Produced by David Widger
LETTERS TO HIS SON
1753-54
By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
on the Fine Art of becoming a
MAN OF THE WORLD
and a
GENTLEMAN
LETTER CLXXXV
LONDON, New Years' Day, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: It is now above a fortnight since I have received a
letter from you. I hope, however, that you are well, but engrossed by the
business of Lord Albemarle's 'bureau' in the mornings, and by business of
a genteeler nature in the evenings; for I willingly give up my own
satisfaction to your improvement, either in business or manners.
Here have been lately imported from Paris two gentlemen, who, I find,
were much acquainted with you there Comte Zinzendorf, and Monsieur
Clairant the Academician. The former is a very pretty man, well-bred, and
with a great deal of useful knowledge; for those two things are very
consistent. I examined him about you, thinking him a competent judge. He
told me, 'que vous parliez l'Allemand comme un Allemand; que vous saviez
le droit public de l'empire parfaitement bien; que vous aviez le gout
sur, et des connoissances fort etendues'. I told him that I knew all this
very well; but that I wanted to know whether you had l'air, les manieres,
les attentions, en fin le brillant d'un honnete homme': his answer was,
'Mais oui en verite, c'est fort bien'. This, you see, is but cold in
comparison of what I do wish, and of what you ought to wish. Your friend
Clairant interposed, and said, 'Mais je vous assure qu'il est fort poli';
to which I answered, 'Je le crois bien, vis-a-vis des Lapons vos amis; je
vous recuse pour juge, jusqu'a ce que vous ayez ete delaponne, au moins
dix ans, parmi les honnetes gens'. These testimonies in your favor are
such as perhaps you are satisfied with, and think sufficient; but I am
not; they are only the cold depositions of disinterested and unconcerned
witnesses, upon a strict examination. When, upon a trial, a man calls
witnesses to his character, and that those witnesses only say that they
never heard, nor do not know any ill of him, it intimates at best a
neutral and insignificant, though innocent character. Now I want, and you
ought to endeavor, that 'les agremens, les graces, les attentions', etc.,
should be a distinguishing part of your character, and specified of you
by people unasked. I wish to hear people say of you, 'Ah qu'il est
aimable! Quelles manieres, quelles graces, quel art de Claire'! Nature,
thank God, has given you all the powers necessary; and if she has not
yet, I hope in God she will give you the will of exerting them.
I have lately read with great pleasure Voltaire's two little histories of
'Les Croisades', and 'l'Esprit Humain'; which I recommend to your
perusal, if you have not already read them. They are bound up with a most
poor performance called 'Micromegas', which is said to be Voltaire's too,
but I cannot believe it, it is so very unworthy of him; it consists only
of thoughts stolen from Swift, but miserably mangled and disfigured. But
his history of the 'Croisades' shows, in a very short and strong light,
the most immoral and wicked scheme that was ever contrived by knaves, and
executed by madmen and fools, against humanity. There is a strange but
never-failing relation between honest madmen and skillful knaves; and
whenever one meets with collected numbers of the former, one may be very
sure that they are secretly directed by the latter. The popes, who have
generally been both the ablest and the greatest knaves in Europe, wanted
all the power and money of the East; for they had all that was in Europe
already. The times and the minds favored their design, for they were dark
and uniformed; and Peter the Hermit, at once a knave and a madman, was a
fine papal tool for so wild and wicked an undertaking. I wish we had good
histories of every part of Europe, and indeed of the world, written upon
the plan of Voltaire's 'de l'Esprit Humain'; for, I own, I am provoked at
the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general: one
would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a
hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very
undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and
ministers.
I have never seen in any of the newspapers any mention of the affairs of
the Cevennes, or Grenoble, which you gave me an account of some time ago;
and the Duke de Mirepoix pretends, at least, to know nothing of either.
Were they false reports? or does the French court choose to stifle them?
I hope that they are both true, because I am very willing that the cares
of the French government should be employed and confined to themselves.
Your friend, the Electress Palatine, has sent me six wild boars' heads,
and other 'pieces de sa chasse', in return for the fans, which she
approved of extremely. This present was signified to me by one Mr.
Harold, who wrote me a letter in very indifferent English; I suppose he
is a Dane who has been in England.
Mr. Harte came to town yesterday, and dined with me to-day. We talked you
over; and I can assure you, that though a parson, and no member 'du beau
monde', he thinks all the most shining accomplishments of it full as
necessary for you as I do. His expression was, THAT IS ALL THAT HE WANTS;
BUT IF HE WANTS THAT, CONSIDERING HIS SITUATION AND DESTINATION, HE MIGHT
AS WELL WANT EVERYTHING ELSE.
