LONDON, May 15, O. S. 1749.
DEAR BOY: This letter will, I hope, find you settled to your serious
studies, and your necessary exercises at Turin, after the hurry and the
dissipation of the Carnival at Venice. I mean that your stay at Turin
should, and I flatter myself that it will, be an useful and ornamental
period of your education; but at the same time I must tell you, that all
my affection for you has never yet given me so much anxiety, as that
which I now feel. While you are in danger, I shall be in fear; and you
are in danger at Turin. Mr. Harte will by his care arm you as well as he
can against it; but your own good sense and resolution can alone make you
invulnerable. I am informed, there are now many English at the Academy at
Turin; and I fear those are just so many dangers for you to encounter.
Who they are, I do not know; but I well know the general ill conduct, the
indecent behavior, and the illiberal views, of my young countrymen.
abroad; especially wherever they are in numbers together. Ill example is
of itself dangerous enough; but those who give it seldom stop there; they
add their infamous exhortations and invitations; and, if they fail, they
have recourse to ridicule, which is harder for one of your age and
inexperience to withstand than either of the former. Be upon your guard,
therefore, against these batteries, which will all be played upon you.
You are not sent abroad to converse with your own countrymen: among them,
in general, you will get, little knowledge, no languages, and, I am sure,
no manners. I desire that you will form no connections, nor (what they
impudently call) friendships with these people; which are, in truth, only
combinations and conspiracies against good morals and good manners. There
is commonly, in young people, a facility that makes them unwilling to
refuse anything that is asked of them; a ‘mauvaise honte’ that makes them
ashamed to refuse; and, at the same time, an ambition of pleasing and
shining in the company they keep: these several causes produce the best
effect in good company, but the very worst in bad. If people had no vices
but their own, few would have so many as they have. For my own part, I
would sooner wear other people’s clothes than their vices; and they would
sit upon me just as well. I hope you will have none; but if ever you
have, I beg, at least, they may be all your own. Vices of adoption are,
of all others, the most disgraceful and unpardonable. There are degrees
in vices, as well as in virtues; and I must do my countrymen the justice
to say, that they generally take their vices in the lower degree. Their
gallantry is the infamous mean debauchery of stews, justly attended and
rewarded by the loss of their health, as well as their character. Their
pleasures of the table end in beastly drunkenness, low riot, broken
windows, and very often (as they well deserve), broken bones. They game
for the sake of the vice, not of the amusement; and therefore carry it to
excess; undo, or are undone by their companions. By such conduct, and in
such company abroad, they come home, the unimproved, illiberal, and
ungentlemanlike creatures that one daily sees them, that is, in the park
and in the streets, for one never meets them in good company; where they
have neither manners to present themselves, nor merit to be received.
But, with the manners of footmen and grooms, they assume their dress too;
for you must have observed them in the streets here, in dirty blue
frocks, with oaken sticks in their ends, and their hair greasy and
unpowdered, tucked up under their hats of an enormous size. Thus finished
and adorned by their travels, they become the disturbers of play-houses;
they break the windows, and commonly the landlords, of the taverns where
they drink; and are at once the support, the terror, and the victims, of
the bawdy-houses they frequent. These poor mistaken people think they
shine, and so they do indeed; but it is as putrefaction shines in the
dark.
I am not now preaching to you, like an old fellow, upon their religious
or moral texts; I am persuaded that you do not want the best instructions
of that kind: but I am advising you as a friend, as a man of the world,
as one who would not have you old while you are young, but would have you
to take all the pleasures that reason points out, and that decency
warrants. I will therefore suppose, for argument’s sake (for upon no
other account can it be supposed), that all the vices above mentioned
were perfectly innocent in themselves: they would still degrade, vilify,
and sink those who practiced them; would obstruct their rising in the
world by debasing their characters; and give them low turn of mind, and
manners absolutely inconsistent with their making any figure in upper
life and great business.
