MY DEAR FRIEND: Before you get to Paris, where you will soon be left to
your own discretion, if you have any, it is necessary that we should
understand one another thoroughly; which is the most probable way of
preventing disputes. Money, the cause of much mischief in the world, is
the cause of most quarrels between fathers and sons; the former commonly
thinking that they cannot give too little, and the latter, that they
cannot have enough; both equally in the wrong. You must do me the justice
to acknowledge, that I have hitherto neither stinted nor grudged any
expense that could be of use or real pleasure to you; and I can assure
you, by the way, that you have traveled at a much more considerable
expense than I did myself; but I never so much as thought of that, while
Mr. Harte was at the head of your finances; being very sure that the sums
granted were scrupulously applied to the uses for which they were
intended. But the case will soon be altered, and you will be your own
receiver and treasurer. However, I promise you, that we will not quarrel
singly upon the quantum, which shall be cheerfully and freely granted:
the application and appropriation of it will be the material point, which
I am now going to clear up and finally settle with you. I will fix, or
even name, no settled allowance; though I well know in my own mind what
would be the proper one; but I will first try your draughts, by which I
can in a good degree judge of your conduct. This only I tell you in
general, that if the channels through which my money is to go are the
proper ones, the source shall not be scanty; but should it deviate into
dirty, muddy, and obscure ones (which by the bye, it cannot do for a week
without my knowing it); I give you fair and timely notice, that the
source will instantly be dry. Mr. Harte, in establishing you at Paris,
will point out to you those proper channels; he will leave you there upon
the foot of a man of fashion, and I will continue you upon the same; you
will have your coach, your valet de chambre, your own footman, and a
valet de place; which, by the way, is one servant more than I had. I
would have you very well dressed, by which I mean dressed as the
generality of people of fashion are; that is, not to be taken notice of,
for being either more or less fine than other people: it is by being well
dressed, not finely dressed, that a gentleman should be distinguished.
You must frequent ‘les spectacles’, which expense I shall willingly
supply. You must play ‘a des petits jeux de commerce’ in mixed companies;
that article is trifling; I shall pay it cheerfully. All the other
articles of pocket-money are very inconsiderable at Paris, in comparison
of what they are here, the silly custom of giving money wherever one
dines or sups, and the expensive importunity of subscriptions, not being
yet introduced there. Having thus reckoned up all the decent expenses of
a gentleman, which I will most readily defray, I come now to those which
I will neither bear nor supply. The first of these is gaming, of which,
though I have not the least reason to suspect you, I think it necessary
eventually to assure you, that no consideration in the world shall ever
make me pay your play debts; should you ever urge to me that your honor
is pawned, I should most immovably answer you, that it was your honor,
not mine, that was pawned; and that your creditor might e’en take the
pawn for the debt.
Low company, and low pleasures, are always much more costly than liberal
and elegant ones. The disgraceful riots of a tavern are much more
expensive, as well as dishonorable, than the sometimes pardonable
excesses in good company. I must absolutely hear of no tavern scrapes and
squabbles.
I come now to another and very material point; I mean women; and I will
not address myself to you upon this subject, either in a religious, a
moral, or a parental style. I will even lay aside my age, remember yours,
and speak to you as one man of pleasure, if he had parts too, would speak
to another. I will by no means pay for whores, and their never-failing
consequences, surgeons; nor will I, upon any account, keep singers,
dancers, actresses, and ‘id genus omne’; and, independently of the
expense, I must tell you, that such connections would give me, and all
sensible people, the utmost contempt for your parts and address; a young
fellow must have as little sense as address, to venture, or more properly
to sacrifice, his health and ruin his fortune, with such sort of
creatures; in such a place as Paris especially, where gallantry is both
the profession and the practice of every woman of fashion. To speak
plainly, I will not forgive your understanding c--------s and p-------s;
nor will your constitution forgive them you. These distempers, as well as
their cures, fall nine times in ten upon the lungs. This argument, I am
sure, ought to have weight with you: for I protest to you, that if you
meet with any such accident, I would not give one year’s purchase for
your life. Lastly, there is another sort of expense that I will not
allow, only because it is a silly one; I mean the fooling away your money
in baubles at toy shops. Have one handsome snuff-box (if you take snuff),
and one handsome sword; but then no more pretty and very useless things.
By what goes before, you will easily perceive that I mean to allow you
whatever is necessary, not only for the figure, but for the pleasures of
a gentleman, and not to supply the profusion of a rake. This, you must
confess, does not savor of either the severity or parsimony of old age. I
consider this agreement between us, as a subsidiary treaty on my part,
for services to be performed on yours. I promise you, that I will be as
punctual in the payment of the subsidies, as England has been during the
last war; but then I give you notice at the same time, that I require a
much more scrupulous execution of the treaty on your part, than we met
with on that of our allies; or else that payment will be stopped. I hope
all that I have now said was absolutely unnecessary, and that sentiments
more worthy and more noble than pecuniary ones, would of themselves have
pointed out to you the conduct I recommend; but, at all events, I
resolved to be once for all explicit with you, that, in the worst that
can happen, you may not plead ignorance, and complain that I had not
sufficiently explained to you my intentions.
Having mentioned the word rake, I must say a word or two more on that
subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt
to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there
are not in the world two characters more different. A rake is a
composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful
vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character, and to ruin his
fortune; while wine and the p-------s contend which shall soonest and
most effectually destroy his constitution. A dissolute, flagitious
footman, or porter, makes full as good a rake as a man of the first
quality. By the bye, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my
youth, I never was a rake, but, on the contrary, always detested and
despised that character.
A man of pleasure, though not always so scrupulous as he should be, and
as one day he will wish he had been, refines at least his pleasures by
taste, accompanies them with decency, and enjoys them with dignity. Few
men can be men of pleasure, every man may be a rake. Remember that I
shall know everything you say or do at Paris, as exactly as if, by the
force of magic, I could follow you everywhere, like a sylph or a gnome,
invisible myself. Seneca says, very prettily, that one should ask nothing
of God, but what one should be willing that men should know; nor of men,
but what one should be willing that God should know. I advise you to say
and do nothing at Paris, but what you would be willing that I should
know. I hope, nay, I believe, that will be the case. Sense, I dare say,
you do not want; instruction, I am sure, you have never wanted:
experience you are daily gaining: all which together must inevitably (I
should think) make you both ‘respectable et aimable’, the perfection of a
human character. In that case nothing shall be wanting on my part, and
you shall solidly experience all the extent and tenderness of my
affection for you; but dread the reverse of both! Adieu!
P. S. When you get to Paris, after you have been to wait on Lord
Albemarle, go to see Mr. Yorke, whom I have particular reasons for
desiring that you should be well with, as I shall hereafter explain to
you. Let him know that my orders, and your own inclinations, conspired to
make you desire his friendship and protection.