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sullen looks and dumb resentment. If it should happen that a harsh expression escapes them, when their temper is ruffled by the perplexing accidents and disappointments of life, it would be the highest ingratitude and indecency in you to express impatience or discontent: and, as the reward of a contrary conduct, their own reflections upon what is past, when their minds are calm, will be in your favour; and their affection will seek an opportunity of compensating your uneasiness. You should regard these accidents as opportunities of endearing yourself to them, and as tests of your prudence, duty, and affection. What may not children expect from a father, who is a friend to the whole circle of his acquaintance! It is your happiness to have such a father: think yourself secure, from his affection, of every thing that is fit for you, and do not anticipate his bounty by your requests. Both his pleasure and yours will be lessened, if you receive because you ask, and he gives because he cannot deny you. How very shameful, then, is the common triumph of favourites, for having obtained by importunity what is denied to merit, and withheld by prudence! Whatever is thus gained from the hand, is lost in the heart. I have seen, with grief and resentment, every tender moment watched, to urge a request, and wrest a promise, from the generous weakness of unguarded affection. How mean and selfish is such a practice! Remember, that a noble mind will dispose a person to suffer much, rather than ask a favour which he knows cannot be refused, if he thinks that his friend may have reason to wish it had not been asked.

I shall finish this long letter with some advice of yet higher importance.-If you succeed in every design which you form, and the world favour you, till its utmost bounty is exhausted, your happiness will be still imperfect: you will find some desire unsatisfied; and pos

session will never fill your wishes. But do not suffer the present hour to pass away unenjoyed, by an earnest and anxious desire of some future good: for, if this weakness be indulged, your happiness will still fly from you as you pursue it; and there will be the same distance between you and the object of your wishes, till all the visions of imagination shall vanish, and your progress to further degrees of temporal advantage shall be stopped by the grave. It is notwithstanding true, that the expectation of future good, if the object is worthy of a rational desire, pleases more than any present enjoyment. You will, therefore, find that a well-grounded hope of Heaven will give a relish to whatever you shall possess upon earth. If there is no futurity, that we can anticipate with pleasure, we regret every moment that passes; we see that time is flying away with all our enjoyments; that youth is short, health precarious, and age approaching, loaded with infirmities to which death only can put an end. For this reason, endeavour to secure an interest in the favour of God, which will ensure to you an everlasting life of uninterrupted and inconceivable felicity. Nor is this a difficult or an unpleasing attempt; no real present happiness needs be forfeited to purchase the future; for virtue and piety at once secure every blessing, both in time and eternity.

I recommend to you the frequent perusal of this letter. As the world opens to you, I believe you will see the reason and the use of all the directions which I have given you. If they assist you, in any degree, to pass through life with safety and reputation, I shall think my

labour well bestowed.

I am, dear madam,

your affectionate friend,

John Hawkesworth.

LETTER VII.

The earl of Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, esq. (afterwards lord Camelford,) at Cambridge. Bath, Jan. 12, 1754.

My dear nephew,

Your letter from Cambridge affords me many very sensible pleasures. First, that you are, at last, in a proper place for study and improvement, instead of losing, in London, any more of that most precious thing, time. Secondly, that you seem pleased with the particular society you are placed in, and with the gentleman to whose care and instruction you are committed. And above all, I applaud the sound, right sense, and the love of virtue, which appear through your whole letter,

You are already possessed of the true clue to guide you through the years of education, in the maxim you lay down, namely, that the use of learning is, to render a man more wise and virtuous, not merely to make him more learned. Go on, my dear boy, by this golden rule, and you cannnot fail to become every thing that your heart prompts you to wish to be, and that mine most affectionately wishes for you. There is but one danger in your way; and that is, perhaps, natural enough to your age, the love of pleasure, or the 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 affixed to the curtains of your bed, and to the walls of your chambers. If you do not

rise early, you never 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,

Ever yours,

Chatham.

LETTER VIII.

The earl of Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, esq. (afterwards lord Camelford.) at Cambridge.

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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, farther 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 in

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