This is the day when people reciprocally offer and receive the kindest
and the warmest wishes, though, in general, without meaning them on one
side, or believing them on the other. They are formed by the head, in
compliance with custom, though disavowed by the heart, in consequence of
nature. His wishes upon this occasion are the best that are the best
turned; you do not, I am sure, doubt the truth of mine, and therefore I
will express them with a Quaker-like simplicity. May this new year be a
very new one indeed to you; may you put off the old, and put on the new
man! but I mean the outward, not the inward man. With this alteration, I
might justly sum up all my wishes for you in these words:
Dii tibi dent annos, de to nam caetera sumes.
This minute, I receive your letter of the 26th past, which gives me a
very disagreeable reason for your late silence. By the symptoms which you
mention of your illness, I both hope and believe that it was wholly owing
to your own want of care. You are rather inclined to be fat, you have
naturally a good stomach, and you eat at the best tables; which must of
course make you plethoric: and upon my word you will be very subject to
these accidents, if you will not, from time to time, when you find
yourself full, heated, or your head aching, take some little, easy,
preventative purge, that would not confine you; such as chewing a little
rhubarb when you go to bed at night; or some senna tea in the morning.
You do very well to live extremely low, for some time; and I could wish,
though I do not expect it, that you would take one gentle vomit; for
those giddinesses and swimmings in the head always proceed from some
foulness of the stomach. However, upon the whole, I am very glad that
your old complaint has not mixed itself with this, which I am fully
convinced arises simply from your own negligence. Adieu.
I am sorry for Monsieur Kurze, upon his sister's account.
LETTER CLXXXVI
LONDON, January 15, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: I never think my time so well employed, as when I think
it employed to your advantage. You have long had the greatest share of
it; you now engross it. The moment is now decisive; the piece is going to
be exhibited to the public; the mere out lines and the general coloring
are not sufficient to attract the eyes and to secure applause; but the
last finishing, artful, and delicate strokes are necessary. Skillful
judges will discern and acknowledge their merit; the ignorant will,
without knowing why, feel their power. In that view, I have thrown
together, for your perusal, some maxims; or, to speak more properly,
observations on men and things; for I have no merit as to the invention:
I am no system monger; and, instead of giving way to my imagination, I
have only consulted my memory; and my conclusions are all drawn from
facts, not from fancy. Most maxim mongers have preferred the prettiness
to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have
refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and
confirm. I wish you would consider them seriously, and separately, and
recur to them again 'pro re nata' in similar cases. Young men are as apt
to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves
sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than
experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for
though spirit, without experience, is dangerous, experience, without
spirit, is languid and defective. Their union, which is very rare, is
perfection; you may join them, if you please; for all my experience is at
your service; and I do not desire one grain of your spirit in return. Use
them both, and let them reciprocally animate and check each other. I mean
here, by the spirit of youth, only the vivacity and presumption of youth,
which hinder them from seeing the difficulties or dangers of an
undertaking, but I do not mean what the silly vulgar call spirit, by
which they are captious, jealous of their rank, suspicious of being
undervalued, and tart (as they call it) in their repartees, upon the
slightest occasions. This is an evil, and a very silly spirit, which
should be driven out, and transferred to an herd of swine. This is not
the spirit of a man of fashion, who has kept good company. People of an
ordinary, low education, when they happen to fail into good company,
imagine themselves the only object of its attention; if the company
whispers, it is, to be sure, concerning them; if they laugh, it is at
them; and if anything ambiguous, that by the most forced interpretation
can be applied to them, happens to be said, they are convinced that it
was meant at them; upon which they grow out of countenance first, and
then angry. This mistake is very well ridiculed in the "Stratagem," where
Scrub says, I AM SURE THEY TALKED OF ME FOR THEY LAUGHED CONSUMEDLY. A
well-bred man seldom thinks, but never seems to think himself slighted,
undervalued, or laughed at in company, unless where it is so plainly
marked out, that his honor obliges him to resent it in a proper manner;
'mais les honnetes gens ne se boudent jamais'. I will admit that it is
very difficult to command one's self enough, to behave with ease,
frankness, and good-breeding toward those, who one knows dislike, slight,
and injure one, as far as they can, without personal consequences; but I
assert that it is absolutely necessary to do it: you must embrace the man
you hate, if you cannot be justified in knocking him down; for otherwise
you avow the injury which you cannot revenge. A prudent cuckold (and
there are many such at Paris) pockets his horns when he cannot gore with
them; and will not add to the triumph of his maker by only butting with
them ineffectually. A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary
part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to
seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and when they say, Have
you not heard of such a thing? to answer No, and to let them go on;
though you know it already. Some have a pleasure in telling it, because
they think that they tell it well; others have a pride in it, as being
the sagacious discoverers; and many have a vanity in showing that they
have been, though very undeservedly, trusted; all these would be
disappointed, and consequently displeased, if you said Yes. Seem always
ignorant (unless to one's most intimate friend) of all matters of private
scandal and defamation, though you should hear them a thousand times; for
the parties affected always look upon the receiver to be almost as bad as
the thief: and, whenever they become the topic of conversation seem to be
a skeptic, though you are really a serious believer; and always take the
extenuating part. But all this seeming ignorance should be joined to
thorough and extensive private informations: and, indeed, it is the best
method of procuring them; for most people have such a vanity in showing a
superiority over others, though but for a moment, and in the merest
trifles, that they will tell you what they should not, rather than not
show that they can tell what you did not know; besides that such seeming
ignorance will make you pass for incurious and consequently undesigning.