What I have now said, together with your own good sense, is, I hope,
sufficient to arm you against the seduction, the invitations, or the
profligate exhortations (for I cannot call them temptations) of those
unfortunate young people. On the other hand, when they would engage you
in these schemes, content yourself with a decent but steady refusal;
avoid controversy upon such plain points. You are too young to convert
them; and, I trust, too wise to be converted by them. Shun them not only
in reality, but even in appearance, if you would be well received in good
company; for people will always be shy of receiving a man who comes from
a place where the plague rages, let him look ever so healthy. There are
some expressions, both in French and English, and some characters, both
in those two and in other countries, which have, I dare say, misled many
young men to their ruin. ‘Une honnete debauche, une jolie debauche; “An
agreeable rake, a man of pleasure.” Do not think that this means
debauchery and profligacy; nothing like it. It means, at most, the
accidental and unfrequent irregularities of youth and vivacity, in
opposition to dullness, formality, and want of spirit. A ‘commerce
galant’, insensibly formed with a woman of fashion; a glass of wine or
two too much, unwarily taken in the warmth and joy of good company; or
some innocent frolic, by which nobody is injured, are the utmost bounds
of that life of pleasure, which a man of sense and decency, who has a
regard for his character, will allow himself, or be allowed by others.
Those who transgress them in the hopes of shining, miss their aim, and
become infamous, or at least, contemptible.
The length or shortness of your stay at Turin will sufficiently inform me
(even though Mr. Harte should not) of your conduct there; for, as I have
told you before, Mr. Harte has the strictest orders to carry you away
immediately from thence, upon the first and least symptom of infection
that he discovers about you; and I know him to be too conscientiously
scrupulous, and too much your friend and mine not to execute them
exactly. Moreover, I will inform you, that I shall have constant accounts
of your behavior from Comte Salmour, the Governor of the Academy, whose
son is now here, and my particular friend. I have, also, other good
channels of intelligence, of which I do not apprise you. But, supposing
that all turns out well at Turin, yet, as I propose your being at Rome
for the jubilee, at Christmas, I desire that you will apply yourself
diligently to your exercises of dancing, fencing, and riding at the
Academy; as well for the sake of your health and growth, as to fashion
and supple you. You must not neglect your dress neither, but take care to
be ‘bien mis’. Pray send for the best operator for the teeth at Turin,
where I suppose there is some famous one; and let him put yours in
perfect order; and then take care to keep them so, afterward, yourself.
You had very good teeth, and I hope they are so still; but even those who
have bad ones, should keep them clean; for a dirty mouth is, in my mind,
ill manners. In short, neglect nothing that can possibly please. A
thousand nameless little things, which nobody can describe, but which
everybody feels, conspire to form that WHOLE of pleasing; as the several
pieces of a Mosaic work though, separately, of little beauty or value,
when properly joined, form those beautiful figures which please
everybody. A look, a gesture, an attitude, a tone of voice, all bear
their parts in the great work of pleasing. The art of pleasing is more
particularly necessary in your intended profession than perhaps in any
other; it is, in truth, the first half of your business; for if you do
not please the court you are sent to, you will be of very little use to
the court you are sent from. Please the eyes and the ears, they will
introduce you to the heart; and nine times in ten, the heart governs the
understanding.
Make your court particularly, and show distinguished attentions to such
men and women as are best at court, highest in the fashion, and in the
opinion of the public; speak advantageously of them behind their backs,
in companies whom you have reason to believe will tell them again.
Express your admiration of the many great men that the House of Savoy has
produced; observe that nature, instead of being exhausted by those
efforts, seems to have redoubled them, in the person of the present King,
and the Duke of Savoy; wonder, at this rate, where it will end, and
conclude that it must end in the government of all Europe. Say this,
likewise, where it will probably be repeated; but say it unaffectedly,
and, the last especially, with a kind of ‘enjouement’. These little arts
are very allowable, and must be made use of in the course of the world;
they are pleasing to one party, useful to the other, and injurious to
nobody.
What I have said with regard to my countrymen in general, does not extend
to them all without exception; there are some who have both merit and
manners. Your friend, Mr. Stevens, is among the latter; and I approve of
your connection with him. You may happen to meet with some others, whose
friendship may be of great use to you hereafter, either from their
superior talents, or their rank and fortune; cultivate them; but then I
desire that Mr. Harte may be the judge of those persons.
Adieu my dear child! Consider seriously the importance of the two next
years to your character, your figure, and your fortune.