Part 13

A FATHER’S ANXIETY.--It seems extraordinary, but it is very true, that my anxiety for you increases in proportion to the good accounts which I receive of you from all hands. I promise myself so much from you, that I dread the least disappointment. You are now so near the port, which I have so long wished and labored to bring you safe into, that my concern would be doubled, should you be shipwrecked within sight of it. The object, therefore, of this letter is (laying aside all the authority of the parent), to conjure you as a friend, by the affection you have for me (and surely you have reason to have some), and by the regard you have for yourself, to go on with assiduity and attention, to complete that work, which, of late, you have carried on so well, and which is now so near being finished. My wishes, and my plan, were to make you shine, and distinguish yourself equally in the learned and the polite world. Few have been able to do it. [_Sept. 12, 1749._]

THE STUDENT OF LIFE AND THE TRIFLER: A DIALOGUE.--I will suppose you at Rome, studying six hours uninterruptedly with Mr. Harte, every morning, and passing your evenings with the best company of Rome, observing their manners and forming your own; and I will suppose a number of idle, sauntering, illiterate English, as there commonly is there, living entirely with one another, supping, drinking, and sitting up late at each other’s lodgings; commonly in riots and scrapes when drunk, and never in good company when sober. I will take one of these pretty fellows, and give you the dialogue between him and yourself; such as I dare say it will be on his side, and such as I hope it will be on yours.

_Englishman._ Will you come and breakfast with me to-morrow; there will be four or five of our countrymen; we have provided chaises, and we will drive somewhere out of town after breakfast?

_Stanhope._ I am very sorry I cannot; but I am obliged to be at home all the morning.

_Englishman._ Why then we will come and breakfast with you.

_Stanhope._ I can’t do that neither, I am engaged.

_Englishman._ Well, then, let it be the next day.

_Stanhope._ To tell you the truth, it can be no day in the morning; for I neither go out, nor see anybody at home before twelve.

_Englishman._ And what the devil do you do with yourself till twelve o’clock?

_Stanhope._ I am not by myself, I am with Mr. Harte.

_Englishman._ Then what the devil do you do with him?

_Stanhope._ We study different things; we read, we converse.

_Englishman._ Very pretty amusement indeed! Are you to take orders then?

_Stanhope._ Yes, my father’s orders, I believe, I must take.

_Englishman._ Why, hast thou no more spirit than to mind an old fellow a thousand miles off?

_Stanhope._ If I don’t mind his orders he won’t mind my draughts.

_Englishman._ What, does the old prig threaten, then? Threatened folks live long; never mind threats.

_Stanhope._ No, I can’t say that he has ever threatened me in his life; but I believe I had best not provoke him.

_Englishman._ Pooh! you would have one angry letter from the old fellow, and there would be an end of it.

_Stanhope._ You mistake him mightily; he always does more than he says. He has never been angry with me yet, that I remember, in his life; but if I were to provoke him, I am sure he would never forgive me; he would be coolly immovable, and I might beg and pray, and write my heart out to no purpose.

_Englishman._ Why then, he is an old dog, that’s all I can say: and pray, are you to obey your dry-nurse too, this same what’s his name--Mr. Harte?

_Stanhope._ Yes.

_Englishman._ So he stuffs you all morning with Greek, and Latin, and logic, and all that. Egad, I have a dry-nurse too, but I never looked into a book with him in my life; I have not so much as seen the face of him this week, and don’t care a louse if I never see it again.

_Stanhope._ My dry-nurse never desires anything of me that is not reasonable, and for my own good; and therefore I like to be with him.

_Englishman._ Very sententious and edifying, upon my word! at this rate you will be reckoned a very good young man.

_Stanhope._ Why, that will do me no harm.

_Englishman._ Will you be with us to-morrow in the evening, then? We shall be ten with you; and I have got some excellent good wine; and we’ll be very merry.

_Stanhope._ I am very much obliged to you but I am engaged for all the evening, to-morrow; first at Cardinal Albani’s; and then to sup at the Venetian Embassadress’s.

_Englishman._ How the devil can you like being always with these foreigners? I never go amongst them, with all their formalities and ceremonies. I am never easy in company with them, and I don’t know why, but I am ashamed.

_Stanhope._ I am neither ashamed nor afraid; I am very easy with them; they are very easy with me; I get the language, and I see their characters, by conversing with them; and that is what we are sent abroad for. Is it not?

_Englishman._ I hate your modest women’s company; your women of fashion, as they call ’em. I don’t know what to say to them, for my part.

_Stanhope._ Have you ever conversed with them?

_Englishman._ No, I never conversed with them; but I have been sometimes in their company, though much against my will.

_Stanhope._ But at least they have done you no hurt; which is, probably, more than you can say of the women you do converse with.