However, fish for facts, and take pains to be well informed of everything
that passes; but fish judiciously, and not always, nor indeed often, in
the shape of direct questions, which always put people upon their guard,
and, often repeated, grow tiresome. But sometimes take the things that
you would know for granted; upon which somebody will, kindly and
officiously, set you right: sometimes say that you have heard so and so;
and at other times seem to know more than you do, in order to know all
that you want; but avoid direct questioning as much as you can. All these
necessary arts of the world require constant attention, presence of mind,
and coolness. Achilles, though invulnerable, never went to battle but
completely armed. Courts are to be the theatres of your wars, where you
should be always as completely armed, and even with the addition of a
heel-piece. The least inattention, the least DISTRACTION, may prove
fatal. I would fain see you what pedants call 'omnis homo', and what Pope
much better calls ALL-ACCOMPLISHED: you have the means in your power; add
the will; and you may bring it about. The vulgar have a coarse saying, of
SPOILING A SHIP FOR A HALFPENNY WORTH OF TAR; prevent the application by
providing the tar: it is very easily to be had in comparison with what
you have already got.
The fine Mrs. Pitt, who it seems saw you often at Paris, speaking of you
the other day, said, in French, for she speaks little English, . . .
whether it is that you did not pay the homage due to her beauty, or that
it did not strike you as it does others, I cannot determine; but I hope
she had some other reason than truth for saying it. I will suppose that
you did not care a pin for her; but, however, she surely deserved a
degree of propitiatory adoration from you, which I am afraid you
neglected. Had I been in your case, I should have endeavored, at least,
to have supplanted Mr. Mackay in his office of nocturnal reader to her. I
played at cards, two days ago, with your friend Mrs. Fitzgerald, and her
most sublime mother, Mrs. Seagrave; they both inquired after you; and
Mrs. Fitzgerald said, she hoped you went on with your dancing; I said,
Yes, and that you assured me, you had made such considerable improvements
in it, that you had now learned to stand still, and even upright. Your
'virtuosa', la Signora Vestri, sung here the other day, with great
applause: I presume you are INTIMATELY acquainted with her merit. Good
night to you, whoever you pass it with.
I have this moment received a packet, sealed with your seal, though not
directed by your hand, for Lady Hervey. No letter from you! Are you not
well?
LETTER CLXXXVII
LONDON, May 27, O. S. 1753.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this day been tired, jaded, nay, tormented, by the
company of a most worthy, sensible, and learned man, a near relation of
mine, who dined and passed the evening with me. This seems a paradox, but
is a plain truth; he has no knowledge of the world, no manners, no
address; far from talking without book, as is commonly said of people who
talk sillily, he only talks by book; which in general conversation is ten
times worse. He has formed in his own closet from books, certain systems
of everything, argues tenaciously upon those principles, and is both
surprised and angry at whatever deviates from them. His theories are
good, but, unfortunately, are all impracticable. Why? because he has only
read and not conversed. He is acquainted with books, and an absolute
stranger to men. Laboring with his matter, he is delivered of it with
pangs; he hesitates, stops in his utterance, and always expresses himself
inelegantly. His actions are all ungraceful; so that, with all his merit
and knowledge, I would rather converse six hours with the most frivolous
tittle-tattle woman who knew something of the world, than with him. The
preposterous notions of a systematical man who does not know the world,
tire the patience of a man who does. It would be endless to correct his
mistakes, nor would he take it kindly: for he has considered everything
deliberately, and is very sure that he is in the right. Impropriety is a
characteristic, and a never-failing one, of these people. Regardless,
because ignorant, of customs and manners, they violate them every moment.
They often shock, though they never mean to offend: never attending
either to the general character, or the particular distinguishing
circumstances of the people to whom, or before whom they talk; whereas
the knowledge of the world teaches one, that the very same things which
are exceedingly right and proper in one company, time and place, are
exceedingly absurd in others. In short, a man who has great knowledge,
from experience and observation, of the characters, customs, and manners
of mankind, is a being as different from, and as superior to, a man of
mere book and systematical knowledge, as a well-managed horse is to an
ass. Study, therefore, cultivate, and frequent men and women; not only in
their outward, and consequently, guarded, but in their interior,
domestic, and consequently less disguised, characters and manners. Take
your notions of things, as by observation and experience you find they
really are, and not as you read that they are or should be; for they
never are quite what they should be. For this purpose do not content
yourself with general and common acquaintance; but wherever you can,
establish yourself, with a kind of domestic familiarity, in good houses.
For instance, go again to Orli, for two or three days, and so at two or
three 'reprises'. Go and stay two or three days at a time at Versailles,
and improve and extend the acquaintance you have there. Be at home at St.
