard something from a very good hand; a third congratulates himself upon a certain degree of intimacy, which he has long had with everyone of the candidates, though perhaps he has never spoken twice to anyone of them. In short, in these sort of intervals, vanity, interest, and absurdity, always display themselves in the most ridiculous light. One who has been so long behind the scenes as I have is much more diverted with the entertainment, than those can be who only see it from the pit and boxes. I know the whole machinery of the interior, and can laugh the better at the silly wonder and wild conjectures of the uninformed spectators. This accident, I think, cannot in the least affect your election, which is finally settled with your friend Mr. Eliot. For, let who will prevail, I presume, he will consider me enough, not to overturn an arrangement of that sort, in which he cannot possibly be personally interested. So pray go on with your parliamentary preparations. Have that object always in your view, and pursue it with attention.

I take it for granted that your late residence in Germany has made you as perfect and correct in German, as you were before in French, at least it is worth your while to be so; because it is worth every man's while to be perfectly master of whatever language he may ever have occasion to speak. A man is not himself, in a language which he does not thoroughly possess; his thoughts are degraded, when inelegantly or imperfectly expressed; he is cramped and confined, and consequently can never appear to advantage. Examine and analyze those thoughts that strike you the most, either in conversation or in books; and you will find that they owe at least half their merit to the turn and expression of them. There is nothing truer than that old saying, 'Nihil dictum quod non prins dictum'. It is only the manner of saying or writing it that makes it appear new. Convince yourself that manner is almost everything, in everything; and study it accordingly.

I am this moment informed, and I believe truly, that Mr. Fox-[Henry Fox, created Lord Holland, Baron of Foxley, in the year 1763]-is to succeed Mr. Pelham as First Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer; and your friend, Mr. Yorke, of The Hague, to succeed Mr. Fox as Secretary at War. I am not sorry for this promotion of Mr. Fox, as I have always been upon civil terms with him, and found him ready to do me any little services. He is frank and gentleman-like in his manner: and, to a certain degree, I really believe will be your friend upon my account; if you can afterward make him yours, upon your own, 'tan mieux'. I have nothing more to say now but Adieu.

MY DEAR FRIEND: We are here in the midst of a second winter; the cold is more severe, and the snow deeper, than they were in the first. I presume, your weather in Germany is not much more gentle and, therefore, I hope that you are quietly and warmly fixed at some good town: and will not risk a second burial in the snow, after your late fortunate resurrection out of it. Your letters, I suppose, have not been able to make their way through the ice; for I have received none from you since that of the 12th of February, from Ratisbon. I am the more uneasy at this state of ignorance, because I fear that you may have found some subsequent inconveniences from your overturn, which you might not be aware of at first.

The curtain of the political theatre was partly drawn up the day before yesterday, and exhibited a scene which the public in general did not expect; the Duke of Newcastle was declared First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, Mr. Fox Secretary of State in his room, and Mr. Henry Legge Chancellor of the Exchequer: The employments of Treasurer of the Navy, and Secretary at War, supposed to be vacant by the promotion of Mr. Fox and Mr. Legge, were to be kept 'in petto' till the dissolution of this parliament, which will probably be next week, to avoid the expense and trouble of unnecessary re-elections; but it was generally supposed that Colonel Yorke, of The Hague, was to succeed Mr. Fox; and George Greenville, Mr. Legge. This scheme, had it taken place, you are, I believe aware, was more a temporary expedient, for securing the elections of the new parliament, and forming it, at its first meeting, to the interests and the inclinations of the Duke of Newcastle and the Chancellor, than a plan of administration either intended or wished to be permanent. This scheme was disturbed yesterday: Mr. Fox, who had sullenly accepted the seals the day before, more sullenly refused them yesterday. His object was to be First Commissioner of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and consequently to have a share in the election of the new parliament, and a much greater in the management of it when chosen. This necessary consequence of his view defeated it; and the Duke of Newcastle and the Chancellor chose to kick him upstairs into the Secretaryship of State, rather than trust him with either the election or the management of the new parliament. In this, considering their respective situations, they certainly acted wisely; but whether Mr. Fox has done so, or not, in refusing the seals, is a point which I cannot determine. If he is, as I presume he is, animated with revenge, and I believe would not be over scrupulous in the means of gratifying it, I should have thought he could have done it better, as Secretary of State, with constant admission into the closet, than as a private man at the head of an opposition. But I see all these things at too great a distance to be able to judge soundly of them. The true springs and motives of political measures are confined within a very narrow circle, and known to a very few; the good reasons alleged are seldom the true ones: The public commonly judges, or rather guesses, wrong, and I am now one of that public. I therefore recommend to you a prudent Pyrrhonism in all matters of state, until you become one of the wheels of them yourself, and consequently acquainted with the general motion, at least, of the others; for as to all the minute and secret springs, that contribute more or less to the whole machine, no man living ever knows them all, not even he who has the principal direction of it. As in the human body, there are innumerable little vessels and glands that have a good deal to do, and yet escape the knowledge of the most skillful anatomist; he will know more, indeed, than those who only see the exterior of our bodies, but he will never know all. This bustle, and these changes at court, far from having disturbed the quiet and security of your election, have, if possible, rather confirmed them; for the Duke of Newcastle (I must do him justice) has, in, the kindest manner imaginable to you, wrote a letter to Mr. Eliot, to recommend to him the utmost care of your election.