_Englishman._ That’s true, I own; but for all that, I would rather keep company with my surgeon half the year, than with your women of fashion the year round.

_Stanhope._ Tastes are different, you know, and every man follows his own.

_Englishman._ That’s true; but thine’s a devilish odd one, Stanhope. All morning with thy dry-nurse; all the evening in formal fine company; and all day long afraid of old Daddy in England. Thou art a queer fellow, and I am afraid there’s nothing to be made of thee.

_Stanhope._ I am afraid so, too.

_Englishman._ Well, then, good-night to you; you have no objection, I hope, to my being drunk to-night, which I certainly will be?

_Stanhope._ Not in the least; nor to your being sick to-morrow, which you as certainly will be; and so good-night too.

You will observe, that I have not put into your mouth those good arguments, which upon such an occasion would, I am sure, occur to you; as piety and affection towards me; regard and friendship for Mr. Harte; respect for your own moral character, and for all the relative duties of man, son, pupil and citizen. Such solid arguments would be thrown away upon such shallow puppies. Leave them to their ignorance, and to their dirty, disgraceful vices. They will severely feel the effects of them, when it will be too late. Without the comfortable refuge of learning, and with all the sickness and pains of a ruined stomach, and a rotten carcass, if they happen to arrive at old age, it is an uneasy and ignominious one. The ridicule which such fellows endeavor to throw upon those who are not like them is, in the opinion of all men of sense, the most authentic panegyric. Go on, then, my dear child, in the way you are in, only for a year and a half more; that is all I ask of you. After that, I promise that you shall be your own master, and that I will pretend to no other title than that of your best and truest friend. You shall receive advice, but no orders, from me; and in truth you will want no other advice, but such as youth and inexperience must necessarily require. You shall certainly want nothing that is requisite, not only for your conveniency, but also for your pleasures, which I always desire should be gratified. You will suppose that I mean the pleasures _d’un honnête homme_. [_Same date._]

A PANEGYRIST.--If I had faith in philters and love potions, I should suspect that you had given Sir Charles Williams some, by the manner in which he speaks of you, not only to me, but to everybody else. I will not repeat to you what he says of the extent and correctness of your knowledge, as it might either make you vain, or persuade you that you had already enough of what nobody can have too much. You will easily imagine how many questions I asked, and how narrowly I sifted him upon your subject; he answered me, and I dare say with truth, just as I could have wished. [_Sept. 22, 1749._]

NECESSITY OF ATTENTION.--Sir Charles Williams told me then, that in company you were frequently most _provokingly_ inattentive, absent, _and distrait_. That you came into a room and presented yourself very awkwardly; that at table you constantly threw down knives, forks, napkins, bread, etc., and that you neglected your person and dress to a degree unpardonable at any age, and much more so at yours.

DISTRACTION AND INATTENTION.--I know no one thing more offensive to a company than that inattention and _distraction_. It is showing them the utmost contempt; and people never forgive contempt. No man is _distrait_ with the man he fears or the woman he loves; which is a proof that every man can get the better of that _distraction_, when he thinks it worth his while to do so; and, take my word for it, it is always worth his while. For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent man, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention. Besides, can an absent man make any observations upon the characters, customs, and manners of the company? No. He may be in the best companies all his lifetime (if they will admit him, which, if I were they, I would not), and never be one jot the wiser. I never will converse with an absent man; one may as well talk to a deaf one. It is, in truth, a practical blunder to address ourselves to a man who, we see plainly, neither hears, minds, nor understands us. Moreover, I aver that no man is, in any degree, fit for either business or conversation who cannot and does not direct and command his attention to the present object, be that what it will. You know, by experience, that I grudge no expense in your education, but I will positively not keep you a flapper. You may read, in Dr. Swift, the description of these flappers, and the use they were of to their friends.

DANCING.--Learn to dance, not so much for the sake of dancing, as for coming into a room, and presenting yourself genteelly and gracefully. Women, whom you ought to endeavor to please, cannot forgive a vulgar and awkward air and gesture; _il leur faut du brillant_. The generality of men are pretty like them, and are equally taken by the same exterior graces. [_Same date._]

FINERY UNFIT FOR THE OLD.--I am very glad that you have received the diamond buckles safe: all I desire in return for them is, that they may be buckled upon your feet, and that your stockings may not hide them. I should be sorry you were an egregious fop; but I protest that, of the two, I would rather have you a fop than a sloven. I think negligence in my own dress, even at my age, when certainly I expect no advantages from my dress, would be indecent with regard to others. I have done with fine clothes; but I will have my plain clothes fit me, and made like other people’s. In the evenings I recommend to you the company of women of fashion, who have a right to attention, and will be paid it. Their company will smooth your manners, and give you a habit of attention and respect; of which you will find the advantage among men.