Cloud; and, whenever any private person of fashion invites you to, pass a
few days at his country-house, accept of the invitation. This will
necessarily give you a versatility of mind, and a facility to adopt
various manners and customs; for everybody desires to please those in
whose house they are; and people are only to be pleased in their own way.
Nothing is more engaging than a cheerful and easy conformity to people's
particular manners, habits, and even weaknesses; nothing (to use a vulgar
expression) should come amiss to a young fellow. He should be, for good
purposes, what Alcibiades was commonly for bad ones, a Proteus, assuming
with ease, and wearing with cheerfulness, any shape. Heat, cold, luxury,
abstinence, gravity, gayety, ceremony, easiness, learning, trifling,
business, and pleasure, are modes which he should be able to take, lay
aside, or change occasionally, with as much ease as he would take or lay
aside his hat. All this is only to be acquired by use and knowledge of
the world, by keeping a great deal of company, analyzing every character,
and insinuating yourself into the familiarity of various acquaintance. A
right, a generous ambition to make a figure in the world, necessarily
gives the desire of pleasing; the desire of pleasing points out, to a
great degree, the means of doing it; and the art of pleasing is, in
truth, the art of rising, of distinguishing one's self, of making a
figure and a fortune in the world. But without pleasing, without the
graces, as I have told you a thousand times, 'ogni fatica e vana'. You
are now but nineteen, an age at which most of your countrymen are
illiberally getting drunk in port, at the university. You have greatly
got the start of them in learning; and if you can equally get the start
of them in the knowledge and manners of the world, you may be very sure
of outrunning them in court and parliament, as you set out much earlier
than they. They generally begin but to see the world at one-and-twenty;
you will by that age have seen all Europe. They set out upon their
travels unlicked cubs: and in their travels they only lick one another,
for they seldom go into any other company. They know nothing but the
English world, and the worst part of that too, and generally very little
of any but the English language; and they come home, at three or
four-and-twenty, refined and polished (as is said in one of Congreve's
plays) like Dutch skippers from a whale-fishing. The care which has been
taken of you, and (to do you justice) the care that you have taken of
yourself, has left you, at the age of nineteen only, nothing to acquire
but the knowledge of the world, manners, address, and those exterior
accomplishments. But they are great and necessary acquisitions, to those
who have sense enough to know their true value; and your getting them
before you are one-and-twenty, and before you enter upon the active and
shining scene of life, will give you such an advantage over all your
contemporaries, that they cannot overtake you: they must be distanced.
You may probably be placed about a young prince, who will probably be a
young king. There all the various arts of pleasing, the engaging address,
the versatility of manners, the brillant, the graces, will outweigh, and
yet outrun all solid knowledge and unpolished merit. Oil yourself,
therefore, and be both supple and shining, for that race, if you would be
first, or early at the goal. Ladies will most probably too have something
to say there; and those who are best with them will probably be best
SOMEWHERE ELSE. Labor this great point, my dear child, indefatigably;
attend to the very smallest parts, the minutest graces, the most trifling
circumstances, that can possibly concur in forming the shining character
of a complete gentleman, 'un galant homme, un homme de cour', a man of
business and pleasure; 'estime des hommes, recherche des femmes, aime de
tout le monde'. In this view, observe the shining part of every man of
fashion, who is liked and esteemed; attend to, and imitate that
particular accomplishment for which you hear him chiefly celebrated and
distinguished: then collect those various parts, and make yourself a
mosiac of the whole. No one body possesses everything, and almost
everybody possesses some one thing worthy of imitation: only choose your
models well; and in order to do so, choose by your ear more than by your
eye. The best model is always that which is most universally allowed to
be the best, though in strictness it may possibly not be so. We must take
most things as they are, we cannot make them what we would, nor often
what they should be; and where moral duties are not concerned, it is more
prudent to follow than to attempt to lead. Adieu.
LETTER CLXXXVIII
BATH, October 3, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: You have set out well at The Hague; you are in love with
Madame Munter, which I am very glad of: you are in the fine company
there, and I hope one of it: for it is not enough, at your age, to be
merely in good company; but you should, by your address and attentions,
make that good company think you one of them. There is a tribute due to
beauty, even independently of further views; which tribute I hope you
paid with alacrity to Madame Munter and Madame Degenfeldt: depend upon
it, they expected it, and were offended in proportion as that tribute
seemed either unwillingly or scantily paid. I believe my friend
Kreuningen admits nobody now to his table, for fear of their
communicating the plague to him, or at least the bite of a mad dog. Pray
profit of the entrees libres that the French Ambassador has given you;
frequent him, and SPEAK to him. I think you will not do amiss to call
upon Mr. Burrish, at Aix-la-Chapelle, since it is so little out of your
way; and you will do still better, if you would, which I know you will
not, drink those waters for five or six days only, to scour your stomach
and bowels a little; I am sure it would do you a great deal of good Mr.
