LETTER VIII. The earl of Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, esq. (afterwards lord Camelford,) at Cambridge. Bath, Jan. 14, 1754. My dear nephew, I intended to write to you soon; but I do it the sooner on account of your letter to your aunt, which she transmitted to me. If any thing, my dear boy, could have happened, to raise you higher in my esteem, and to endear you more to me, it is the abhorrence you feel for the scene of vice and folly, and of real misery and perdition, (under the false notion of pleasure and spirit,) which has opened to you at your college; and, at the same time, the generous and wise resolution, and true spirit, with which you resisted and repulsed the first attempts upon a mind, I thank God, infinitely too firm and noble, as well as too elegant and enlightened, to be in any danger of yielding to such contemptible and wretched corruptions. You charm me with the description of Mr. Wheler. Cultivate the acquaintance with him which you have so fortunately begun. In general, be sure to associate with men much older than yourself; scholars whenever you can; but always with men of decent and honourable lives. As their age and learning, both superior to your own, must necessarily entitle them to deference, and to the submission of your own lights to theirs, you will learn that first and greatest rule for pleasingi n conversation, as well as for drawing instruction and improvement from the company of superiors in age and knowledge: namely, to be a patient, attentive, and well-bred hearer, and to answer with modesty; to deliver your own opinion sparingly, and with becoming diffidence; to request, when necessary, farther information or explanation on any point, with proper apologies for the trouble you give; or, if oblig ed to differ, to do it with all possible candour, and an unprejudiced desire to find and ascertain truth, with an entire indifference to the side on which that truth is to be found. Pythagoras enjoined his scholars an absolute silence through a long novitiate. I am far from approving such taciturnity. But I highly recommend the intent of Pythagoras's injunction: which is, to dedicate the first parts of life to hear and to learn, in order to collect materials, out of which to form well-founded opinions, and sound principles; and not to be presuming. prompt, and flippant, in hazarding slight, crude notions of things, and, by that means, expose the nakedness of the mind, like a house opened to company before it is furnished either with necessaries, or with ornaments, for their reception and entertainment. And not only will this disgrace follow from such temerity and presumption, but a more serious danger is likely to ensue; which is, the embracing of errors for truths, prejudices for principles; and when that is once done, the adhering to them, only because one has declared for them; and the submitting, for life, of the understanding and the conscience to a yoke of base and servile notions, vainly taken up, and obstinately retained. This will never be your danger; but I thought it not amiss to offer these reflections to your mind. As to your manner of behaving towards the unhappy young gentlemen you describe, let it be manly and easy; decline their parties with civility; retort their raillery with raillery, always tempered with good breeding. If they banter your regularity, order, decency, and love of study, banter, in return, the opposite qualities in them; and venture to own frankly, that you came to Cambridge, to learn what you can, not to follow what they call pleasure. I come now to the part of the advice I have to offer you, which most nearly concerns your welfare, and upon which every good and honourable purpose of your life will assuredly turn; I mean the keeping up in your heart true sentiments of religion. If you are not right towards God, you can never be so towards man. The noblest feeling of the human heart is here brought to the test. Is gratitude in the number of a man's virtues? If it is, the highest Benefactor demands the warmest returns of gratitude, love, and praise. If a man wants this virtue, where there are infinite obligations to excite and quicken it, he will be likely to want all others towards his fellow-creatures; whose utmost gifts are poor, compared to those which he daily receives at the hands of his never failing Almighty Friend. "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," is a maxim big with the deepest wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;" and " to depart from evil is understanding." This is eternally true, whether the wits and rakes of Cambridge allow it or not; nay, I must add of this religious wisdom, that, "her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," whatever your young gentlemen of pleasure think. Hold fast, therefore, by this sheet-anchor of happiness, Religion: you will often want it in the times of most danger; the storms and tempests of life. Cherish true religion ; shun, with abhorrence and contempt, superstition and enthusiasm. The first is the perfection and glo ry, the two last are the depravation and disgrace, of human nature. Remember the essence of religion, is," a heart void of offence towards God and man;" not subtle, speculative opinions, but an active, vital principle of faith. Go on, my dear child, in the admirable dispositions you have towards all that is right and good.—I have neither paper nor words to tell you, how tenderly I am yours, LETTER IX. Dr. Schomberg to a lady.-On reading. Madam, Conformably to your desire, and my promise, I present you with a few thoughts on a method of reading which you would have had sooner, only that you gave me leave to set them down at my leisure hours. If my remarks should answer your expectations; if they should conduce to the spending of your time in a more profitable and agreeable manner, than most of your sex generally spend theirs ; it will give me a pleasure equal at least to that which you will receive. It is to be wished that the female part of the human creation, on whom Nature has poured so many charms with so lavish a hand, would pay some regard to the cultivation of their minds, and the improvement of their understandings. This might easily be accomplished. Would they bestow a fourth part of the time, in reading proper books, which they throw away on the trifles and gewgaws of dress, it would perfectly answer the purpose. Not that I am against the ladies adorning their persons: but let it be done with reason and good sense, not caprice and humour; for there is good sense in dress as in all things else. Strange doctrine to some! but I am sure, madam, you know there is: you practise it. The most important rule to be laid down to any one who reads for improvement, is, never to read but with attention. As abstruse learning is not necessary for the accomplishment of one of your sex, a small degree of it will suffice. The subjects which I would particularly recommend to you, I will throw under the following heads: history, morality, and poetry. The first employs the memory; the second, the judg ment; and the third, the imagination. Whenever you undertake to read history, make a small abstract of the memorable events, and set down in what year they happened. If you entertain yourself with the life of a famous person, do the same with respect to his most remarkable actions; adding the year and the place of his birth and death. You will find this method a great help to your memory, as it will lead you to remember what you do not write down, by a sort of chain that links the whole history together. Books on morality deserve an exact reading. There are none in our language more useful and entertaining than the Spectators, Tatlers and Guardians. They are the standards of the English tongue; and, as such, they should be read over and over again : for as we imperceptibly slide into the manners and habits of those persons, with whom we most frequently converse: so, reading, being as it were, a silent conversation, we insensibly write and talk in the style of the authors, whom we have most frequently read, and who have left the deepest impressions on our mind. Now, in order to retain what you read on the various subjects that fall under the head of morality, I would advise you to mark with a pencil whatever you find particularly worth remembering. If a passage should strike you, mark it in the margin; if an expression, draw a line under it; if a whole paper in the forementioned books, or any others which are written in the same loose and unconnected manner, make an asterisk over the first line. By these means you will select the most valuable parts; which, by being distinguished from the rest, will, on repeated reading, sink deeper in your memory. The last article is poetry. To distinguish good poetry from bad, turn it out of verse into prose, and see whether the thought is natural, and the words are adapted to it; or whether they are not too big and sounding, or too low and mean for the sense which they would convey. This rule will prevent you from |