in a proper way; for if, while very young, you should grow fat, it would be troublesome, unwholesome, and ungraceful: you should therefore, when you have time, take very strong exercise, and in your diet avoid fattening things. All malt liquors fatten, or at least bloat; and I hope you do not deal much in them. [Same date.]

BE NATURAL.-I have this moment received your letter of the 4th, N. S., and have only time to tell you, that I can by no means agree to your cutting off your hair. I am very sure that your headaches cannot proceed from thence. And as for the pimples upon your head, they are only owing to the heat of the season; and consequently will not last long. But your own hair is, at your age, such an ornament, and a wig, however well made, such a disguise, that I will upon no account whatsoever have you cut off your hair. Nature did not give it you for nothing, still less to cause you the headache. Mr. Eliot's hair grew so ill and bushy, that he was in the right to cut it off; but you have not the same reason. [Same date.]

BUYING BOOKS.-Mr. Harte wrote me word some time ago, and Mr. Eliot confirms it now,

that you employ your pin-money in a very different manner from that in which pin-money* is commonly lavished. Not in gewgaws and baubles, but in buying good and useful books. This is an excellent symptom, and gives me very good hopes. Go on thus, my dear boy, but for these two next years, and I ask no more. You must then make such a figure, and such a fortune in the world, as I wish you, and as I have taken all these pains to enable you to do. After that time, I allow you to be as idle as ever you please; because I am sure that you will not then please to be so at all. The ignorant and the weak only are idle; but those, who have once acquired a good stock of knowledge, always desire to increase it. Knowledge is like power, in this respect, that those who have the most, are most desirous of having more. It does not clog, by possession, but increases desires; which is the case of very few pleasures. [Aug. 23, 1748.]

GRATITUDE TO A TUTOR.-Upon receiving this congratulatory letter, and reading your own praises, I am sure that it must naturally occur to you, how great a share of them you owe to Mr. Harte's care and attention; and,

*A somewhat curious use of the phrase, but well explained by Johnson.

consequently, that your regard and affection for him must increase, if there be room for it, in proportion as you reap, which you do daily, the fruits of his labors. [Same date.]

HISTORICAL FAITH. Take nothing for granted, upon the bare authority of the author; but weigh and consider, in your own mind, the probability of the facts, and the justness of the reflections. Consult different authors upon the same facts, and form your opinion upon the greater or lesser degree of probability arising from the whole, which, in my mind, is the utmost stretch of historical faith, certainty (I fear) not being to be found. [Aug. 30, 1748.]

GOOD AND BAD MIXED.—The best have something bad, and something little; the worst have something good, and sometimes something great; for I do not believe what Valleius Paterculus (for the sake of saying a pretty thing) says of Scipio, "Qui nihil non laudandum aut fecit, aut dixit, aut sensit." [Same date.]

THE RULING PASSION.-Seek for their particular merit, their predominant passion, or their prevailing weakness, and you will then know what to bait your hook with, to catch

them. Man is a composition of so many and such various ingredients, that it requires both time and care to analyze him: for though we have, all, the same ingredients in our general composition, as reason, will, passions, and appetites, yet the different proportions and combinations of them, in each individual, produce that infinite variety of characters, which, in some particular or other, distinguishes every individual from another. Reason ought to

direct the whole, but seldom does. [Sept. 5, 1748.]

BRUYÈRE AND ROCHEFOUCAULT.—I will recommend to your attentive perusal, now you are going into the world, two books, which will let you as much into the characters of men as books can do. I mean, "Les Réflexions Morales de Monsieur de la Rochefoucault," and "Les Caractères de la Bruyère" but remember, at the same time, that I only recommend them to you as the best general maps, to assist you in your journey, and not as marking out every particular turning and winding that you will meet with. There, your own sagacity and observation must come to their aid. La Rochefoucault is, I know, blamed, but I think without reason, for deriving all our actions from the source of self-love. For my own part, I

see a great deal of truth, and no harm at all, in that opinion.

The reflection which is the most censured in Monsieur de la Rochefoucault's book, as a very ill-natured one, is this: "On trouve dans le malheur de son meilleur ami, quelque chose qui ne déplaît pas." And why not? Why may I not feel a very tender and real concern for the misfortune of my friend, and yet at the same time feel a pleasing consciousness at having discharged my duty to him, by comforting and assisting him to the utmost of my power in that misfortune? Give me but virtuous actions, and I will not quibble and chicane about the motives. And I will give anybody their choice of these two truths, which amount to the same thing: He who loves himself best is the honestest man; or, The honestest man loves himself best. [Same date.]

WOMAN.-AS women are a considerable, or at least a pretty numerous part of company, and as their suffrages go a great way towards establishing a man's character, in the fashionable part of the world (which is of great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it), it is necessary to please them. I will therefore, upon this subject, let you into certain arcana that will be very useful for you