Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0255" id="link2H_4_0255"></SPAN></p> <h2> LETTER CCLIV </h2> <h3> BATH, December 13, 1762. </h3> <p>MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter, which gave me a very clear account of the debate in your House. It is impossible for a human creature to speak well for three hours and a half; I question even if Belial, who, according to Milton, was the orator of the fallen angels, ever spoke so long at a time.</p> <p>There must have been, a trick in Charles Townshend's speaking for the Preliminaries; for he is infinitely above having an opinion. Lord Egremont must be ill, or have thoughts of going into some other place; perhaps into Lord Granville's, who they say is dying: when he dies, the ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all.</p> <p>I shall be in town, barring accidents, this day sevennight, by dinnertime; when I have ordered a haricot, to which you will be very welcome, about four o'clock. 'En attendant Dieu vous aye dans sa sainte garde'!</p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0256" id="link2H_4_0256"></SPAN></p> <h2> LETTER CCLV </h2> <h3> BLACKHEATH, June 14, 1763 </h3> <p>MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, by the last mail, your letter of the 4th, from The Hague; so far so good.</p> <p>You arrived 'sonica' at The Hague, for our Ambassador's entertainment; I find he has been very civil to you. You are in the right to stop for two or three days at Hanau, and make your court to the lady of that place. &mdash;[Her Royal Highness Princess Mary of England, Landgravine of Hesse.] &mdash;Your Excellency makes a figure already in the newspapers; and let them, and others, excellency you as much as they please, but pray suffer not your own servants to do it.</p> <p>Nothing new of any kind has happened here since you went; so I will wish you a good-night, and hope God will bless you.</p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0257" id="link2H_4_0257"></SPAN></p> <h2> LETTER CCLVI </h2> <h3> BLACKHEATH, July 14, 1763 </h3> <p>MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Ratisbon, where I am glad that you are arrived safe. You are, I find, over head and ears engaged in ceremony and etiquette. You must not yield in anything essential, where your public character may suffer; but I advise you, at the same time, to distinguish carefully what may, and what may not affect it, and to despise some German 'minutiae'; such as one step lower or higher upon the stairs, a bow more or less, and such sort of trifles.</p> <p>By what I see in Cressener's letter to you, the cheapness of wine compensates the quantity, as the cheapness of servants compensates the number that you must make use of.</p> <p>Write to your mother often, if it be but three words, to prove your existence; for, when she does not hear from you, she knows to a demonstration that you are dead, if not buried.</p> <p>The inclosed is a letter of the utmost consequence, which I was desired to forward, with care and speed, to the most Serene LOUIS.</p> <p>My head is not well to-day. So God bless you!</p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0258" id="link2H_4_0258"></SPAN></p> <h2> LETTER CCLVII </h2> <h3> BLACKHEATH, August 1, 1763. </h3> <p>MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope that by this time you are pretty well settled at Ratisbon, at least as to the important points of the ceremonial; so that you may know, to precision, to whom you must give, and from whom you must require the 'seine Excellentz'. Those formalities are, no doubt, ridiculous enough in themselves; but yet they are necessary for manners, and sometimes for business; and both would suffer by laying them quite aside.</p> <p>I have lately had an attack of a new complaint, which I have long suspected that I had in my body, 'in actu primo', as the pedants call it, but which I never felt in 'actu secundo' till last week, and that is a fit of the stone or gravel. It was, thank God, but a slight one; but it was 'dans toutes les formes'; for it was preceded by a pain in my loins, which I at first took for some remains of my rheumatism; but was soon convinced of my mistake, by making water much blacker than coffee, with a prodigious sediment of gravel. I am now perfectly easy again, and have no more indications of this complaint.</p> <p>God keep you from that and deafness! Other complaints are the common, and almost the inevitable lot of human nature, but admit of some mitigation. God bless you!</p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0259" id="link2H_4_0259"></SPAN></p> <h2> LETTER CCLVIII </h2> <h3> BLACKHEATH, August 22, 1763 </h3> <p>MY DEAR FRIEND: You will, by this post, hear from others that Lord Egremont died two days ago of an apoplexy; which, from his figure, and the constant plethora he lived in, was reasonably to be expected. You will ask me, who is to be Secretary in his room: To which I answer, that I do not know. I should guess Lord Sandwich, to be succeeded in the Admiralty by Charles Townshend; unless the Duke of Bedford, who seems to have taken to himself the department of Europe, should have a mind to it. This event may perhaps produce others; but, till this happened, everything was in a state of inaction, and absolutely nothing was done. Before the next session, this chaos must necessarily take some form, either by a new jumble of its own atoms, or by mixing them with the more efficient ones of the opposition.</p> <p>I see by the newspapers, as well as by your letter, that the difficulties still exist about your ceremonial at Ratisbon; should they, from pride and folly, prove insuperable, and obstruct your real business, there is one expedient which may perhaps remove difficulties, and which I have often known practiced; but which I believe our people know here nothing of; it is, to have the character of MINISTER only in your ostensible title, and that of envoy extraordinary in your pocket, to produce occasionally, especially if you should be sent to any of the Electors in your neighborhood; or else, in any transactions that you may have, in which your title of envoy extraordinary may create great difficulties, to have a reversal given you, declaring that the temporary suspension of that character, 'ne donnera pas la moindre atteinte ni a vos droits, ni a vos pretensions'. As for the rest, divert yourself as well as you can, and eat and drink as little as you can. And so God bless you!</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />