WRITTEN BY

THE LATE RIGHT HONOURABLE

PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE,

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD,

ΤΟ

HIS SON;

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL II.

LONDON:

Printed for J. Walker; J. Johnson; J. Richardson; R. Faulder and Son; F. C. and J. Rivington; Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe; R. Lea; J. Nunn; Cuthell and Martin; E. Jeffery; Newman and Co.; Lackington, Allen, and Co.; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; Cadell and Davies; Wilkie and Robinson; J. Booker; Black, Parry, and Kingsbury; Sherwood, Neely, and Jones; J. Asperne; R. Scholey; and J. Harris.

TAN

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S

LETTERS.

I

LETTER CLXXII.

DEAR BOY,

London, December 20, O. S. 1748.

RECEIVED last Saturday, by three mails which came in at once, two letters from Mr. Harte, and yours of the 8th, N. S.

It was I who mistook your meaning with regard to your German letters, and not you who expressed it ill. I thought it was the writing of the German character that took up so much of your time, and therefore I advised you, by the frequent writing of that character, to make it easy and familiar to you. But since it is only the propriety and purity of the German language which make your writing it so tedious and laborious, I will tell you, I shall not be nice upon that article, and did not expect you should yet be master of all the idioms, delicacies, and peculiarities of that difficult language. That can only come by use, especially frequent speaking; therefore, when you shall be at Berlin, and afterwards at Turin, where you will meet many Germans, pray VOL. II.

B

take all opportunities of conversing in German, in order not only to keep what you have got of that language, but likewise to improve and perfect your. self in it. As to the characters, you form them very well, and as you yourself own, better than your English ones; but then let me ask you this question; Why do you not form your Roman characters better? for I maintain, that it is in every man's power to write what hand he pleases, and consequently that he ought to write a good one. You form, particularly, your e and your in zigzag, instead of making them straight, a fault very easily mended. You will not, I believe, be angry with this little criticism, when I tell you, that, by all the accounts I have had of late from Mr. Harte and others, this is the only criticism that you give me occasion to make. Mr. Harte's last letter of the 14th, N. S. particularly, makes me extremely happy, by assuring me, that in every respect you do extremely well. Į am not afraid, by what I now say, of making you too vain; because I do not think that a just consciousness, and an honest pride of doing well, can be called vanity; for vanity is either the silly affectation of good qualities which one has not, or the sillier pride of what does not deserve commendation in itself. By Mr. Harte's account you are got very near the goal of Greek and Latin, and therefore I cannot suppose that, as your sense increases, your Endeavours and your speed will slacken, in finishing the small remains of your course. Consider what lustre and éclat it will give you, when you return here, to be allowed to be the best scholar, of a gentleman, in England; not to mention the real pleasure and solid comfort which such knowledge will give you throughout your whole life. Mr. Harte tells me another thing, which I own I did not expect; it is, that when you read aloud, or repeat parts of plays, you speak very properly and distinctly. This relieves me from great uneasiness, which I was under upon account of your former bad enunciation.

Go on, and attend most diligently to this important article. It is, of all the graces (and they are all necessary), the most necessary one

Comte Pertingue, who has been here about a fortnight, far from disavowing, confirms all that Mr. Harte has said to your advantage. He thinks he shall be at Turin much about the time of your arrival there, and pleases himself with the hopes of being useful to you: though, should you get there before him, he says that Comte du Perron, with whom you are a favourite, will take that care. You see by this one instance, and in the course of your life you will see by a million of instances, of what use a good reputation is, and how swift and advantageous a harbinger it is, wherever one goes. Upon this point too Mr. Harte does you justice, and tells me, that you are desirous of praise from the praiseworthy; this is a right and generous ambition, and without which, I fear, few people would deserve praise.

But here let me, as an old stager upon the theatre of the world, suggest one consideration to you, which is, to extend your desire of praise a little beyond the strictly praise-worthy, or else you may be apt to discover too much contempt for at least three parts in five of the world, who will never forgive it you. In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves, who singly, from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable. And a man, who will show every knave or fool, that he thinks him such, will engage in a most ruinous war, against numbers much superior to those that he and his allies can bring into the field. Abhor a knave, and pity a fool, in your heart; but let neither of them unnecessarily see that you do so. Some complaisance and attention to.fools is prudent, and not mean: as a silent abhorrence of individual knaves is often necessary, and not criminal.