for their money:  and, consequently, content themselves with giving them, at the cheapest rate, the common run of education:  that is, a school till eighteen; the university till twenty; and a couple of years riding post through the several towns of Europe; impatient till their boobies come home to be married, and, as they call it, settled.  Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.  Some spoil them by fondling them while they are young, and then quarrel with them when they are grown up, for having been spoiled; some love them like mothers, and attend only to the bodily health and strength of the hopes of their family, solemnize his birthday, and rejoice, like the subjects of the Great Mogul, at the increase of his bulk; while others, minding, as they think, only essentials, take pains and pleasure to see in their heir, all their favorite weaknesses and imperfections.  I hope and believe that I have kept clear of all of these errors in the education which I have given you.  No weaknesses of my own have warped it, no parsimony has starved it, no rigor has deformed it.  Sound and extensive learning was the foundation which I meant to lay—­I have laid it; but that alone, I knew, would by no means be sufficient:  the ornamental, the showish, the pleasing superstructure was to be begun.  In that view, I threw you into the great world, entirely your own master, at an age when others either guzzle at the university, or are sent abroad in servitude to some awkward, pedantic Scotch governor.  This was to put you in the way, and the only way of acquiring those manners, that address, and those graces, which exclusively distinguish people of fashion; and without which all moral virtues, and all acquired learning, are of no sort of use in the courts and ‘le beau monde’:  on the contrary, I am not sure if they are not an hindrance.  They are feared and disliked in those places, as too severe, if not smoothed and introduced by the graces; but of these graces, of this necessary ‘beau vernis’, it seems there are still ’quelque couches qui manquent’.  Now, pray let me ask you, coolly and seriously, ’pourquoi ces couches manquent-elles’?  For you may as easily take them, as you may wear more or less powder in your hair, more or less lace upon your coat.  I can therefore account for your wanting them no other way in the world, than from your not being yet convinced of their full value.  You have heard some English bucks say, “Damn these finical outlandish airs, give me a manly, resolute manner.  They make a rout with their graces, and talk like a parcel of dancing-masters, and dress like a parcel of fops:  one good Englishman will beat three of them.”  But let your own observation undeceive you of these prejudices.  I will give you one instance only, instead of an hundred that I could give you, of a very shining fortune and figure, raised upon no other foundation whatsoever, than that of address, manners, and graces.  Between you and me (for this example must go no further),