第15章 LETTER XII

LONDON,July 30,O.S.1747

DEAR BOY:It is now four posts since I have received any letter,either from you or from Mr.Harte.I impute this to the rapidity of your travels through Switzerland;which I suppose are by this time finished.

You will have found by my late letters,both to you and Mr.Harte,that you are to be at Leipsig by next Michaelmas;where you will be lodged in the house of Professor Mascow,and boarded in the neighborhood of it,with some young men of fashion.The professor will read you lectures upon 'Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis,'the 'Institutes of Justinian'and the 'Jus Publicum Imperii;'which I expect that you shall not only hear,but attend to,and retain.I also expect that you make yourself perfectly master of the German language;which you may very soon do there,if you please.I give you fair warning,that at Leipsig I shall have an hundred invisible spies about you;and shall be exactly informed of everything that you do,and of almost everything that you say.I hope that,in consequence of those minute informations,I may be able to say of you,what Velleius Paterculus says of Scipio;that in his whole life,'nihil non laudandum aut dixit,aut fecit,aut sensit.'There is a great deal of good company in Leipsig,which I would have you frequent in the evenings,when the studies of the day are over.There is likewise a kind of court kept there,by a Duchess Dowager of Courland;at which you should get introduced.The King of Poland and his Court go likewise to the fair at Leipsig twice a year;and I shall write to Sir Charles Williams,the king's minister there,to have you presented,and introduced into good company.But I must remind you,at the same time,that it will be to a very little purpose for you to frequent good company,if you do not conform to,and learn their manners;if you are not attentive to please,and well bred,with the easiness of a man of fashion.As you must attend to your manners,so you must not neglect your person;but take care to be very clean,well dressed,and genteel;to have no disagreeable attitudes,nor awkward tricks;which many people use themselves to,and then cannot leave them off.Do you take care to keep your teeth very clean,by washing them constantly every morning,and after every meal?This is very necessary,both to preserve your teeth a great while,and to save you a great deal of pain.Mine have plagued me long,and are now falling out,merely from want of care when I was your age.Do you dress well,and not too well?Do you consider your air and manner of presenting yourself enough,and not too much?Neither negligent nor stiff?All these things deserve a degree of care,a second-rate attention;they give an additional lustre to real merit.

My Lord Bacon says,that a pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.It is certainly an agreeable forerunner of merit,and smoothes the way for it.

Remember that I shall see you at Hanover next summer,and shall expect perfection;which if I do not meet with,or at least something very near it,you and I shall,not be very well together.I shall dissect and analyze you with a microscope;so that I shall discover the least speck or blemish.This is fair warning;therefore take your measures accordingly.Yours.