you their friend than to prove themfelves yours, they will flatter both, and, in truth, not be forry for either. Interiorly, most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends. The ufeful and effential part of friendfhip to you is referved fingly for Mr. Harte and myfelt, our relations to you ftand pure, and unfufpected of all private views. In whatever we fay to you, we can have no intereft but yours. We can have no competition, no jealoufy, no fecret envy or malignity. We are therefore authorifed to reprefent, advife, and remonitrate; and your reafon must tell you that you ought to attend to, and believe us. Iar credibly informed, that there is ftill a confiderable hitch or hobble in your enunciation; and that when you fpeak faft, you fometimes peak unintelligibly. I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts before you fo fully upon this fubject, that I can fay nothing new upon it now. I muit therefore only repeat, that your whole depends upon it. Your trade is to fpeak well, both in public and in private. The manner of your fpeaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge. Be your productions ever fo good, they will be of no ufe, if you ftifle and ftrangle them in their birth. The best compofitions of Corelli, if ill executed, and played out of tune, inftead of touching, as they do when well performed, would only excite the indignation of the hearers, when murdered by an unfkilful performer. But to murder your own. productions, and that coram populo †, is a Medean cruelty, which Horáce abfolutely forbids. Remember of what importance Demofthenes, and one of the Gracchi, thought enunciation; read what ftrefs Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it; -even the herb-women at Athens were correct judges of it. Oratory, with all its graces, that of enunciation in particular, is full as neceffary in our government as it ever was in Greece or Rome. No man can make a fortune or a figure in this country, without speaking, and fpeaking well in pub Before the people. fic. If you will perfuade, you must first please; and if you will pleafe, you must tune your voice to harmony, you must articulate every fyllable diftinctly, your emphafes and cadences must be strongly and properly marked, and the whole together muft be graceful and engaging: if you do not speak in that manner, you had much better not fpeak at all. All the learning you have, or ever can have, is not worth one groat without it. It may be a comfort, and an amusement to you in your clofet, but can be of no use to you in the world. Let me conjure you therefore, to make this your only object, till you have abfolutely conquered it, for that is in your power; think of nothing elfe, read and speak for nothing elfe. Read aloud, though alone, and read articulately and diftinctly, as if you were reading in public, and on the most important occafion. Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim fcenes of tragedies to Mr. Harte, as if he were a numerous audience. If there is any particular confonant which you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had with the R, utter it millions and millions of times, till you have uttered it right. Never fpeak quick, till you have first learned to speak well. In fhort, lay afide every book and every thought that does not directly tend to this great object, abfolutely decifive of your future fortune and figure. The next thing neceflary in your destination, is writing correctly, elegantly, and in a good hand too; in which three particulars, I am forry to tell you, that you hitherto fail. Your hand-writing is a very bad one, and would make a scurvy figure in an office-book of letters, or even in a lady's pocket-book. But that fault is eafily cured by care, fince every man, who has the use of his eyes and of his right hand, can write whatever hand he pleases. As to the correctnefs and elegancy of your writing, attention to grammar does the one, and to the best authors the other. In your letter to me of the 27th June, you omitted the date of the place, fo that I only conjectured from the contents that you were at Rome. Thus I have, with the truth and freedom of the tenderest affection, told you all your defects, at least all that I know or have heard of. I am happy that they are all very curable; they must be cured, and I am fure you will cure them. That once done, nothing remains for you to acquire, or for me to wish you, but the turn, the manners, the addrefs, and the graces of the polite world, which experience, obfervation and good company will infenfibly give you. Few people at your age have read, feen, and known fo much as you have, and, confequently, few are fo near as yourself to what I call perfection, by which I only mean, being very near as well as the best. Far, therefore, from being difcouraged by what you ftill want, what you already have fhould encourage you to attempt, and convince you that by attempting you will inevitably obtain it. The difficulties which you have furmounted were much greater than any you have now to encoun ter. Till very lately your way has been only through thorns and briars; the few that now remain are mixed with rofes. When I caft up vour account, as it now ftands, I rejoice to fee the balance fo much in your favour; and that the items per contra are fo few, and of fuch a nature that they may be very eafily cancelled. By way of debtor and creditor, it ftands thus: Creditor. By French. German. Italian. Latin. Debtor. To English. Enunciation Manners. Greek. Logic. History. Naturæ. Jus Gentium. Publicum. This, my dear friend, is a very true account, and a very encouraging one for you. A man who owes fo little, can clear it off in a very little time, and, if he is a prudent man, will; whereas a man, who by long 1 negligence owes a great deal, defpairs of ever being able to pay; and therefore never looks into his accounts at all. When you go to Genoa, pray obferve carefully all the environs of it, and view them with fomebody, who can tell you all the fituations and operations of the Auftrian army, during that famous fiege, if it deferves to be called one; for in reality the town never was befieged, nor had the Auftrians any one thing neceffary for a fiege. If Marquis Centurioni, who was laft winter in England, fhould happen to be there, go to him with my compliments, and he will show you all imaginable civilities. I could have fent you fome letters to Florence, but hat I knew Mr. Mann would be of more ufe to you han all of them. Pray make him my compliments. Cultivate your Italian, while you are at Florence; where it is fpoken in its utmost purity, but ill proounced. Pray fave me the feed of some of the best melons you at, and put it up dry in paper. You need not fend it ne; but Mr. Harte will bring it in his pocket when e comes over. I fhould likewife be glad of fome cutings of the best figs, efpecially il fico gentile, and the althefe; but as this is not the feafon for them, Mr. Jann, wil, I dare fay, undertake that commiffion, and nd them to me at the proper time, by Leghorn.-Adieu ! LETTER XCVIII. Knowledge of the World... Syftem-Mongers... Flattery. London, August the 6th. MY DEAR FRIEND, INCE your letter from Sienna, which gave me a ry imperfect account both of your illness and your covery, I have not received one word either from u or Mr. Harte. I impute this to the careleffness of poft fingly; and the great distance between us at refent expofes our letters to thofe accidents. But le when you come to Paris, whence the letters arrive here very regularly, I fhall infift upon your writing to me conftantly once a week; and that upon the fame day; for inftance, every Thursday, that I may know by what mail to expect your letter. I fhall alfo require you to be more minute in your account of yourfelf than you have hitherto been, or than I have required; because of the information which I have received from time to time from Mr. Harte. At Paris you' will be out of your time, and muft fet up for yourfelf: it is then that I fhall be very folicitous to know how you carry on your bufinefs. While Mr. Harte was your partner, the care was his fhare, and the profit yours. But at Paris, if you will have the latter, you must take the former along with it. It will be quite a new world to you; very different from the little world that you have hitherto feen; and you will have much more to do in it. You must keep your little accounts conftantly every morning, if you would not have them run into confufion, and fwell to a bulk that would frighten you from ever looking into them at all. You muft allow fome time for learning what you do not know, and fome for keeping what you do know; and you must leave a great deal of time for your pleasures. It is indeed by converfation, dinners, fuppers, entertainments, &c. in the beft companies, that you mult be formed for the world. The graces of manner, the pleafing in converfation, cannot be learned by theory; they are only to be got by ufe among thofe who have them; and they are now the main object of your life, as they are the neceffary fteps to your fortune. A man of the beft parts, and the greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience and obfervation, will be very abfurd; and confequently very unwelcome in company. He may fay very good things; but they will probably be fo ill-timed, mil placed, or improperly addreffed, that he had much bet ter hold his tongue. Full of his own matter, and un informed of, or inattentive to the particular circumftan ces and fituations of the company, he vents it indif minately: he puts fome people out of countenances and |