Though the plan of administration is thus unsettled, mine, for my travels this summer, is finally settled; and I now communicate it to you that you may form your own upon it. I propose being at Spa on the 10th or 12th of May, and staying there till the 10th of July. As there will be no mortal there during my stay, it would be both unpleasant and unprofitable to you to be shut up tete-a-fete with me the whole time; I should therefore think it best for you not to come to me there till the last week in June. In the meantime, I suppose, that by the middle of April, you will think that you have had enough of Manheim, Munich, or Ratisbon, and that district. Where would you choose to go then? For I leave you absolutely your choice. Would you go to Dresden for a month or six weeks? That is a good deal out of your way, and I am not sure that Sir Charles will be there by that time. Or would you rather take Bonn in your way, and pass the time till we meet at The Hague? From Manheim you may have a great many good letters of recommendation to the court of Bonn; which court, and it's Elector, in one light or another, are worth your seeing.

From thence, your journey to The Hague will be but a short one; and you would arrive there at that season of the year when The Hague is, in my mind, the most agreeable, smiling scene in Europe; and from The Hague you would have but three very easy days journey to me at Spa. Do as you like; for, as I told you before, 'Ella e assolutamente padrone'. But lest you should answer that you desire to be determined by me, I will eventually tell you my opinion. I am rather inclined to the latter plan; I mean that of your coming to Bonn, staying there according as you like it, and then passing the remainder of your time, that is May and June, at The Hague. Our connection and transactions with the Republic of the United Provinces are such, that you cannot be too well acquainted with that constitution, and with those people. You have established good acquaintances there, and you have been 'fetoie' round by the foreign ministers; so that you will be there 'en pais connu'. Moreover, you have not seen the Stadtholder, the 'Gouvernante', nor the court there, which 'a bon compte' should be seen. Upon the whole, then, you cannot, in my opinion, pass the months of May and June more agreeably, or more usefully, than at The Hague. But, however, if you have any other, plan that you like better, pursue it: Only let me know what you intend to do, and I shall most cheerfully agree to it.

