fear of close application and laborious diligence With the last, there is nothing you may not conquer; and the first is sure to conquer and enslave every person who does not strenuously and generously resist the first allurements of it, lest by small indulgences, he fall under the yoke of irresistible habit. "Vitanda est improba Siren, Desidia," I desire may be fixed to the curtains of your bed and to the walls of your chambers. If you do not rise early, you rever can make any progress worth mentioning; if you do not set apart your hours of reading-if you suffer yourself or any one else to break in upon them-your days will slip through your hands unprofitably and frivolously, unpraised by all you wish to please, and really unenjoyed by yourself. Be assured, whatever you take from pleasure, amusements, or indolence, for these first few years of your life, will repay you a hundred fold in the pleasures, honours, and advantages of all the remainder of your days. You are to qualify yourself for the part in society to which you are called by your birth and estate. You are to be a gentleman of such learning and accomplishments as may hereafter distinguish you in the service of your country; not a pedant, who reads only to be called learned, instead of considering learning as an instrument of action.

I have not the pleasure of knowing the gentleman who is your tutor, but I dare say he is every way equal to such a charge, which I think no small one. I hope he will concur with me, as to the course of study I desire you may begin with; and that such books, and such only, as I have pointed out, may be read.-Believe me, my dear nephew, with true affection, CHATHAM.

Ever yours,

The Earl of Chatham to his Nephew, Thomas Pitt, Esq. (afterwards Lord Camelford,) at Cambridge.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

Bath, Jan. 14, 1754.

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 pleasing in 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, further information or explanation on any point, 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. 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 regu.

larity, 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 offers 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 sheetanchor 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 glory, 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,

CHATHAM.

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