MY DEAR FRIEND: As I have received no letter from you by the usual post,
I am uneasy upon account of your health; for, had you been well, I am
sure you would have written, according to your engagement and my
requisition. You have not the least notion of any care of your health;
but though I would not have you be a valetudinarian, I must tell you that
the best and most robust health requires some degree of attention to
preserve. Young fellows, thinking they have so much health and time
before them, are very apt to neglect or lavish both, and beggar
themselves before they are aware: whereas a prudent economy in both would
make them rich indeed; and so far from breaking in upon their pleasures,
would improve, and almost perpetuate them. Be you wiser, and, before it
is too late, manage both with care and frugality; and lay out neither,
but upon good interest and security.
I will now confine myself to the employment of your time, which, though I
have often touched upon formerly, is a subject that, from its importance,
will bear repetition. You have it is true, a great deal of time before
you; but, in this period of your life, one hour usefully employed may be
worth more than four-and-twenty hereafter; a minute is precious to you
now, whole days may possibly not be so forty years hence. Whatever time
you allow, or can snatch for serious reading (I say snatch, because
company and the knowledge of the world is now your chief object), employ
it in the reading of some one book, and that a good one, till you have
finished it: and do not distract your mind with various matters at the
same time. In this light I would recommend to you to read ‘tout de suite’
Grotius ‘de Jure Belli et Pacis’, translated by Barbeyrac, and
Puffendorff’s ‘Jus Gentium’, translated by the same hand. For accidental
quarters of hours, read works of invention, wit and humor, of the best,
and not of trivial authors, either ancient or modern.
Whatever business you have, do it the first moment you can; never by
halves, but finish it without interruption, if possible. Business must
not be sauntered and trifled with; and you must not say to it, as Felix
did to Paul, “At a more convenient season I will speak to thee.” The most
convenient season for business is the first; but study and business in
some measure point out their own times to a man of sense; time is much
oftener squandered away in the wrong choice and improper methods of
amusement and pleasures.
Many people think that they are in pleasures, provided they are neither
in study nor in business. Nothing like it; they are doing nothing, and
might just as well be asleep. They contract habitudes from laziness, and
they only frequent those places where they are free from all restraints
and attentions. Be upon your guard against this idle profusion of time;
and let every place you go to be either the scene of quick and lively
pleasures, or the school of your own improvements; let every company you
go into either gratify your senses, extend your knowledge, or refine your
manners. Have some decent object of gallantry in view at some places;
frequent others, where people of wit and taste assemble; get into others,
where people of superior rank and dignity command respect and attention
from the rest of the company; but pray frequent no neutral places, from
mere idleness and indolence. Nothing forms a young man so much as being
used to keep respectable and superior company, where a constant regard
and attention is necessary. It is true, this is at first a disagreeable
state of restraint; but it soon grows habitual, and consequently easy;
and you are amply paid for it, by the improvement you make, and the
credit it gives you. What you said some time ago was very true,
concerning ‘le Palais Royal’; to one of your age the situation is
disagreeable enough: you cannot expect to be much taken notice of; but
all that time you can take notice of others; observe their manners,
decipher their characters, and insensibly you will become one of the
company.
All this I went through myself, when I was of your age. I have sat hours
in company without being taken the least notice of; but then I took
notice of them, and learned in their company how to behave myself better
in the next, till by degrees I became part of the best companies myself.
But I took great care not to lavish away my time in those companies where
there were neither quick pleasures nor useful improvements to be
expected.
Sloth, indolence, and ‘mollesse’ are pernicious and unbecoming a young
fellow; let them be your ‘ressource’ forty years hence at soonest.
Determine, at all events, and however disagreeable it may to you in some
respects, and for some time, to keep the most distinguished and
fashionable company of the place you are at, either for their rank, or
for their learning, or ‘le bel esprit et le gout’. This gives you
credentials to the best companies, wherever you go afterward. Pray,
therefore, no indolence, no laziness; but employ every minute in your
life in active pleasures, or useful employments. Address yourself to some
woman of fashion and beauty, wherever you are, and try how far that will
go. If the place be not secured beforehand, and garrisoned, nine times in
ten you will take it. By attentions and respect you may always get into
the highest company: and by some admiration and applause, whether merited
or not, you may be sure of being welcome among ‘les savans et les beaux
esprits’. There are but these three sorts of company for a young fellow;
there being neither pleasure nor profit in any other.
My uneasiness with regard to your health is this moment removed by your
letter of the 8th N. S., which, by what accident I do not know, I did not
receive before.
I long to read Voltaire’s ‘Rome Sauvee’, which, by the very faults that
your SEVERE critics find with it, I am sure I shall like; for I will at
an any time give up a good deal of regularity for a great deal of
brillant; and for the brillant surely nobody is equal to Voltaire.
Catiline’s conspiracy is an unhappy subject for a tragedy; it is too
single, and gives no opportunity to the poet to excite any of the tender
passions; the whole is one intended act of horror, Crebillon was sensible
of this defect, and to create another interest, most absurdly made
Catiline in love with Cicero’s daughter, and her with him.
I am very glad that you went to Versailles, and dined with Monsieur de
St. Contest. That is company to learn ‘les bonnes manieres’ in; and it
seems you had ‘les bonnes morceaux’ into the bargain. Though you were no
part of the King of France’s conversation with the foreign ministers, and
probably not much entertained with it, do you think that it is not very
useful to you to hear it, and to observe the turn and manners of people
of that sort? It is extremely useful to know it well. The same in the
next rank of people, such as ministers of state, etc., in whose company,
though you cannot yet, at your age, bear a part, and consequently be
diverted, you will observe and learn, what hereafter it may be necessary
for you to act.
Tell Sir John Lambert that I have this day fixed Mr. Spencer’s having his
credit upon him; Mr. Hoare had also recommended him. I believe Mr.
Spencer will set out next month for some place in France, but not Paris.
I am sure he wants a great deal of France, for at present he is most
entirely English: and you know very well what I think of that. And so we
bid you heartily good-night.