The parliament will be dissolved in about ten days, and the writs for the election of the new one issued out immediately afterward; so that, by the end of next month, you may depend upon being 'Membre de la chambre basse'; a title that sounds high in foreign countries, and perhaps higher than it deserves. I hope you will add a better title to it in your own, I mean that of a good speaker in parliament: you have, I am sure, all, the materials necessary for it, if you will but put them together and adorn them. I spoke in parliament the first month I was in it, and a month before I was of age; and from the day I was elected, till the day that I spoke. I am sure I thought nor dreamed of nothing but speaking. The first time, to say the truth, I spoke very indifferently as to the matter; but it passed tolerably, in favor of the spirit with which I uttered it, and the words in which I had dressed it. I improved by degrees, till at last it did tolerably well. The House, it must be owned, is always extremely indulgent to the two or three first attempts of a young speaker; and if they find any degree of common sense in what he says, they make great allowances for his inexperience, and for the concern which they suppose him to be under. I experienced that indulgence; for had I not been a young member, I should certainly have been, as I own I deserved, reprimanded by the House for some strong and indiscreet things that I said. Adieu! It is indeed high time.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 15th from Manheim, where I find you have been received in the usual gracious manner; which I hope you return in a GRACEFUL one. As this is a season of great devotion and solemnity in all Catholic countries, pray inform yourself of, and constantly attend to, all their silly and pompous church ceremonies; one ought to know them. I am very glad that you wrote the letter to Lord---, which, in every different case that can possibly be supposed, was, I am sure, both a decent and a prudent step. You will find it very difficult, whenever we meet, to convince me that you could have any good reasons for not doing it; for I will, for argument's sake, suppose, what I cannot in reality believe, that he has both said and done the worst he could, of and by you; What then? How will you help yourself? Are you in a situation to hurt him? Certainly not; but he certainly is in a situation to hurt you. Would you show a sullen, pouting, impotent resentment? I hope not; leave that silly, unavailing sort of resentment to women, and men like them, who are always guided by humor, never by reason and prudence. That pettish, pouting conduct is a great deal too young, and implies too little knowledge of the world, for one who has seen so much of it as you have. Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct,-Never to show the least symptom of resentment which you cannot to a certain degree gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike. There would be no living in courts, nor indeed in the world if one could not conceal, and even dissemble, the just causes of resentment, which one meets with every day in active and busy life. Whoever cannot master his humor enough, 'pour faire bonne mine a mauvais jeu', should leave the world, and retire to some hermitage, in an unfrequented desert. By showing an unavailing and sullen resentment, you authorize the resentment of those who can hurt you and whom you cannot hurt; and give them that very pretense, which perhaps they wished for, of breaking with, and injuring you; whereas the contrary behavior would lay them under, the restraints of decency at least; and either shackle or expose their malice. Besides, captiousness, sullenness, and pouting are most exceedingly illiberal and vulgar. 'Un honnete homme ne les connoit point'.

I am extremely glad to hear that you are soon to have Voltaire at Manheim: immediately upon his arrival, pray make him a thousand compliments from me. I admire him most exceedingly; and, whether as an epic, dramatic, or lyric poet, or prose-writer, I think I justly apply to him the 'Nil molitur inepte'. I long to read his own correct edition of 'Les Annales de l'Empire', of which the 'Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire Universelle', which I have read, is, I suppose, a stolen and imperfect part; however, imperfect as it is, it has explained to me that chaos of history, of seven hundred years more clearly than any other book had done before. You judge very rightly that I love 'le style le r et fleuri'. I do, and so does everybody who has any parts and taste. It should, I confess, be more or less 'fleuri', according to the subject; but at the same time I assert that there is no subject that may not properly, and which ought not to be adorned, by a certain elegance and beauty of style. What can be more adorned than Cicero's Philosophical Works? What more than Plato's? It is their eloquence only that has preserved and transmitted them down to us through so many centuries; for the philosophy of them is wretched, and the reasoning part miserable. But eloquence will always please, and has always pleased. Study it therefore; make it the object of your thoughts and attention. Use yourself to relate elegantly; that is a good step toward speaking well in parliament. Take some political subject, turn it in your thoughts, consider what may be said both for and against it, then put those arguments into writing, in the most correct and elegant English you can. For instance, a standing army, a place bill, etc.; as to the former, consider, on one side, the dangers arising to a free country from a great standing military force; on the other side, consider the necessity of a force to repel force with. Examine whether a standing army, though in itself an evil, may not, from circumstances, become a necessary evil, and preventive of greater dangers. As to the latter, consider, how far places may bias and warp the conduct of men, from the service of their country, into an unwarrantable complaisance to the court; and, on the other hand, consider whether they can be supposed to have that effect upon the conduct of people of probity and property, who are more solidly interested in the permanent good of their country, than they can be in an uncertain and precarious employment. Seek for, and answer in your own mind, all the arguments that can be urged on either side, and write them down in an elegant style. This will prepare you for debating, and give you an habitual eloquence; for I would not give a farthing for a mere holiday eloquence, displayed once or twice in a session, in a set declamation, but I want an every-day, ready, and habitual eloquence, to adorn extempore and debating speeches; to make business not only clear but agreeable, and to please even those whom you cannot inform, and who do not desire to be informed. All this you may acquire, and make habitual to you, with as little trouble as it cost you to dance a minuet as well as you do. You now dance it mechanically and well without thinking of it.

I am surprised that you found but one letter for me at Manheim, for you ought to have found four or five; there are as many lying for you at your banker's at Berlin, which I wish you had, because I always endeavored to put something into them, which, I hope, may be of use to you.