My plan for you, from the beginning, has been to make you shine equally in the learned and in the polite world; the former part is almost completed to my wishes, and will, I am persuaded, in a little time more be quite so. The latter part is still in your power to complete; and I flatter myself that you will do it, or else the former part will avail you very little; especially in your department, where the exterior address and graces do half the business; they must be the harbingers of your merit, or your merit will be very coldly received: all can and do judge of the former, few of the latter.

Mr. Harte tells me that you have grown very much since your illness; if you get up to five feet ten, or even nine inches, your figure will, probably, be a good one. [_Same date._]

MIS-SENT LETTERS.--Our letters go, at best, so irregularly, and so often miscarry totally, that, for greater security, I repeat the same things. So, though I acknowledge by last post Mr. Harte’s letter of the 8th September, N. S., I acknowledge it again by this to you.[41] [_Same date._]

BEND TO CEREMONY.--_Apropos_ of the Pope, remember to be presented to him before you leave Rome, and go through the necessary ceremonies for it, whether of kissing his slipper or his breech; for I would never deprive myself of anything that I wanted to do or see by refusing to comply with an established custom. When I was in Catholic countries, I never declined kneeling in their churches at the elevation, nor elsewhere, when the host went by. It is a complaisance due to the custom of the place, and by no means, as some silly people have imagined, an implied approbation of their doctrine. Bodily attitudes and situations are things so very indifferent in themselves, that I would quarrel with nobody about them. It may, indeed, be improper for Mr. Harte to pay that tribute of complaisance, upon account of his character. [_Same date._]

THE VULGAR MAN--TRIFLES--VULGARISM.--A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted, thinks everything that is said meant at him; if the company happens to laugh, he is persuaded they laugh at him; he grows angry and testy, says something very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape, by showing what he calls a proper spirit, and asserting himself. A man of fashion does not suppose himself to be either the sole or principal object of the thoughts, looks, or words of the company; and never suspects that he is either slighted or laughed at, unless he is conscious that he deserves it. And if (which very seldom happens) the company is absurd or ill-bred enough to do either, he does not care twopence, unless the insult be so gross and plain as to require satisfaction of another kind. As he is above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them; and, wherever they are concerned, rather acquiesces than wrangles. A vulgar man’s conversation always savors strongly of the lowness of his education and company. It turns chiefly upon his domestic affairs, his servants, the excellent order he keeps in his own family, and the little anecdotes of the neighborhood; all which he relates with emphasis, as interesting matters. He is a man gossip.

Vulgarism in language is the next and distinguishing characteristic of bad company and a bad education. A man of fashion avoids nothing with more care than that. Proverbial expressions, and trite sayings, are the flowers of the rhetoric of a vulgar man. Would he say, that men differ in their tastes, he both supports and adorns that opinion, by the good old saying, as he respectfully calls it, that _what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison_. If anybody attempts being _smart_, as he calls it, upon him, he gives them _tit for tat_, ay, that he does. He has always some favorite word for the time being, which, for the sake of using often, he commonly abuses. Such as _vastly_ angry, _vastly_ kind, _vastly_ handsome, and _vastly_ ugly. Even his pronunciation of proper words carries the mark of the beast along with it. He calls the earth _yearth_; he is _obleiged_[42] not _obliged_ to you. He goes _to wards_, and not towards such a place. He sometimes affects hard words, by way of ornament, which he always mangles like a learned woman. A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms: uses neither favorite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies. [_Sept. 27, 1749._]

LEFT-HANDEDNESS.--An awkward address, ungraceful attitudes and actions, and a certain left-handedness (if I may use that word) loudly proclaim low education and low company; for it is impossible to suppose that a man can have frequented good company without having catched something, at least, of their air and motions. A new-raised man is distinguished in a regiment by his awkwardness; but he must be impenetrably dull if, in a month or two’s time, he cannot perform at least the common manual exercise, and look like a soldier. The very accoutrements of a man of fashion are grievous incumbrances to a vulgar man. He is at a loss what to do with his hat, when it is not upon his head; his cane (if unfortunately he wears one) is at perpetual war with every cup of tea or coffee he drinks; destroys them first, and then accompanies them in their fall.

