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impossible to reduce the art of pleasing to a system, yet this principle I will lay down, that the desire of pleasing is at least half the art of doing it; the rest depends only upon the manner, which attention, observation, and frequenting good company will teach. But if you are lazy, careless, and indifferent whether you please or not, depend upon it you never will please. [Same date.]

CHESTERFIELD S INTENTION.-Do not think I mean to dictate as a parent; I only mean to advise as a friend, and an indulgent one too: and do not apprehend that I mean to check your pleasures; of which, on the contrary, I only desire to be the guide, not the censor. Let my experience supply your want of it and clear your way in the progress of your youth of those thorns and briers which scratched and disfigured me in the course of mine. [Bath, Oct. 4, 1746.]

HIS SON'S UTTER DEPENDENCE.-I do not, therefore, so much as hint to you how absolutely dependent you are on me that you neither have nor can have a shilling in the world but from me; and that as I have no womanish weakness for your person, your merit must, and will, be the only measure of my kindness—I

say, I do not hint these things to you because I am convinced that you will act right, upon more noble and generous principles: I mean for the sake of doing right, and out of affection and gratitude to me. [Same date.]

NO SMATTERING.-Mr. Pope says, very truly,

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Castalian spring."

And what is called a smattering of every thing infallibly constitutes a coxcomb. I have often, of late, reflected what an unhappy man I must now have been, if I had not acquired in my youth some fund and taste of learning. What could I have done with myself, at this age, without them? I must, as many ignorant people do, have destroyed my health and faculties by setting away the evenings; or, by wasting them frivolously in the tattle of women's company, must have exposed myself to the ridicule and contempt of those very women; or, lastly, I must have hanged myself, as a man once did, for weariness of putting on and pulling off his shoes and stockings every day. My books, and only my books, are now left me, and I daily find what Cicero says of learning to be true: “Hæc studia” (says he) “adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, ad

versis perfugium, ac solatium præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur." [Oct., 1746.]

FOOLISH TALK. — The conversation of the ignorant is no conversation, and gives even them no pleasure: they tire of their own sterility, and have not matter enough to furnish them with words to keep up a conversation. [Same date.]

WORLD KNOWLEDGE.-Do not imagine that the knowledge, which I so much recommend to you, is confined to books, pleasing, useful, and necessary as that knowledge is; but I comprehend in it the great knowledge of the world, still more necessary than that of books. In truth, they assist one another reciprocally; and no man will have either perfectly, who has not both. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet. Books alone will never teach it you; but they will suggest many things to your observation, which might otherwise escape you; and your own observations upon mankind, when compared with those which you will find in books, will help you to fix the true point. [Nov.,

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OLD FOOLS.-To know mankind well requires full as much attention and application as to know books, and, it may be, more sagacity and discernment. I am, at this time, acquainted with many elderly people, who have all passed their whole lives in the great world, but with such levity and inattention, that they know no more of it now than they did at fifteen. [Same date.]

INTROSPECTION.-You must look into people, as well as at them. Almost all people are born with all the passions, to a certain degree; but almost every man has a prevailing one, to which the others are subordinate. Search every one for that ruling passion; pry into the recesses of his heart, and observe the different workings of the same passion in different people. And, when you have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him, where that passion is concerned. Work upon him by it, if you please; but be upon your guard yourself against it, whatever professions he may make you. [Same date.]

- In the

YOUNG STANHOPE'S CHARACTER. strict scrutiny which I have made into you, I have (thank God) hitherto not discovered any vice of the heart, or any peculiar weakness of

You

the head but I have discovered laziness, inattention, and indifference; faults which are only pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active, and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like Cæsar, “Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum." seem to want that "vivida vis animi,” which spurs and excites most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it, you never can be so ; as, without the desire and attention necessary to please, you never can please. "Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia," is unquestionably true, with regard to every thing except poetry. [Nov., 1746.]

HOW TO DRESS.-Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable people of your own age, in the place where you are; whose dress is never spoken of one way or another, as either too negligent or too much studied. [Same date.]

ABSENT PEOPLE.-What is commonly called an absent man, is commonly either a very weak or a very affected man; but be he

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