: When you come to Paris, you muft take care to be extremely well drefled; that is, as the fashionable people are. This does by no means confift in the finery, but in the taste, fitnefs, and manner of wearing your clothes a fine fuit ill made, and flatternly or tifly worn, far from adorning, only exposes the awkwardnes of the wearer. Get the best French taylor to make your clothes, whatever they are, in the fathion, and to ut you and then wear them, button them, or unbatton them, as the genteeleft people you fee do. Let your man learn of the best frifeur to do your hair well, for that is a very material part of your drefs. Take care to have your stockings well gartered up, and your fhoes well buckled; for nothing gives a more flovenly air to a man than ill dreffed legs. In your perfon you must be accurately clean; and your teeth, hands and nails, Thould be fuperlatively fo: a dirty mouth has real ill confequences to the owner, for it infallibly caufes the decay, as well as the intolerable pain of the teeth; and it is very offenfive to his acquaintance, for it will moft inevitably ftink. I infift, therefore, that you wash your teeth the first thing you do every morning, with a foft fpunge and water, for four or five minutes; and then wash your mouth five or fix times. Mouton, whom I defire you will fend for upon your arrival at Paris, will give you an opiate, and a liquor to be used fometimes. Nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal, than dirty hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails: I do not fufpect you of that fhocking, awkward trick, of biting yours; but that is not enough; you must keep the ends of them smooth and clean, not tipped with black, as the ordinary people's always are. The ends of your nails fhould be fmall fegments of circles, which, by a very little care in the cutting, they are very easily brought to; every time that you wipe your hands, rub the skin round your nails backwards, that it may not grow up, and fhorten your nails too much. The cleanliness of the rest of your perfon, which by the way will conduce greatly to your health, I refer from time to time to the bath. My mentioning thefe particulars arifes (I freely own) from fome fuf picion that the hints are not unneceflary; for when you were a fchool-boy, you were flovenly and dirty, above fellows. I muft add another caution, your which is, that upon no, account whatever you put your fingers, as too many people are apt to do, in your nofe or ears. It is the moft fhocking, nafty, vulgar rudenefs, that can be offered to company; it difgufts one, it turns one's stomach; and, for my own part, I would much rather know that a man's finger were actually in his breech, than to fee them in his nofe. Wash your ears well every morning, and blow your nofe in your handkerchief whenever you have occafion; but, by the way, without looking at it afterwards. There fhould be in the leaft, as well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, les manières nobles. Senfe will teach you fome, obfervation others: attend carefully to the manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion, and form your own upon them. On the other hand, obferve a little those of the vulgar, in order to avoid them for though the. things which they fay or do may be the fame, the manner is always totally different; and in that, and nothing elfe, confifts the characteristic of a man of fashion. The lowest peafant fpeaks, moves, dreffes, cats, and drinks, as much as a man of the first fashion; but does them all quite differently; fo that by doing and faying most things in a manner oppofite to that of the vulgar, you have a great chance of doing and faying them right. There are gradations in awkwardness and vulgarifm, as there are in every thing elfe. Les manières de robe t, though not quite right, are ftill better than les manières bourgeoifest; and thefe, though bad, are still better than les manières champaigne §. But the language, the air, the drefs, and the manners of the court, are the only true standard. Ex pede Herculem | is an old and true faying, and very applicable to our prefent subject; for a man of parts, who has been bred at courts, and used to keep the best company, will dif 1 he manners of nobility. Of the ruftics. Hercules by his foot, The manners of the lawyers. tinguish himself, and is to be known from the vulgar, by every word, attitude, gefture, and even look. I cannot leave these feeming minutia, without repeating to you the neceffity of your carving well; which is an article, little as it is, that is ufeful twice every day of One's life and the doing it ill is very troublefome to One's-felf, and very difagreeable, often ridiculous, to others. manners. Having faid all this, I cannot help reflecting, what a formal dull fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would fay, if they were to see this letter: they would look upon it with the utmost contempt, and fay, tl:at furely a father might find much better topics for advice to a fon. I would admit it, if I had given you, or that you were capable of receiving, no better; but if fufficient pains have been taken to form your heart and improve your mind, and, as I