Burrish can, doubtless, give you the best letters to Munich; and he will
naturally give you some to Comte Preysing, or Comte Sinsheim, and such
sort of grave people; but I could wish that you would ask him for some to
young fellows of pleasure, or fashionable coquettes, that, you may be
'dans l'honnete debauche de Munich'. A propos of your future motions; I
leave you in a great measure the master of them, so shall only suggest my
thoughts to you upon that subject.
You have three electoral courts in view, Bonn, Munich, and Manheim. I
would advise you to see two of them rather cursorily, and fix your
tabernacle at the third, whichever that may be, for a considerable time.
For instance, should you choose (as I fancy you will), to make Manheim
the place of your residence, stay only ten or twelve days at Bonn, and as
long at Munich, and then go and fix at Manheim; and so, vice versa, if
you should like Bonn or Munich better than you think you would Manheim,
make that the place of your residence, and only visit the other two. It
is certain that no man can be much pleased himself, or please others
much, in any place where he is only a bird of passage for eight or ten
days; neither party thinking it worth while to make an acquaintance,
still less to form any connection, for so short a time; but when months
are the case, a man may domesticate himself pretty well, and very soon
not be looked upon as a stranger. This is the real utility of traveling,
when, by contracting a familiarity at any place, you get into the inside
of it, and see it in its undress. That is the only way of knowing the
customs, the manners, and all the little characteristical peculiarities
that distinguish one place from another; but then this familiarity is not
to be brought about by cold, formal visits of half an hour: no; you must
show a willingness, a desire, an impatience of forming connections, 'il
faut s'y preter, et y mettre du liant, du desir de plaire. Whatever you
do approve, you must be lavish in your praises of; and you must learn to
commend what you do not approve of, if it is approved of there. You are
not much given to praise, I know; but it is because you do not yet know
how extremely people are engaged by a seeming sanction to their own
opinions, prejudices, and weaknesses, even in the merest trifles. Our
self-love is mortified when we think our opinions, and even our tastes,
customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemned; as on the contrary,
it is tickled and flattered by approbation. I will give you a remarkable
instance of this kind. The famous Earl of Shaftesbury, in the flagitious
reign of Charles the Second, while he was Chancellor, had a mind to be a
favorite, as well as a minister of the King; in order, therefore, to
please his Majesty, whose prevailing passion was women, my Lord kept a
w----e, whom he had no occasion for, and made no manner of use of. The
King soon heard of it, and asked him if it was true; he owned it was; but
that, though he kept that one woman, he had several others besides, for
he loved variety. A few days afterward, the King, at his public levee,
saw Lord Shaftesbury at some distance, and said in the circle, "One would
not think that that little, weak man is the greatest whore-master in
England; but I can assure you that he is." Upon Lord Shaftesbury's coming
into the circle, there was a general smile; the King said, "This is
concerning you, my Lord."--"Me, sir?" answered the Chancellor, with some
surprise. "Yes, you," answered the King; "for I had just said that you
were the greatest whore-master in England! Is it not true?"--"Of a
SUBJECT, Sir," replied Lord Shaftesbury, "perhaps I am." It is the same
in everything; we think a difference of opinion, of conduct, of manners,
a tacit reproach, at least, upon our own; we must therefore use ourselves
to a ready conformity to whatever is neither criminal nor dishonorable.
Whoever differs from any general custom, is supposed both to think, and
proclaim himself wiser than the rest of the world: which the rest of the
world cannot bear, especially in a young man. A young fellow is always
forgiven and often applauded, when he carries a fashion to an excess; but
never if he stops short of it. The first is ascribed to youth and fire;
but the latter is imputed to an affectation of singularity or
superiority. At your age, one is allowed to 'outrer' fashion, dress,
vivacity, gallantry, etc., but by no means to be behindhand in any one of
them. And one may apply to youth in this case, 'Si non errasset, fecerat
ille minus'. Adieu.
LETTER CLXXXIX
BATH, October 19, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: Of all the various ingredients that compose the useful
and necessary art of pleasing, no one is so effectual and engaging as
that gentleness, that 'douceur' of countenance and manner, to which you
are no stranger, though (God knows why) a sworn enemy. Other people take
great pains to conceal or disguise their natural imperfections; some by
the make of their clothes and other arts, endeavor to conceal the defects
of their shape; women, who unfortunately have natural bad complexions,
lay on good ones; and both men and women upon whom unkind nature has
inflicted a surliness and ferocity of countenance, do at least all they
can, though often without success, to soften and mitigate it; they affect
'douceur', and aim at smiles, though often in the attempt, like the Devil
in Milton, they GRIN HORRIBLY A GHASTLY SMILE. But you are the only
person I ever knew in the whole course of my life, who not only disdain,
but absolutely reject and disguise a great advantage that nature has
kindly granted. You easily guess I mean COUNTENANCE; for she has given
you a very pleasing one; but you beg to be excused, you will not accept
it; but on the contrary, take singular pains to put on the most
'funeste', forbidding, and unpleasing one that can possibly be imagined.
