You have often seen, and I have often made you observe, Lyttelton]'s distinguished inattention and awkwardness. Wrapped up, like a Laputan, in intense thought, and possibly sometimes in no thought at all-which, I believe, is very often the case of absent people-he does not know his most intimate acquaintance by sight, or answers them as if he were at crosspurposes. He leaves his hat in one room, his sword in another, and would leave his shoes in a third, if his buckles, though awry, did not save them: his legs and arms, by his awkward management of them, seem to have undergone the question extraordinaire;2 and his head, always hanging upon one or other of his shoulders, seems to have received the first stroke upon a block. I sincerely value and esteem him for his parts, learning, and virtue; but, for the soul of me, I cannot love him in company. This will be universally the case, in common life, of every inattentive, awkward man, let his real merit and knowledge be ever so great.

When I was of your age, I desired to shine, as far as I was able, in every part of life; and was as attentive to my manners, my dress, and my air, in company on evenings, as to my books and my tutor in the mornings. A young fellow should be ambitious to shine in everything; and, of the two, rather overdo than underdo. These things are by no means trifles; they are of infinite consequence to those who are to be thrown into the great world, and who would make a figure or a fortune in it. It is not sufficient to deserve well; one must please well too. Awkward, disagreeable merit will never carry anybody far. Wherever you find a good dancing-master, pray let him put you upon your haunches; not so much for the sake of dancing as for coming into a room and presenting yourself genteelly and gracefully. Women, whom you ought to en

1 Marked.

2 Extreme torture, formerly applied to accused or condemned persons in order to extort confessions.

deavor to please, cannot forgive a vulgar and awkward air and gestures; il leur faut du brillant.1 The generality of men are pretty like them, and are equally taken by the same exterior graces.

I am very glad that you have received the diamond buckles safe: all I desire in return for them is that they may be buckled even upon your feet, and that your stockings may not hide them. I should be sorry you were an egregious fop; but I protest that, of the two, I would rather have you a fop than a sloven. I think negligence in my own dress, even at my age, when certainly I expect no advantages from my dress, would be indecent with regard to others. I have done with fine clothes; but I will have my plain clothes fit me, and made like other people's. In the evenings, I recommend to you the company of women of fashion, who have a right to attention, and will be paid it. Their company will smooth your manners, and give you a habit of attention and respect; of which you will find the advantage among men.

My plan for you, from the beginning, has been to make you shine, equally in the learned and in the polite world; the former part is almost completed to my wishes, and will, I am persuaded, in a little time more be quite so. The latter part is still in your power to complete; and I flatter myself that you will do it; or else the former part will avail you very little, especially in your deportment, where the exterior address and graces do half the business; they must be the harbingers of your merit, or your merit will be very coldly received: all can and do judge of the former, few of the latter.

Mr. Harte 2 tells me that you have grown very much since your illness: if you get up to five feet ten, or even nine, inches, your figure will, probably, be a good one; and, if well dressed

1 They require polished manners.

2 The young man's tutor and traveling companion.

and genteel, will probably please; which is a much greater advantage to a man than people commonly think. Lord Bacon calls it a letter of recommendation.

I would wish you to be the omnis homo, l'homme universel.1 You are nearer it, if you please, than ever anybody was at your age; and if you will but, for the course of this next year only, exert your whole attention to your studies in the morning, and to your address, manners, air and tournure in the evenings, you will be the man I wish you, and the man that is rarely seen.

2

Our letters go, at best, so irregularly, and so often miscarry totally, that, for greater security, I repeat the same things. So, though I acknowledged by last post Mr. Harte's letter of the 8th September, N. S., I acknowledge it again by this to you. If this should find you still at Verona, let it inform you that I wish you would set out soon for Naples; unless Mr. Harte should think it better for you to stay at Verona, or any other place on this side Rome, till you go there for the Jubilee. Nay, if he likes it better, I am willing that you should go directly from Verona to Rome; for you cannot have too much of Rome, whether upon account of the language, the curiosities, or the company. My only reason for mentioning Naples is for the sake of the climate, upon account of your health; but, if Mr. Harte thinks your health is now so well restored as to be above climate, he may steer your course wherever he thinks proper; and, for aught I know, your going directly to Rome, and consequently staying there so much the longer, may be as well as anything else. I think you and I cannot put our affairs into better hands than in Mr. Harte's; and I will take his infallibility against the Pope's, with some odds on his side. Apropos of the Pope; remember to be presented to him before you leave Rome, and go through the necessary cere

1 The complete man, the universal man.

2 Physical appearance and carriage.

monies for it for I would never deprive myself of anything that I wanted to do or see by refusing to comply with an established custom. When I was in Catholic countries, I never declined kneeling in their churches at the elevation,1 nor elsewhere when the Host went by. It is a complaisance due to the custom of the place, and by no means, as some silly people have imagined, an implied approbation of their doctrine. Bodily attitudes and situations are things so very indifferent in themselves that I would quarrel with nobody about them. It may, indeed, be improper for Mr. Harte to pay that tribute of complaisance, upon account of his character.2

This letter is a very long, and possibly a very tedious onc; but my anxiety for your perfection is so great, and particularly at this critical and decisive period of your life, that I am only afraid of omitting, but never of repeating, or dwelling too long upon anything that I think may be of the least use to Have the same anxiety for yourself that I have for you, and all will do well.-Adieu! my dear child.

you.

[LORD CHESTERFIELD]

1 The act of raising the consecrated elements in the Roman Catholic ceremonial. The "Host," below, is the bread used in the Mass, before or after consecration.

1 His profession-that of clergyman in the Protestant England.

Church of

48 TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL

MY

OF CHESTERFIELD1

February 7, 1755

Y LORD-I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; 2—that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to

1 Johnson had paid Lord Chesterfield the compliment of addressing to him the Plan of his Dictionary, but, in return, instead of aid in his great enterprise, he had received only neglect. "When the Dictionary was upon the eve of publication, Lord Chesterfield, who, it is said, had flattered himself with expectation that Johnson would dedicate the work to him, attempted in a courtly manner to soothe and insinuate himself with the Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold indifference with which he had treated its learned author; and further attempted to conciliate him by writing two papers in The World in recommendation of the work; and it must be confessed that they contain some studied compliments, so finely turned, that if there had been no previous offence it is probable that Johnson would have been highly delighted. Praise, in general, was pleasing to him; but by praise from a man of rank and elegant accomplishments he was peculiarly gratified. This courtly device failed of its effect. Johnson, who thought that all was false and hollow,' despised the honeyed words, and was even indignant that Lord Chesterfield should for a moment imagine that he could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me [Boswell] concerning Lord Chesterfield, upon this occasion, was, 'Sir, after making great professions, he had, for many years, taken no notice of me; but when my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a-scribbling in The World about it. Upon which, I wrote him a letter expressed in civil terms, but such as might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done with him.'"-Boswell, Life of Johnson.

2 "The conqueror of the conqueror of the earth"--part of a famous line from Boileau's Art of Poetry.