the gradations of their decay; and, too often sanguinely hoping to shine on in their meridian, often set with contempt and ridicule.  I retired in time, ‘uti conviva satur’; or, as Pope says still better, Ere tittering youth shall Shove you from the Stage.  My only remaining ambition is to be the counsellor and minister of your rising ambition.  Let me see my own youth revived in you; let me be your Mentor, and, with your parts and knowledge, I promise you, you shall go far.  You must bring, on your part, activity and attention; and I will point out to you the proper objects for them.  I own I fear but one thing for you, and that is what one has generally the least reason to fear from one of your age; I mean your laziness; which, if you indulge, will make you stagnate in a contemptible obscurity all your life.  It will hinder you from doing anything that will deserve to be written, or from writing anything that may deserve to be read; and yet one or other of those two objects should be at least aimed at by every rational being.

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.  Business by no means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each other; and I will venture to affirm, that no man enjoys either in perfection, that does not join both.  They whet the desire for each other.  Use yourself, therefore, in time to be alert and diligent in your little concerns; never procrastinate, never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day; and never do two things at a time; pursue your object, be it what it will, steadily and indefatigably; and let any difficulties (if surmountable) rather animate than slacken your endeavors.  Perseverance has surprising effects.

I wish you would use yourself to translate, every day, only three or four lines, from any book, in any language, into the correctest and most elegant English that you can think of; you cannot imagine how it will insensibly form your style, and give you an habitual elegance; it would not take you up a quarter of an hour in a day.  This letter is so long, that it will hardly leave you that quarter of an hour, the day you receive it.  So good-night.

LETTER CXCVIII

London, March 8, 1754

My dear friend:  A great and unexpected event has lately happened in our ministerial world.  Mr. Pelham died last Monday of a fever and mortification, occasioned by a general corruption of his whole mass of blood, which had broke out into sores in his back.  I regret him as an old acquaintance, a pretty near relation, and a private man, with whom I have lived many years in a social and friendly way.  He meant well to the public; and was incorrupt in a post where corruption is commonly contagious.  If he was no shining, enterprising minister, he was a safe one,