LONDON, September 20, O. S. 1748.
DEAR BOY: I wait with impatience for your accurate history of the
‘Chevaliers Forte Epees’, which you promised me in your last, and which I
take to be the forerunner of a larger work that you intend to give the
public, containing a general account of all the religious and military
orders of Europe. Seriously, you will do well to have a general notion of
all those orders, ancient and modern; both as they are frequently the
subjects of conversation, and as they are more or less interwoven with
the histories of those times. Witness the Teutonic Order, which, as soon
as it gained strength, began its unjust depredations in Germany, and
acquired such considerable possessions there; and the Order of Malta
also, which continues to this day its piracies upon the Infidels. Besides
one can go into no company in Germany, without running against Monsieur
le Chevalier, or Monsieur le Commandeur de l’ Ordre Teutonique. It is the
same in all the other parts of Europe with regard to the Order of Malta,
where you never go into company without meeting two or three Chevaliers
or Commandeurs, who talk of their ‘Preuves’, their ‘Langues’, their
‘Caravanes’, etc., of all which things I am sure you would not willingly
be ignorant. On the other hand, I do not mean that you should have a
profound and minute knowledge of these matters, which are of a nature
that a general knowledge of them is fully sufficient. I would not
recommend you to read Abbe Vertot’s “History of the Order of Malta,” in
four quarto volumes; that would be employing a great deal of good time
very ill. But I would have you know the foundations, the objects, the
INSIGNIA, and the short general history of them all.
As for the ancient religious military orders, which were chiefly founded
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, such as Malta, the Teutonic, the
Knights Templars, etc., the injustice and the wickedness of those
establishments cannot, I am sure, have escaped your observation. Their
pious object was, to take away by force other people’s property, and to
massacre the proprietors themselves if they refused to give up that
property, and adopt the opinions of these invaders. What right or
pretense had these confederated Christians of Europe to the Holy Land?
Let them produce their grant of it in the Bible. Will they say, that the
Saracens had possessed themselves of it by force, and that, consequently,
they had the same right? Is it lawful then to steal goods because they
were stolen before? Surely not. The truth is, that the wickedness of
many, and the weakness of more, in those ages of ignorance and
superstition, concurred to form those flagitious conspiracies against the
lives and properties of unoffending people. The Pope sanctified the
villany, and annexed the pardon of sins to the perpetration of it. This
gave rise to the Crusaders, and carried such swarms of people from Europe
to the conquests of the Holy Land. Peter the Hermit, an active and
ambitious priest, by his indefatigable pains, was the immediate author of
the first crusade; kings, princes, all professions and characters united,
from different motives, in this great undertaking, as every sentiment,
except true religion and morality, invited to it. The ambitious hoped for
kingdoms; the greedy and the necessitous for plunder; and some were
enthusiasts enough to hope for salvation, by the destruction of a
considerable number of their fellow creatures, who had done them no
injury. I cannot omit, upon this occasion, telling you that the Eastern
emperors at Constantinople (who, as Christians, were obliged at least to
seem to favor these expeditions), seeing the immense numbers of the
‘Croisez’, and fearing that the Western Empire might have some mind to
the Eastern Empire too, if it succeeded against the Infidels, as
‘l’appetit vient en mangeant’; these Eastern emperors, very honestly,
poisoned the waters where the ‘Croisez’ were to pass, and so destroyed
infinite numbers of them.
The later orders of knighthood, such as the Garter in England; the
Elephant in Denmark; the Golden Fleece in Burgundy; the St. Esprit, St.
Michel, St. Louis, and St. Lazare, in France etc., are of a very
different nature and were either the invitations to, or the rewards of;
brave actions in fair war; and are now rather the decorations of the
favor of the prince, than the proofs of the merit of the subject.
However, they are worth your inquiries to a certain degree, and
conversation will give you frequent opportunities for them. Wherever you
are, I would advise you to inquire into the respective orders of that
country, and to write down a short account of them. For example, while
you are in Saxony, get an account of l’Aigle Blanc and of what other
orders there may be, either Polish or Saxon; and, when you shall be at
Berlin, inform yourself of three orders, l’Aigle Noir, la Generosite et
le Vrai Merite, which are the only ones that I know of there. But
whenever you meet with straggling ribands and stars, as you will with a
thousand in Germany, do not fail to inquire what they are, and to take a
minute of them in your memorandum book; for it is a sort of knowledge
that costs little to acquire, and yet it is of some use. Young people
have frequently an incuriousness about them, arising either from
laziness, or a contempt of the object, which deprives them of several
such little parts of knowledge, that they afterward wish they had
acquired. If you will put conversation to profit, great knowledge may be
gained by it; and is it not better (since it is full as easy) to turn it
upon useful than upon useless subjects? People always talk best upon what
they know most, and it is both pleasing them and improving one’s self, to
put them upon that subject. With people of a particular profession, or of
a distinguished eminency in any branch of learning, one is not at a loss;
but with those, whether men or women, who properly constitute what is
called the beau monde, one must not choose deep subjects, nor hope to get
any knowledge above that of orders, ranks, families, and court anecdotes;
which are therefore the proper (and not altogether useless) subjects of
that kind of conversation. Women, especially, are to be talked to as
below men and above children. If you talk to them too deep, you only
confound them, and lose your own labor; if you talk to them too
frivolously, they perceive and resent the contempt. The proper tone for
them is, what the French call the ‘Entregent’, and is, in truth, the
polite jargon of good company. Thus, if you are a good chemist, you may
extract something out of everything.
A propos of the beau monde, I must again and again recommend the Graces
to you: There is no doing without them in that world; and, to make a good
figure in that world, is a great step toward making one in the world of
business, particularly that part of it for which you are destined. An
ungraceful manner of speaking, awkward motions, and a disagreeable
address, are great clogs to the ablest man of business, as the opposite
qualifications are of infinite advantage to him. I am told there is a
very good dancing-master at Leipsig. I would have you dance a minuet very
well, not so much for the sake of the minuet itself (though that, if
danced at all, ought to be danced, well), as that it will give you a
habitual genteel carriage and manner of presenting yourself.
Since I am upon little things, I must mention another, which, though
little enough in itself, yet as it occurs at, least once in every day,
deserves some attention; I mean Carving. Do you use yourself to carve
ADROITLY and genteelly, without hacking half an hour across a bone;
without bespattering the company with the sauce; and without overturning
the glasses into your neighbor’s pockets? These awkwardnesses are
extremely disagreeable; and, if often repeated, bring ridicule. They are
very easily avoided by a little attention and use.
How trifling soever these things may seem, or really be in themselves,
they are no longer so when above half the world thinks them otherwise.
And, as I would have you ‘omnibus ornatum--excellere rebus’, I think
nothing above or below my pointing out to you, or your excelling in. You
have the means of doing it, and time before you to make use of them. Take
my word for it, I ask nothing now but what you will, twenty years hence,
most heartily wish that you had done. Attention to all these things, for
the next two or three years, will save you infinite trouble and endless
regrets hereafter. May you, in the whole course of your life, have no
reason for any one just regret! Adieu.
Your Dresden china is arrived, and I have sent it to your Mamma.