know.  I advise you to say and do nothing at Paris, but what you would be willing that I should know.  I hope, nay, I believe, that will be the case.  Sense, I dare say, you do not want; instruction, I am sure, you have never wanted:  experience you are daily gaining:  all which together must inevitably (I should think) make you both ‘respectable et aimable’, the perfection of a human character.  In that case nothing shall be wanting on my part, and you shall solidly experience all the extent and tenderness of my affection for you; but dread the reverse of both!  Adieu!

P. S. When you get to Paris, after you have been to wait on Lord Albemarle, go to see Mr. Yorke, whom I have particular reasons for desiring that you should be well with, as I shall hereafter explain to you.  Let him know that my orders, and your own inclinations, conspired to make you desire his friendship and protection.

LETTER CXXII

My dear friend:  I have sent you so many preparatory letters for Paris, that this, which will meet you there, shall only be a summary of them all.

You have hitherto had more liberty than anybody of your age ever had; and I must do you the justice to own, that you have made a better use of it than most people of your age would have done; but then, though you had not a jailer, you had a friend with you.  At Paris, you will not only be unconfined, but unassisted.  Your own good sense must be your only guide:  I have great confidence in it, and am convinced that I shall receive just such accounts of your conduct at Paris as I could wish; for I tell you beforehand, that I shall be most minutely informed of all that you do, and almost of all that you say there.  Enjoy the pleasures of youth, you cannot do better:  but refine and dignify them like a man, of parts; let them raise, and not sink; let them adorn and not vilify your character; let them, in short, be the pleasures of a gentleman, and taken with your equals at least, but rather with your superiors, and those chiefly French.

Inquire into the characters of the several Academicians, before you form a connection with any of them; and be most upon your guard against those who make the most court to you.

You cannot study much in the Academy; but you may study usefully there, if you are an economist of your time, and bestow only upon good books those quarters and halves of hours, which occur to everybody in the course of almost every day; and which, at the year’s end, amount to a very considerable sum of time.  Let Greek, without fail, share some part of every day; I do not mean the Greek poets, the catches of Anacreon, or the tender complaints of Theocritus, or even the porter-like language of Homer’s heroes; of whom all smatterers in Greek know a little, quote often, and talk of always; but I mean Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes, and Thucydides, whom none but adepts know.  It is Greek that must distinguish