of words, study your own language more carefully than most English people do. Get a habit of speaking it with propriety and elegancy. For there are few things more disagreeable than to hear a gentleman talk the barbarisms, the solecisms, and the vulgarisms of porters. Avoid, on the other hand, a stiff and formal accuracy, especially what the women call "hard words," when plain ones as expressive are at hand. The French make it a study to "bien narrer," and to say the truth they are apt to " narrer trop," and with too affected an elegancy. The three commonest topics of conversation are religion, politics, and news. All people think that they understand the two first perfectly, though they never studied either, and are therefore very apt to talk of them both dogmatically and ignorantly, consequently with warmth. But religion is by no means a proper subject for conversation in a mixed company. It should only be treated among a very few people of learning for mutual instruction. It is too awful and respectable a subject to become a familiar one. Therefore never mingle yourself in it, any further than to express a universal toleration and indulgence to all errors in it, if conscientiously entertained; for every man has as good a right to think as he does as you have to think as you do ; nay, in truth he cannot help it. As for politics, they are still more universally understood, and as every one thinks his private interest more or less concerned in them, nobody hesitates to pronounce decisively upon them, not even the ladies; the copiousness of whose eloquence is more to be ad mired upon that subject than the conclusiveness of their logic. It will be impossible for you to avoid engaging in these conversations, for there are hardly any others; but take care to do it very coolly and with great good-humor; and whenever you find that the company begins to be heated and noisy for the good of their country, be only a patient hearer; unless you can interpose by some agreeable badinage and restore good-humor to the company. And here I cannot help observing to you that nothing is more useful either to put off or to parry disagreeable and puzzling affairs, than a goodhumored and genteel badinage. I have found it so by long experience, but this badinage must not be carried to mauvaise plaisanterie. It must be light without being frivolous, sensible without being in the least sententious, and in short have that pleasing je ne sais quoi, which everybody feels, and nobody can describe. XVII. EPITAPH ON A WIFE. BLACK-HEATH, Mercredi, 4 Juin [ 1766]. MON CHER PETIT DRÔLE, Ne négligeons pas le François, qu'il faut que vous sachiez parler et écrire correctement et avec elégance. Un honnête homme doit scavoir l'Anglois et le François également bien, l'Anglois parceque c'est votre propre langue, et que ce seroit honteux d'en ignorer même les minucies, et le François parceque c'est en quelque façon la langue universelle. Voicy donc un epitaphe que fit un homme sur la mort de sa femme, qui lui étoit fort incommode et dont il étoit fort las. Cy git ma femme, Ah! qu'elle est bien XVIII. EVERY MAN THE ARCHITECT OF HIS OWN BLACK-HEATH, Aug. 26, 1766. MY DEAR LITTLE BOY, -Your French letter was a very good one, considering how long you have been disused to write in that language. There are indeed some few faults in it, which I will show you when we meet next, for I keep your letter by me for that purpose. One cannot correct one's faults without knowing them, and I always looked upon those who told me of mine as friends, instead of being displeased or angry, as people in general are too apt to be. You say that I laugh at you when I tell you that you may very probably in time be Secretary of State. No, I am very serious in saying that you may if you please, if you take the proper methods to be so. Writing well and speaking well in public are the necessary qualifications for it, and they are very easily acquired by attention and application. In all events, aim at it; and if you do not get it, let it be said of you what was said of Phaethon, "Magnis tamen excidit ausis." Every man of a generous, noble spirit desires first to please and then to shine; Facere digna scribi vel scribere digna legi. Fools and indolent people lay all their disappointments to the charge of their ill fortune, but there is no such thing as good or ill fortune. Every man makes his own fortune in proportion to his merit. An ancient author whom you are not yet, but will in time be, acquainted with says very justly, "Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia; nos te fortuna Deam facimus caeloque locamus." Prudence there means those qualifications and that conduct that will command fortune. Let that be your motto and have it always in your mind. I was sure that you would soon come to like your voluntary study, and I will appeal to yourself, could you employ that hour more agreeably? And is it not better than what thoughtless boys of your age commonly call play, which is running about without any object or design and only pour tuer le temps? Faire des riens is the most miserable abuse and loss of time that can possibly be imagined. You must know that I have in the main a great opinion of you; therefore take great care and pains not to forfeit it. And so God bless you. Non progredi est regredi. ludo. I have often trifled with you in my letters and there is no harm in trifling sometimes. Dr. Swift used often to say, "Vive la bagatelle," but everything has its proper season; and when I consider your age now it is proper, I think, to be sometimes serious. You know I love you mightily, and I find but one single fault with you. You are the best-natured boy; you have good parts and an excellent memory; but now to your fault, which you may so easily correct that I am astonished that your own good sense does not make you do it. It is your giddiness and inattention which you confessed to me. You know that without a good stock of learning you can never, when you are a man, be received in good company; and the only way to acquire that stock is to apply with attention and diligence to whatever you are taught. The hoc age is of the utmost consequence in every part of life. No man can do or think of two things at a time to any purpose, and whoever does two things at once is sure to do them both ill. It is the characteristic of a futile, frivolous man to be doing one thing and at the same time thinking of another. Do not imagine that I would have you plod and study all day long; no, leave that to dull boys. On the contrary I would have you divert yourself and be as gay as ever you please; but while you are learning, mind that only, and think of nothing else; it will be the sooner over. They tell an idle story of Julius Caesar that he dictated to six secretaries at once and upon different businesses. This I am sure is as false as it is absurd, for Caesar had too good sense to do any two things at once. I am sure that for the future you will attend diligently to |