MY DEAR FRIEND: The world is the book, and the only one to which, at
present, I would have you apply yourself; and the thorough knowledge of
it will be of more use to you, than all the books that ever were read.
Lay aside the best book whenever you can go into the best company; and
depend upon it, you change for the better. However, as the most
tumultuous life, whether of business or pleasure, leaves some vacant
moments every day, in which a book is the refuge of a rational being, I
mean now to point out to you the method of employing those moments (which
will and ought to be but few) in the most advantageous manner. Throw away
none of your time upon those trivial, futile books, published by idle or
necessitous authors, for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers; such
sort of books swarm and buzz about one every day; flap them away, they
have no sting. ‘Certum pete finem’, have some one object for those
leisure moments, and pursue that object invariably till you have attained
it; and then take some other. For instance, considering your destination,
I would advise you to single out the most remarkable and interesting eras
of modern history, and confine all your reading to that ERA. If you pitch
upon the Treaty of Munster (and that is the proper period to begin with,
in the course which I am now recommending), do not interrupt it by
dipping and deviating into other books, unrelative to it; but consult
only the most authentic histories, letters, memoirs, and negotiations,
relative to that great transaction; reading and comparing them, with all
that caution and distrust which Lord Bolingbroke recommends to you, in a
better manner, and in better words than I can. The next period worth your
particular knowledge, is the Treaty of the Pyrenees: which was calculated
to lay, and in effect did lay, the succession of the House of Bourbon to
the crown of Spain. Pursue that in the same manner, singling, out of the
millions of volumes written upon that occasion, the two or three most
authentic ones, and particularly letters, which are the best authorities
in matters of negotiation. Next come the Treaties of Nimeguen and
Ryswick, postscripts in, a manner to those of Munster and the Pyrenees.
Those two transactions have had great light thrown upon them by the
publication of many authentic and original letters and pieces. The
concessions made at the Treaty of Ryswick, by the then triumphant Lewis
the Fourteenth, astonished all those who viewed things only
superficially; but, I should think, must have been easily accounted for
by those who knew the state of the kingdom of Spain, as well as of the
health of its King, Charles the Second, at that time. The interval
between the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick, and the breaking out of
the great war in 1702, though a short, is a most interesting one. Every
week of it almost produced some great event. Two partition treaties, the
death of the King of Spain, his unexpected will, and the acceptance of it
by Lewis the Fourteenth, in violation of the second treaty of partition,
just signed and ratified by him. Philip the Fifth quietly and cheerfully
received in Spain, and acknowledged as King of it, by most of those
powers, who afterward joined in an alliance to dethrone him. I cannot
help making this observation upon that occasion: That character has often
more to do in great transactions, than prudence and sound policy; for
Lewis the Fourteenth gratified his personal pride, by giving a Bourbon
King to Spain, at the expense of the true interest of France; which would
have acquired much more solid and permanent strength by the addition of
Naples, Sicily, and Lorraine, upon the footing of the second partition
treaty; and I think it was fortunate for Europe that he preferred the
will. It is true, he might hope to influence his Bourbon posterity in
Spain; he knew too well how weak the ties of blood are among men, and how
much weaker still they are among princes. The Memoirs of Count Harrach,
and of Las Torres, give a good deal of light into the transactions of the
Court of Spain, previous to the death of that weak King; and the Letters
of the Marachal d’Harcourt, then the French Ambassador in Spain, of which
I have authentic copies in manuscript, from the year 1698 to 1701, have
cleared up that whole affair to me. I keep that book for you. It appears
by those letters, that the impudent conduct of the House of Austria, with
regard to the King and Queen of Spain, and Madame Berlips, her favorite,
together with the knowledge of the partition treaty, which incensed all
Spain, were the true and only reasons of the will, in favor of the Duke
of Anjou. Cardinal Portocarrero, nor any of the Grandees, were bribed by
France, as was generally reported and believed at that time; which
confirms Voltaire’s anecdote upon that subject. Then opens a new scene
and a new century; Lewis the Fourteenth’s good fortune forsakes him, till
the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene make him amends for all the
mischief they had done him, by making the allies refuse the terms of
peace offered by him at Gertruydenberg. How the disadvantageous peace of
Utrecht was afterward brought on, you have lately read; and you cannot
inform yourself too minutely of all those circumstances, that treaty
‘being the freshest source from whence the late transactions of Europe
have flowed. The alterations that have since happened, whether by wars or
treaties, are so recent, that all the written accounts are to be helped
out, proved, or contradicted, by the oral ones of almost every informed
person, of a certain age or rank in life. For the facts, dates, and
original pieces of this century, you will find them in Lamberti, till the
year 1715, and after that time in Rousset’s ‘Recueil’.
I do not mean that you should plod hours together in researches of this
kind: no, you may employ your time more usefully: but I mean, that you
should make the most of the moments you do employ, by method, and the
pursuit of one single object at a time; nor should I call it a digression
from that object, if when you meet with clashing and jarring pretensions
of different princes to the same thing, you had immediately recourse to
other books, in which those several pretensions were clearly stated; on
the contrary, that is the only way of remembering those contested rights
and claims: for, were a man to read ‘tout de suite’, Schwederus’s
‘Theatrum Pretensionum’, he would only be confounded by the variety, and
remember none of them; whereas, by examining them occasionally, as they
happen to occur, either in the course of your historical reading, or as
they are agitated in your own times, you will retain them, by connecting
them with those historical facts which occasioned your inquiry. For
example, had you read, in the course of two or three folios of
Pretensions, those, among others, of the two Kings of England and Prussia
to Oost Frise, it is impossible, that you should have remembered them;
but now, that they are become the debated object at the Diet at Ratisbon,
and the topic of all political conversations, if you consult both books
and persons concerning them, and inform yourself thoroughly, you will
never forget them as long as you live. You will hear a great deal of them
ow one side, at Hanover, and as much on the other side, afterward, at
Berlin: hear both sides, and form your own opinion; but dispute with
neither.
Letters from foreign ministers to their courts, and from their courts to
them, are, if genuine, the best and most authentic records you can read,
as far as they go. Cardinal d’Ossat’s, President Jeanin’s, D’Estrade’s,
Sir William Temple’s, will not only inform your mind, but form your
style; which, in letters of business, should be very plain and simple,
but, at the same time, exceedingly clear, correct, and pure.
All that I have said may be reduced to these two or three plain
principles: 1st, That you should now read very little, but converse a
great deal; 2d, To read no useless, unprofitable books; and 3d, That
those which you do read, may all tend to a certain object, and be
relative to, and consequential of each other. In this method, half an
hour’s reading every day will carry you a great way. People seldom know
how to employ their time to the best advantage till they have too little
left to employ; but if, at your age, in the beginning of life, people
would but consider the value of it, and put every moment to interest, it
is incredible what an additional fund of knowledge and pleasure such an
economy would bring in. I look back with regret upon that large sum of
time, which, in my youth, I lavished away idly, without either
improvement or pleasure. Take warning betimes, and enjoy every moment;
pleasures do not commonly last so long as life, and therefore should not
be neglected; and the longest life is too short for knowledge,
consequently every moment is precious.
I am surprised at having received no letter from you since you left
Paris. I still direct this to Strasburgh, as I did my two last. I shall
direct my next to the post house at Mayence, unless I receive, in the
meantime, contrary instructions from you. Adieu. Remember les attentions:
they must be your passports into good company.