hope, not without fuccefs, I will tell thofe folid gentlemen, that all thefe trifling things, as they think them, collectively form that pleafing je ne feais quoi that enfemble †, which they are utter ftrangers to both in themfelves and others. The word amiable is not known in their language, or the thing in their Great ufage of the world, great attention, and a great defire of pleafing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle. It is from old people's looking upon thefe things as trifles, or not thinking of them at all, that fo many young people are fo awkward, and fo illbred. Their parents, often carelefs and unmindful of them, give them only the common run of education, as fchool, univerfity, and then travelling; without examining, and very often without being able to judge, if they did examine, what progrefs they make in any one of thefe ftages. Then they carelefsly comfort themfelves, and fay, that their fons will do like other people's fons; and fo they do, that is, commonly very ill. They correct none of the childish, nafty tricks, which they get at fchool; nor the illiberal manners which they contract at the university; nor the frivolous and fuperficial pertnefs, which is commonly all 1 That altogether, that they acquire by their travels. As they do not tell them of these things, nobody elfe can; fo they go on in the practice of them, without ever hearing, or knowing, that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking. For, as I have often formerly obferved to you, nobody but a father can take the liberty to reprove a young fellow grown up, for those kind of inaccuracies and improprieties of behaviour. The moft intimate friendship, unaflifted by the paternal fuperiority, wilk not authorise it. I may truly fay, therefore, that you are happy in having me for a fincere, friendly, and quick-fighted monitor. Nothing will efcape me; I fhall pry for your defects, in order to correct them, as curioufly as I fhall feek for your perfections, in order to applaud and reward them; with this difference only, that I fhall publicly mention the latter, and never hint at the former, but in a letter to, or a tête-à-tête with you. I will never put you out of countenance before company; and I hope you will never give me reason to be out of countenance for you, as any one of the above-mentioned defects would make me. Prætor non curat de minimis ‡, was a maxim in the Roman law, for caufes only of a certain value were tried by them; but there were inferior jurifdictions, that took cognisance of the fmalleft. Now I fhall try you, not only as a prætor in the greateft, but as a cenfor in leffer, and as the loweft magiftrate in the leaft cafes. I have this moment received Mr. Harte's letter of the 1ft November, by which I am very glad to find that he thinks of moving towards Paris, the end of this month, which looks as if his leg was better; befides, in my opinion, you both of you only lofe time at Montpellier; he would find better advice, and you better company, at Paris. In the mean time, I hope you go into the best company there is at Montpellier, and there always is fome at the Intendant's or the Commandant's. You will have had full time to have learned les petites chanfons Languedociennes, which are exceeding pretty ones, both words and tunes. I remember, The prætor regards not little things.. when I was in thofe parts, I was surprised at the difference which I found between the people on one fide, and those on the other fide of the Rhone. The Provenceaux were, in general, furly, ill-bred, ugly, and fwarthy: the Languedocians the very reverfe-a cheerful, well-bred, handsome people.-Adieu ! Yours most affectionately. LETTER CIV. French Marine and Commerce... Treaty of Commerce...A&_of Navigation...Orthography. I MY DEAR FRIEND, London, Nov. the 19th. Was very glad to find, by your letter of the 12th, that you had informed yourself fo well of the state of the French marine at Toulon, and of the commerce at Marseilles: they are objects that deferve the inquiry and attention of every man, who intends to be concerned in public affairs. The French are now wifely attentive to both; their commerce is incredibly increased, within these last thirty years: they have beaten us out of great part of our Levant trade: their Eaft India trade has greatly affected ours: and, in the Weft-Indies, their Martinico establishment fupplies, not only France itself, but the greatest part of Europe, with fugars whereas our Iflands, as Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the Leeward, have now no other market for theirs but England. New France, or Canada, has alfo greatly leffened our fur and skin trade. It is true (as you fay) that we have no treaty of commerce subsisting (I do not fay with Marseilles) but with France. There was a treaty of commerce made, between England and France, immediately after the treaty of Utrecht; but the whole treaty was conditional, and to depend upon the parliament's enacting certain things, which were ftipulated in two of the articles : the parliament, after a very famous debate, would not do it; fo the treaty fell to the ground: however, the out-lines of that treaty are, by mutual and tacit con |