This one would think impossible; but you know it to be true. If you
imagine that it gives you a manly, thoughtful, and decisive air, as some,
though very few of your countrymen do, you are most exceedingly mistaken;
for it is at best the air of a German corporal, part of whose exercise is
to look fierce, and to 'blasemeer-op'. You will say, perhaps, What, am I
always to be studying my countenance, in order to wear this 'douceur'? I
answer, No; do it but for a fortnight, and you never will have occasion
to think of it more. Take but half the pains to recover the countenance
that nature gave you, that you must have taken to disguise and deform it
as you have, and the business will be done. Accustom your eyes to a
certain softness, of which they are very capable, and your face to
smiles, which become it more than most faces I know. Give all your
motions, too, an air of 'douceur', which is directly the reverse of their
present celerity and rapidity. I wish you would adopt a little of 'l'air
du Couvent' (you very well know what I mean) to a certain degree; it has
something extremely engaging; there is a mixture of benevolence,
affection, and unction in it; it is frequently really sincere, but is
almost always thought so, and consequently pleasing. Will you call this
trouble? It will not be half an hour's trouble to you in a week's time.
But suppose it be, pray tell me, why did you give yourself the trouble of
learning to dance so well as you do? It is neither a religious, moral, or
civil duty. You must own, that you did it then singly to please, and you
were, in the right on't. Why do you wear fine clothes, and curl your
hair? Both are troublesome; lank locks, and plain flimsy rags are much
easier. This then you also do in order to please, and you do very right.
But then, for God's sake, reason and act consequentially; and endeavor to
please in other things too, still more essential; and without which the
trouble you have taken in those is wholly thrown away. You show your
dancing, perhaps six times a year, at most; but you show your countenance
and your common motions every day, and all day. Which then, I appeal to
yourself, ought you to think of the most, and care to render easy,
graceful, and engaging? Douceur of countenance and gesture can alone make
them so. You are by no means ill-natured; and would you then most
unjustly be reckoned so? Yet your common countenance intimates, and would
make anybody who did not know you, believe it. 'A propos' of this, I must
tell you what was said the other day to a fine lady whom you know, who is
very good-natured in truth, but whose common countenance implies
ill-nature, even to brutality. It was Miss H----n, Lady M--y's niece,
whom you have seen both at Blackheath and at Lady Hervey's. Lady M--y was
saying to me that you had a very engaging countenance when you had a mind
to it, but that you had not always that mind; upon which Miss H----n
said, that she liked your countenance best, when it was as glum as her
own. Why then, replied Lady M--y, you two should marry; for while you
both wear your worst countenances, nobody else will venture upon either
of you; and they call her now Mrs. Stanhope. To complete this 'douceur'
of countenance and motions, which I so earnestly recommend to you, you
should carry it also to your expressions and manner of thinking, 'mettez
y toujours de l'affectueux de l'onction'; take the gentle, the favorable,
the indulgent side of most questions. I own that the manly and sublime
John Trott, your countryman, seldom does; but, to show his spirit and
decision, takes the rough and harsh side, which he generally adorns with
an oath, to seem more formidable. This he only thinks fine; for to do
John justice, he is commonly as good-natured as anybody. These are among
the many little things which you have not, and I have, lived long enough
in the world to know of what infinite consequence they are in the course
of life. Reason then, I repeat it again, within yourself,
CONSEQUENTIALLY; and let not the pains you have taken, and still take, to
please in some things be a 'pure perte', by your negligence of, and
inattention to others of much less trouble, and much more consequence.
