you, and as ferent manner from that in which pin-money is commonly lavifhed. Not in gew-gaws and baubles, but in buying good and useful books. This is an excellent fymptom, and gives me very good hopes. Go on thus, my dear boy, but for these two next years, and at prefent, I ask no more. You must then make fuch a figure, and fuch a fortune in the world, as I with 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 fure that you will not then please to be fo at all. The ignorant and the weak only are idle; but those, who have once acquired a good stock of knowledge, always defire to increafe it. Knowledge is like power, in this refpect, that thofe who have the moft, are most defirous of having more. It does not clog by poffeffion, but increases defire; which is the cafe of very few pleasures. Upon receiving this congratulatory letter, and reading your cwn praises, I am fure that it must naturally occur to you, how great a fhare of them you owe to Mr. Harte's care and attention; and, confequently, that your regard and affection for him muft increafe, if there be room for it, in proportion as you reap, which you do daily, the fruits of his labours. your I'must not, however, conceal from you, that there was one article in which your own witnefs, Mr. Eliot, faultered for, upon my queftioning him home, as to your manner of fpeaking, he could not say that utterance was either diftinct or graceful. I have already faid fo much to you upon this point, that I can add nothing. I will therefore only repeat this truth which is, that if you will not fpeak diftinctly and gracefully, nobody will defire to hear you. * I am glad to learn that abbé Mably's Droit Public l'Europe makes a part of your evening amusements It is a very useful book, and gives a clear deduction of the affairs of Europe, from the treaty of Munfter to this time. Pray read it with attention, and with the proper maps; always recurring to them for the fevera *The public law of Europe. countries or towns yielded, taken, or reftored. Pére Bougeant's third volume will give you the best idea of the treaty of Munfter, and open to you the feveral views of the belligerant and contracting parties and there never were greater than at that time. The house of Auftria, in the war immediately preceding that treaty, intended to make itself abfolute in the empire, and to overthrow the rights of the respective states of it. The view of France was to weaken and difmember the houfe of Auftria, to fuch a degree, as that it fhould no longer be a counterbalance to that of Bourbon. Sweden wanted poffeflions upon the continent of Germany, not only to fupply the neceffities of its own poor and barren country, but likewife to hold the balance in the empire between the houfe of Auftria and the States. The house of Brandenburgh wanted to aggrandife itself by pilfering in the fire; changed fides occafionally, and made a good bargain at laft: for I think it got, at the peace, nine or ten bishoprics fecularised. So that we may date, from the treaty of Munfter, the decline of the house of Auftria, the great power of the houfe of Bourbon, and the aggrandifement of that of Brandenburg; and I am much mistaken, if it stops where it is now. LETTER LX. Cautions in reading Hiftory...Great Power of France...Canfes of Weakness in Allied Powers. DEAR BOY, YOUR London, Auguft the 30th OUR reflections upon the conduct of France, from the treaty of Munfter to this time, are very juft; and I am very glad to find, by them, that you not only read, but that you think and reflect upon what you read. Many great readers load their memories, with out exercifing their judgments; and make lumberrooms of their heads, inftead of furnishing them ufefully facts are heaped upon facts, without order distinction, and may juftly be faid to compose that M Rudis indigeftaque moles Quam dixere chaos. § Go on then, in the way of reading that you are in; take nothing for granted, upon the bare authority of the author; but weigh and confider, in your own mind the probability of the facts, and the juftnefs of the reflections. Confult different authors upon the fame facts, and form your opinion upon the greater or lefler degree of probability arifing from the whole; which, in my mind, is the utmoft fitretch of hiftorical faith: certainty (I fear) not being to be found. When an hiftorian pretends to give you the caufes and motives of events, compare thofe caufes and motives with the characters and interefts of the parties concerned, and judge for yourself, whether they correfpond or not. Confider whether you cannot affign others more probable; and, in that examination, do not defpife fome very mean and trifling caufes of the actions of great men for fo various and inconfiftent is human nature, fo strong and fo changeable are our paflions, fo fluctuating are our wills, and fo much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and confequential character. The beft have fomething bad, and fomething little; the worst have fomething