MY DEAR FRIEND: I direct this letter to Mayence, where I think it is
likely to meet you, supposing, as I do, that you stayed three weeks at
Manheim, after the date of your last from thence; but should you have
stayed longer at Manheim, to which I have no objection, it will wait for
you at Mayence. Mayence will not, I believe, have charms to detain you
above a week; so that I reckon you will be at Bonn at the end of July, N.
S. There you may stay just as little or as long as you please, and then
proceed to Hanover.
I had a letter by the last post from a relation of mine at Hanover, Mr.
Stanhope Aspinwall, who is in the Duke of Newcastle’s office, and has
lately been appointed the King’s Minister to the Dey of Algiers; a post
which, notwithstanding your views of foreign affairs, I believe you do
not envy him. He tells me in that letter, there are very good lodgings to
be had at one Mrs. Meyers’s, the next door to the Duke of Newcastle’s,
which he offers to take for you; I have desired him to do it, in case
Mrs. Meyers will wait for you till the latter end of August, or the
beginning of September, N. S., which I suppose is about the time when you
will be at Hanover. You will find this Mr. Aspinwall of great use to you
there. He will exert himself to the utmost to serve you; he has been
twice or thrice at Hanover, and knows all the allures there: he is very
well with the Duke of Newcastle, and will puff you there. Moreover, if
you have a mind to work there as a volunteer in that bureau, he will
assist and inform you. In short, he is a very honest, sensible, and
informed man; ‘mais me paye pas beaucoup de sa figure; il abuse meme du
privilege qu’ont les hommes d’etre laids; et il ne sera pas en reste avec
les lions et les leopards qu’il trouvera a Alger’.
As you are entirely master of the time when you will leave Bonn and go to
Hanover, so are you master to stay at Hanover as long as you please, and
to go from thence where you please; provided that at Christmas you are at
Berlin, for the beginning of the Carnival: this I would not have you say
at Hanover, considering the mutual disposition of those two courts; but
when anybody asks you where you are to go next, say that you propose
rambling in Germany, at Brunswick, Cassel, etc., till the next spring;
when you intend to be in Flanders, in your way to England. I take Berlin,
at this time, to be the politest, the most shining, and the most useful
court in Europe for a young fellow to be at: and therefore I would upon
no account not have you there, for at least a couple of months of the
Carnival. If you are as well received, and pass your time as well at Bonn
as I believe you will, I would advise you to remain there till about the
20th of August, N. S., in four days you will be at Hanover. As for your
stay there, it must be shorter or longer, according to certain
circumstances WHICH YOU KNOW OF; supposing them, at the best, then, stay
within a week or ten days of the King’s return to England; but supposing
them at the worst, your stay must not be too short, for reasons which you
also know; no resentment must either appear or be suspected; therefore,
at worst, I think you must remain there a month, and at best, as long as
ever you please. But I am convinced that all will turn out very well for
you there. Everybody is engaged or inclined to help you; the ministers,
English and German, the principal ladies, and most of the foreign
ministers; so that I may apply to you, ‘nullum numen abest, si sit
prudentia’. Du Perron will, I believe, be back there from Turin much
about the time you get there: pray be very attentive to him, and connect
yourself with him as much as ever you can; for, besides that he is a very
pretty and well-informed man, he is very much in fashion at Hanover, is
personally very well with the King and certain ladies; so that a visible
intimacy and connection with him will do you credit and service. Pray
cultivate Monsieur Hop, the Dutch minister, who has always been very much
my friend, and will, I am sure, be yours; his manners, it is true, are
not very engaging; he is rough, but he is sincere. It is very useful
sometimes to see the things which one ought to avoid, as it is right to
see very often those which one ought to imitate, and my friend Hop’s
manners will frequently point out to you, what yours ought to be by the
rule of contraries.
Congreve points out a sort of critics, to whom he says that we are doubly
obliged:--
“Rules for good writing they with pains indite,
Then show us what is bad, by what they write.”
It is certain that Monsieur Hop, with the best heart in the world, and a
thousand good qualities, has a thousand enemies, and hardly a friend;
simply from the roughness of his manners.
N. B. I heartily wish you could have stayed long enough at Manheim to
have been seriously and desperately in love with Madame de Taxis; who, I
suppose, is a proud, insolent, fine lady, and who would consequently have
expected attentions little short of adoration: nothing would do you more
good than such a passion; and I live in hopes that somebody or other will
be able to excite such an one in you; your hour may not yet be come, but
it will come. Love has not been unaptly compared to the smallpox which
most people have sooner or later. Iphigenia had a wonderful effect upon
Cimon; I wish some Hanover Iphigenia may try her skill upon you.
I recommend to you again, though I have already done it twice or thrice,
to speak German, even affectedly, while you are at Hanover; which will
show that you prefer that language, and be of more use to you there with
SOMEBODY, than you can imagine. When you carry my letters to Monsieur
Munchausen and Monsieur Schwiegeldt, address yourself to them in German;
the latter speaks French very well, but the former extremely ill. Show
great attention to Madame, Munchausen’s daughter, who is a great
favorite; those little trifles please mothers, and sometimes fathers,
extremely. Observe, and you will find, almost universally, that the least
things either please or displease most; because they necessarily imply,
either a very strong desire of obliging, or an unpardonable indifference
about it. I will give you a ridiculous instance enough of this truth,
from my own experience. When I was Ambassador the first time in Holland,
Comte de Wassenaer and his wife, people of the first rank and
consideration, had a little boy of about three years old, of whom they
were exceedingly fond; in order to make my court to them, I was so too,
and used to take the child often upon my lap, and play with him. One day
his nose was very dirty, upon which I took out my handkerchief and wiped
it for him; this raised a loud laugh, and they called me a very, handy
nurse; but the father and mother were so pleased with it, that to this
day it is an anecdote in the family, and I never receive a letter from
Comte Wassenaer, but he makes me the compliments ‘du morveux gue j’ai
mouche autrefois’; who, by the way, I am assured, is now the prettiest
young fellow in Holland. Where one would gain people, remember that
nothing is little. Adieu.