among the young Frenchmen who ride at your Academy; and who are they?  Send to me this sort of chit-chat in your letters, which, by the bye, I wish you would honor me with somewhat oftener.  If you frequent any of the myriads of polite Englishmen who infest Paris, who are they?  Have you finished with Abbe Nolet, and are you ‘au fait’ of all the properties and effects of air?  Were I inclined to quibble, I would say, that the effects of air, at least, are best to be learned of Marcel.  If you have quite done with l’Abbes Nolet, ask my friend l’Abbe Sallier to recommend to you some meagre philomath, to teach you a little geometry and astronomy; not enough to absorb your attention and puzzle your intellects, but only enough not to be grossly ignorant of either.  I have of late been a sort of ‘astronome malgre moi’, by bringing in last Monday into the House of Lords a bill for reforming our present Calendar and taking the New Style.  Upon which occasion I was obliged to talk some astronomical jargon, of which I did not understand one word, but got it by heart, and spoke it by rote from a master.  I wished that I had known a little more of it myself; and so much I would have you know.  But the great and necessary knowledge of all is, to know, yourself and others:  this knowledge requires great attention and long experience; exert the former, and may you have the latter!  Adieu!

P. S. I have this moment received your letters of the 27th February, and the 2d March, N. S. The seal shall be done as soon as possible.  I am, glad that you are employed in Lord Albemarle’s bureau; it will teach you, at least, the mechanical part of that business, such as folding, entering, and docketing letters; for you must not imagine that you are let into the ‘fin fin’ of the correspondence, nor indeed is it fit that you should, at, your age.  However, use yourself to secrecy as to the letters you either read or write, that in time you may be trusted with secret, very secret, separate, apart, etc.  I am sorry that this business interferes with your riding; I hope it is seldom; but I insist upon its not interfering with your dancing-master, who is at this time the most useful and necessary of all the masters you have or can have.

LETTER CXXXIII

My dear friend:  I mentioned to you, some time ago a sentence which I would most earnestly wish you always to retain in your thoughts, and observe in your conduct.  It is ‘suaviter in modo, fortiter in re’ [gentleness of manners, with firmness of mind D.W.].  I do not know any one rule so unexceptionably useful and necessary in every part of life.  I shall therefore take it for my text to-day, and as old men love preaching, and I have some right to preach to you, I here present you with my sermon upon these words.  To proceed, then, regularly and PULPITICALLY, I will first show you, my beloved, the necessary connection of the two members