A NOBLE EASE AND GRACE.--Do not imagine that these accomplishments are only useful with women; they are much more so with men. In a public assembly, what an advantage has a graceful speaker, with genteel motions, a handsome figure, and a liberal air, over one, who shall speak full as much sense, but destitute of these ornaments! In business, how prevalent are the graces, how detrimental is the want of them! By the help of these I have known some men refuse favors less offensively than others granted them. The utility of them in courts and negotiations is inconceivable. You gain the hearts, and consequently the secrets, of nine in ten that you have to do with, in spite even of their prudence; which will, nine times in ten, be the dupe of their hearts and of their senses. Consider the importance of these things as they deserve, and you will not lose one moment in the pursuit of them. [_Same date._]

THE FRIBBLE AND THE VIRTUOSO.--No piping nor fiddling, I beseech you; no days lost in poring upon almost imperceptible _intaglios_ and _cameos_: and do not become a virtuoso of small wares. Form a taste of painting, sculpture, and architecture, if you please, by a careful examination of the works of the best ancient and modern artists; those are liberal arts, and a real taste and knowledge of them become a man of fashion very well. But, beyond certain bounds, the man of taste ends, and the frivolous virtuoso begins.

Your friend Mendes, the good Samaritan, dined with me yesterday. He has more good nature and generosity, than parts. However, I will show him all the civilities that his kindness to you so justly deserves; he tells me that you are taller than I am, which I am very glad of. I desire you may excel me in everything else too; and, far from repining, I shall rejoice at your superiority. [_Same date._]

FREQUENT LETTERS.--Indeed the irregularity and negligence of the post provoke me, as they break the thread of the accounts I want to receive from you, and of the instructions and orders which I send you almost every post. Of these last twenty posts, I am sure that I have wrote eighteen, either to you or to Mr. Harte, and it does not appear, by your letter, that all, or even any of my letters have been received. I desire, for the future, that both you and Mr. Harte will constantly, in your letters, mention the dates of mine. [_Oct. 2, 1749._]

PROPER EXPENSES TO BE PAID.--As to the expense which you mention, I do not regard it in the least; from your infancy to this day, I never grudged any expense in your education, and still less do it now, that it is become more important and decisive. I attend to the objects of your expenses, but not to the sums. I will certainly not pay one shilling for your losing your nose, your money, or your reason; that is, I will not contribute to women, gaming, and drinking. But I will most cheerfully supply, not only every necessary, but every decent expense you can make. I do not care what the best masters cost. I would have you as well dressed, lodged, and attended, as any reasonable man of fashion in his travels. I would have you have that pocket-money that should enable you to make the proper expense, _d’un honnête homme_. In short, I bar no expense, that has neither vice nor folly for its object; and under those two reasonable restrictions, draw and welcome. [_Same date._]

A PORTRAIT.--So many of my letters have miscarried, and I know so little which, that I am forced to repeat the same thing over and over again eventually. This is one. I have wrote twice to Mr. Harte, to have your picture drawn in miniature, while you were at Venice, and to send it me in a letter: it is all one to me, whether in enamel or in water-colors, provided it is but very like you. I would have you drawn exactly as you are, and in no whimsical dress. I lay more stress upon the likeness of the picture, than upon the taste and skill of the painter. If this be not already done, I desire that you will have it done forthwith, before you leave Venice; and enclose it in a letter to me; which letter, for greater security, I would have you desire Sir James Gray to enclose in his packet to the office; as I, for the same reason, send this under his cover. If the picture be done upon vellum, it will be the most portable. Send me, at the same time, a thread or silk of your own length, exactly. I am solicitous about your figure; convinced, by a thousand instances, that a good one is a real advantage. _Mens sana in corpore sano_, is the first and greatest blessing. I would add, _et pulchro_, to complete it. May you have that, and every other! Adieu. [_Same date._]

A CENTURY AGO.--The papal power, founded originally upon the ignorance and superstition of mankind, extended by the weakness of some princes, and the ambition of others; is declining of late, in proportion as knowledge has increased; and owing its present precarious security not to the religion, the affection, or the fear, of the temporal powers, but to their jealousy of each other. The Pope’s excommunications are no longer dreaded; his indulgences little solicited, and sell very cheap; and his territories, formidable to no power, are coveted by many, and will, most undoubtedly, within a century, be scantled out among the great powers, who have now a footing in Italy; whenever they can agree upon the division of the bear’s skin. [_Oct. 9, 1749._]

THE JESUITS.--They have, by turns, been banished, and with infamy, almost every country in Europe; and have always found means to be restored, even with triumph. In short, I know no government in the world that is carried on upon such deep principles of policy, I will not add morality. Converse with them, frequent them, court them; _but know them_.

Inform yourself too of that infernal court, the inquisition; which, though not so considerable at Rome as in Spain and Portugal, will, however, be a good sample to you of what the villainy of some men can contrive, the folly of others receive, and both together establish; in spite of the first natural principles of reason, justice, and equity. [_Same date._]

MILITARY STUDY.--Go with some engineer or old officer, and view, with care, the real fortifications of some strong place; and you will get a clearer idea of bastions, half-moons, horn-works, ravelins, glacis, etc., than all the masters in the world could give you upon paper. And thus much I would, by all means, have you know of both civil and military architecture. [_Oct. 17, 1749._]