I have been of late much engaged, or rather bewildered, in Oriental
history, particularly that of the Jews, since the destruction of their
temple, and their dispersion by Titus; but the confusion and uncertainty
of the whole, and the monstrous extravagances and falsehoods of the
greatest part of it, disgusted me extremely. Their Talmud, their Mischna,
their Targums, and other traditions and writings of their Rabbins and
Doctors, who were most of them Cabalists, are really more extravagant and
absurd, if possible, than all that you have read in Comte de Gabalis; and
indeed most of his stuff is taken from them. Take this sample of their
nonsense, which is transmitted in the writings of one of their most
considerable Rabbins: "One Abas Saul, a man of ten feet high, was digging
a grave, and happened to find the eye of Goliah, in which he thought
proper to bury himself, and so he did, all but his head, which the
Giant's eye was unfortunately not quite deep enough to receive." This, I
assure you, is the most modest lie of ten thousand. I have also read the
Turkish history which, excepting the religious part, is not fabulous,
though very possibly not true. For the Turks, having no notion of letters
and being, even by their religion, forbid the use of them, except for
reading and transcribing the Koran, they have no historians of their own,
nor any authentic records nor memorials for other historians to work
upon; so that what histories we have of that country are written by
foreigners; as Platina, Sir Paul Rycaut, Prince Cantimer, etc., or else
snatches only of particular and short periods, by some who happened to
reside there at those times; such as Busbequius, whom I have just
finished. I like him, as far as he goes, much the best of any of them:
but then his account is, properly, only an account of his own Embassy,
from the Emperor Charles the Fifth to Solyman the Magnificent. However,
there he gives, episodically, the best account I know of the customs and
manners of the Turks, and of the nature of that government, which is a
most extraordinary one. For, despotic as it always seems, and sometimes
is, it is in truth a military republic, and the real power resides in the
Janissaries; who sometimes order their Sultan to strangle his Vizir, and
sometimes the Vizir to depose or strangle his Sultan, according as they
happen to be angry at the one or the other. I own I am glad that the
capital strangler should, in his turn, be STRANGLE-ABLE, and now and then
strangled; for I know of no brute so fierce, nor no criminal so guilty,
as the creature called a Sovereign, whether King, Sultan, or Sophy, who
thinks himself, either by divine or human right, vested with an absolute
power of destroying his fellow-creatures; or who, without inquiring into
his right, lawlessly exerts that power. The most excusable of all those
human monsters are the Turks, whose religion teaches them inevitable
fatalism. A propos of the Turks, my Loyola, I pretend, is superior to
your Sultan. Perhaps you think this impossible, and wonder who this
Loyola is. Know then, that I have had a Barbet brought me from France, so
exactly like the Sultan that he has been mistaken for him several times;
only his snout is shorter, and his ears longer than the Sultan's. He has
also the acquired knowledge of the Sultan; and I am apt to think that he
studied under the same master at Paris. His habit and his white band show
him to be an ecclesiastic; and his begging, which he does very earnestly,
proves him to be of a mendicant order; which, added to his flattery and
insinuation, make him supposed to be a Jesuit, and have acquired him the
name of Loyola. I must not omit too, that when he breaks wind he smells
exactly like the Sultan.
I do not yet hear one jot the better for all my bathings and pumpings,
though I have been here already full half my time; I consequently go very
little into company, being very little fit for any. I hope you keep
company enough for us both; you will get more by that, than I shall by
all my reading. I read simply to amuse myself and fill up my time, of
which I have too much; but you have two much better reasons for going
into company, pleasure and profit. May you find a great deal of both in a
great deal of company! Adieu.
LETTER CXC
LONDON, November 20, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: Two mails are now due from Holland, so that I have no
letter from you to acknowledge; but that, you know, by long experience,
does not hinder my writing to you. I always receive your letters with
pleasure; but I mean, and endeavor, that you should receive mine with
some profit; preferring always your advantage to my own pleasure.
If you find yourself well settled and naturalized at Manheim, stay there
some time, and do not leave a certain for an uncertain good; but if you
think you shall be as well, or better established at Munich, go there as
soon as you please; and if disappointed, you can always return to Manheim
I mentioned, in a former letter, your passing the Carnival at Berlin,
which I think may be both useful and pleasing to you; however, do as you
will; but let me know what you resolve: That King and that country have,
and will have, so great a share in the affairs of Europe, that they are
well worth being thoroughly known.
Whether, where you are now, or ever may be hereafter, you speak French,
German, or English most, I earnestly recommend to you a particular
attention to the propriety and elegance of your style; employ the best
words you can find in the language, avoid cacophony, and make your
periods as harmonious as you can. I need not, I am sure, tell you what
you must often have felt, how much the elegance of diction adorns the
best thoughts, and palliates the worst. In the House of Commons it is
almost everything; and, indeed, in every assembly, whether public or
private. Words, which are the dress of thoughts, deserve surely more care
than clothes, which are only the dress of the person, and which, however,
ought to have their share of attention. If you attend to your style in
any one language, it will give you a habit of attending to it in every
other; and if once you speak either French or German very elegantly, you
will afterward speak much the better English for it. I repeat it to you
again, for at least the thousandth time, exert your whole attention now
in acquiring the ornamental parts of character. People know very little
of the world, and talk nonsense, when they talk of plainness and solidity
unadorned: they will do in nothing; mankind has been long out of a state
of nature, and the golden age of native simplicity will never return.
Whether for the better or the worse, no matter; but we are refined; and
plain manners, plain dress, and plain diction, would as little do in
life, as acorns, herbage, and the water of the neighboring spring, would
do at table. Some people are just come, who interrupt me in the middle of
my sermon; so good-night.
