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acquaintance with Mr. Wheler which you have so fortunately begun: and 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, superior both to your own, must necessarily, in good sense, and in the view of acquiring knowledge from them, entitle them to all deference, and submission of your own lights to theirs, you will particularly practise that first and greatest rule for pleasing in conversation, as well as for drawing instruction and improvement from the company of one's superiors in age and knowledge; namely, to be a patient, attentive, and well-bred hearer, and to answer with modesty: to deliver your own opinions sparingly, and with proper diffidence; and if you are forced to desire further information or explanation upon a point, to do it with proper apologies for the trouble you give: or if obliged 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. There is likewise a particular attention required to contradict with good manners; such as, "begging pardon," "begging leave to doubt," and such like phrases. Py. thagoras enjoined his scholars an absolute silence for a long noviciate. I am far from approving such a taciturnity: but I highly recommend the end and intent of Pythagoras's injunction; which is, to dedicate the first parts of life more to hear and learn, in order to collect materials, out of which to form opinions founded on proper lights, and well-examined sound principles, than to be

presuming, prompt, and flippant in hazarding one's own slight crude notions of things; and thereby exposing the nakedness and emptiness of the mind, like a house opened to company before it is fitted either with necessaries, or any ornaments for their reception and entertainment. And not only will this disgrace follow from such temerity and presumption, but a more serious danger is sure to ensue, that is, the embracing errors for truths, prejudices for principles; and when that is once done (no matter how vainly and weakly), the adhering perhaps to false and dangerous notions, only because one has declared for them, and submitting, for life, the understanding and conscience to a yoke of base and servile prejudices, vainly taken up and obstinately retained. This will never be your danger; but I thought it not amiss to offer these reflections to your thoughts. As to your manner of behaving towards these unhappy young gentlemen you describe, let it be manly and easy; decline their parties with civility; retort their raillery with raillery, always tempered with goodbreeding: if they banter your regularity, order, decency, and love of study, banter in return their neglect of them; and venture to own frankly, that you came to Cambridge to learn what you can, not to follow what they are pleased to call pleasure. In short, let your external behaviour to them be as full of politeness and ease as your inward estimation of them is full of pity, mixed with contempt. I come now to the part of the advice I have to offer to 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 the true sentiments of religion. If you are not right towards God, you can never be so towards man: the noblest sentiment of the human breast is here brought to the test. Is gratitude in the number of a man's virtues? If it be, the highest Benefactor demands the warmest returns of gratitude, love, and praise: Ingratum qui dixerit, omnia dixit. 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 he daily receives at the hands of his neverfailing Almighty friend. "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," is big with the deepest wisdom: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and, an upright heart, that 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, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," whatever your young gentlemen of pleasure think of a whore and a bottle, a tainted health and battered constitution. 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 as preciously as you will fly, with abhorrence and contempt, superstition and enthusiasm. The first is the perfection and glory of the human nature; the two last, the deprivation and disgrace of it. 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. The words of a heathen were so fine that I must give them to you: Compositum jus, fusque animi, sanctosque recessus mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto.

Go on, my dear child, in the admirable dispositions you have towards all that is right and good, and make yourself the love and admiration of the world! I have neither paper nor words to tell you how tenderly I am yours.

LETTER LXXIII.

FROM THE EARL OF CHATHAM TO HIS NEPHEW THOMAS PITT, ESQ.

Bath, Jan. 24, 1754.

I WILL not lose a moment before I return my most tender and warm thanks to the most amiable, valuable, and noble-minded of youths, for the infinite pleasure his letter gives me. My dear nephew, what a beautiful thing is genuine goodness, and how lovely does the human mind appear in its native purity (in a nature as happy as yours), before the taints of a corrupted world have touched it! To guard you from the fatal effects of all the dangers that surround and beset youth (and many they are, nam variæ illudunt pestes), I thank God, is become my pleasing and very important charge; your own choice, and our nearness in blood, and still more, a dearer and nearer relation of hearts, which I feel between us, all concur to make it so. I shall seek then every occasion, my dear young friend, of being useful to you, by offering von

those lights, which one must have lived some years in the world to see the full force and extent of, and which the best mind and clearest understanding will suggest imperfectly, in any case, and in the most difficult, delicate, and essential points perhaps not at all, till experience, that dear-bought instructor, comes to our assistance. What I shall therefore make my task (a happy delightful task, if I prove a safeguard to so much opening virtue), is to be for some years, what you cannot be to yourself, your experience; experience anticipated, and ready digested for your use. Thus we will

endeavour, my dear child, to join the two best seasons of life, to establish your virtue and your happiness upon solid foundations: miscens autumni et veris honores. So much in general. I will now, my dear nephew, say a few things to you upon a matter where you have surprisingly little to learn, considering you have seen nothing but Boconnock; I mean, behaviour. Behaviour is of infinite advantage or prejudice to a man, as he happens to have formed it to a graceful, noble, engaging, and proper manner, or to a vulgar, coarse, ill-bred, or awkward and ungenteel one. Behaviour, though an external thing, which seems rather to belong to the body than to the mind, is certainly founded in considerable virtues: though I have known instances of good men, with something very revolting and offensive in their manner of behaviour, especially when they have the misfortune to be naturally very awkward and ungenteel; and which their mistaken friends have helped to confirm them in, by telling them, they were above such trifles, as being genteel, dancing, fencing, riding,

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