good, and fometimes fomething great; for I do not believe what Velleius Paterculus (for the fake of faying a pretty thing) fays of Scipio, Qui nihil non laudandum, aut fecit, aut dixit, aut fenfit. As for the reflections of hiftorians, with which they think it neceflary to interlard their hiftories, or at leaft to conclude their chapters (and which, in the French hiftories, are always introduced with a tant il eft vrai, and in the English, fo true it is) do not adopt them implicitly upon the credit of the author, but analyse them yourself, and judge whether they are true or not. But, to return to the politics of France, from which I have digreffed; you have certainly made one farther reflection of an advantage which France has, over and A rude and indigefted mafs, which is called chaos. Who never did, or faid, or felt, what was otherwite than laudable. а above its abilities in the cabinet, and the fkill of its negociators; which is (if I may ufe the expreffion) its folenefs, continuity of riches and power within itself, and the nature of its government. Near twenty millions of people, and the ordinary revenue of above thirteen millions fterling a year, are at the abfolute difpofal of the crown. This is what no other power in Europe can fay; fo that different powers muft now unite to make a balance againft France; which union,. though formed upon the principle of their common intereft, can never be fo intimate as to compose a machine fo compact and fimple as that of one great kingdom, directed by one will, and moved by one interest. The allied powers (as we have conftantly feen) have, befides the common and declared object of their alliance, fome feparate and concealed view, to which they often facrifice the general one; which makes them, either directly or indirectly, pull different ways. Thus, the defign upon Toulon failed, in the year 1706, only from the fecret view of the houfe of Auftria upon Naples; which made the court of Vienna, notwithftanding the reprefentations of the other allies to the contrary, fend to Naples the 12,000 men that would have done the bufinefs at Toulon. In this laft war, too, the fame caufes had the fame effects; the Hungary, in fecret, thought of nothing but recovering Silefia, and what fhe had loft in Italy: and therefore never fent half that quota, which the promifed, and we paid for, into Flanders; but left that country to the maritime powers to defend as they could. The king of Sardinia's real object was Savona, and all the Riviera di Ponente; for which reafon he concurred fo lamely in the invafion of Provence; whither the queen of Hungary, likewife, did not fend one third of the force ftipulated; engroffed as the was, by her oblique views upon the plunder of Genoa, and the recovery of Naples. Infomuch that the expedition into Provence, which would have diftreffed France to the greatest degree, and have caufed a great detachmen^ from their army in Flanders, failed fhamefully, want of every thing neceffary for its fuccefs. queen of pofe, therefore, any four or five powers, who, altogether, fhall be equal, or even a little fuperior, in riches and strength, to that one power against which they are united, the advantage will ftill be greatly on the fide of that fingle power; because it is but one. The power and riches of Charles V. were, in themfelves, certainly fuperior to those of Francis I. and yet, upon the whole, he was not an overmatch for him. Charles the Fifth's dominions, great as they were, were fcattered and remote from each other; their conftitutions different; and wherever he did not refide, disturbances arofe: whereas the compactness of France made up the difference in the ftrength. This obvious reflection convinced me of the abfurdity of the treaty of Hanover, in 1725, between France and England, to which the Dutch afterwards acceded; for it was made upon the apprehenfions, either real or pretended, that the marriage of Don Carlos with the eldest archduchefs, now queen of Hungary, was fettled in the treaty of Vienna, of the fame year, between Spain and the late emperor, Charles VI. which marriage, those confummate politicians faid, would revive in Europe the exorbitant power of Charles V. I am fure, I heartily with it had; as, in that cafe, there would have been, what there certainly is not now-one power in Europe to counterbalance that of France; and then the maritime powers would, in reality, have held the balance of Europe in their hands. Even fuppofing that the Austrian power would then have been an overmatch for that of France, which (by the way) is not clear, the weight of the maritime powers, then thrown into the fcale of Europe, would infallibly have made the balance at least even. In which cafe, too, the moderate efforts of the maritime powers, on the fide of France, would have been fufficient; whereas, now, they are obliged to exhauft and beggar themselves, and that too ineffectually, in hopes to fupport the fhattered, beggared, and infufficient houfe of Auftria, |