LETTER CXCI
LONDON, November 26, 1753
DEAR FRIEND: Fine doings at Manheim! If one may give credit to the weekly
histories of Monsieur Roderigue, the finest writer among the moderns; not
only 'des chasses brillantes et nombreuses des operas ou les acteurs se
surpassent les jours des Saints de L. L. A. A. E. E. serenissimes
celebres; en grand gala'; but to crown the whole, Monsieur Zuchmantel is
happily arrived, and Monsieur Wartenslebeu hourly expected. I hope that
you are 'pars magna' of all these delights; though, as Noll Bluff says,
in the "Old Bachelor," THAT RASCALLY GAZETTEER TAKES NO MORE NOTICE OF
YOU THAN IF YOU WERE NOT IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING. I should think that
he might at least have taken notice that in these rejoicings you appeared
with a rejoicing, and not a gloomy countenance; and you distinguished
yourself in that numerous and shining company, by your air, dress,
address, and attentions. If this was the case, as I will both hope and
suppose it was, I will, if you require it, have him written to, to do you
justice in his next 'supplement'. Seriously, I am very glad that you are
whirled in that 'tourbillon' of pleasures; they smooth, polish, and rub
off rough corners: perhaps too, you have some particular COLLISION, which
is still more effectual.
Schannat's "History of the Palatinate" was, I find, written originally in
German, in which language I suppose it is that you have read it; but, as
I must humbly content myself with the French translation, Vaillant has
sent for it for me from Holland, so that I have not yet read it. While
you are in the Palatinate, you do very well to read everything relative
to it; you will do still better if you make that reading the foundation
of your inquiries into the more minute circumstances and anecdotes of
that country, whenever you are in company with informed and knowing
people.
The Ministers here, intimidated on the absurd and groundless clamors of
the mob, have, very weakly in my mind, repealed, this session, the bill
which they had passed in the last for rendering Jews capable of being
naturalized by subsequent acts of parliament. The clamorers triumph, and
will doubtless make further demands, which, if not granted, this piece of
complaisance will soon be forgotten. Nothing is truer in politics, than
this reflection of the Cardinal de Retz, 'Que le peuple craint toujours
quand on ne le craint pas'; and consequently they grow unreasonable and
insolent, when they find that they are feared. Wise and honest governors
will never, if they can help it, give the people just cause to complain;
but then, on the other hand, they will firmly withstand groundless
clamor. Besides that this noise against the Jew bill proceeds from that
narrow mobspirit of INTOLERATION in religious, and inhospitality in civil
matters; both which all wise governments should oppose.
The confusion in France increases daily, as, no doubt, you are informed
where you are. There is an answer of the clergy to the remonstrances of
the parliament, lately published, which was sent me by the last post from
France, and which I would have sent you, inclosed in this, were it not
too bulky. Very probably you may see it at Manheim, from the French
Minister: it is very well worth your reading, being most artfully and
plausibly written, though founded upon false principles; the 'jus
divinum' of the clergy, and consequently their supremacy in all matters
of faith and doctrine are asserted; both which I absolutely deny. Were
those two points allowed the clergy of any country whatsoever, they must
necessarily govern that country absolutely; everything being, directly or
indirectly, relative to faith or doctrine; and whoever is supposed to
have the power of saving and damning souls to all eternity (which power
the clergy pretend to), will be much more considered, and better obeyed,
than any civil power that forms no pretensions beyond this world.
Whereas, in truth, the clergy in every country are, like all other
subjects, dependent upon the supreme legislative power, and are appointed
by that power under whatever restrictions and limitations it pleases, to
keep up decency and decorum in the church, just as constables are to keep
peace in the parish. This Fra Paolo has clearly proved, even upon their
own principles of the Old and New Testament, in his book 'de Beneficiis',
which I recommend to you to read with attention; it is short. Adieu.
LETTER CXCII
LONDON, December 25, 1753
MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday again I received two letters at once from you,
the one of the 7th, the other of the 15th, from Manheim.
You never had in your life so good a reason for not writing, either to me
or to anybody else, as your sore finger lately furnished you. I believe
it was painful, and I am glad it is cured; but a sore finger, however
painful, is a much less evil than laziness, of either body or mind, and
attended by fewer ill consequences.
I am very glad to hear that you were distinguished at the court of
Manheim from the rest of your countrymen and fellow-travelers: it is a
sign that you had better manners and address than they; for take it for
granted, the best-bred people will always be the best received wherever
they go. Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of
commercial life; returns are equally expected for both; and people will
no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
I really both hope and believe, that the German courts will do you a
great deal of good; their ceremony and restraint being the proper
correctives and antidotes for your negligence and inattention. I believe
they would not greatly relish your weltering in your own laziness, and an
easy chair; nor take it very kindly, if, when they spoke to you or you to
them, you looked another way, as much as to say, kiss my b----h. As they
give, so they require attention; and, by the way, take this maxim for an
undoubted truth, That no young man can possibly improve in any company,
for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
I dare not trust to Meyssonier's report of his Rhenish, his Burgundy not
having answered either his account or my expectations. I doubt, as a wine
merchant, he is the 'perfidus caupo', whatever he may be as a banker. I
shall therefore venture upon none of his wine; but delay making my
provision of Old Hock, till I go abroad myself next spring: as I told you
in the utmost secrecy, in my last, that I intend to do; and then probably
I may taste some that I like, and go upon sure ground. There is commonly
very good, both at Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, where I formerly got some
excellent, which I carried with me to Spa, where I drank no other wine.