ing! Thus while you live, you will be honoured; and at that day, when all human grandeur must be levelled to the earth, adorned with a better ornament than an escutcheon. Forgive the zeal of friendship even when intemperate. My future letters shall be principally on subjects of polite literature, useful science, or the means of supporting the true dignity of a British nobleman. I may indeed touch on politics; for they are the peculiar study of a British peer. But my politics are not the politics of a faction or a venal court. They are the politics of philanthropy. The solid happiness of all human creatures, high as well as low, and low as well as high, is their object. To that happiness civil liberty is essential. I mean liberty restrained by reason, by humanity, by justice, by a love of peace and a love of order. I am, &c. LETTER II. MY LORD, You desire me to give you an account, both critical and biographical, of the ancient classics. It would be easy to do it; for the materials are redundantly copious. But it has been done so often, that the task becomes irksome from repetition. Give me leave to refer you for information to the Lives usually prefixed to the editions of the Classics, Greek and Latin, to Fabricius's Bibliothecæ; to Kennet's Lives of the Greek Poets; to Crusius's, of the Latin; and to Spence's Polymetis. The minds of the first restorers of learning were so captivated with the beauties of the ancients, that they directed their whole labour and learning to their illustration. The consequence is, a mass of materials which has been accumulating to this hour; and which has a tendency to satiate by its copiousness, and to disgust by its perpetual similarity. It is certainly right to acquaint yourself with the life, manners, and character of an ancient or a modern author, if practicable, before you undertake to read him. But I advise you not to dwell, as many have done, upon preliminary discourses and marginal notes, so much, as to leave little time and attention for the composition itself, the grand object of all; by which alone the author has survived the wreck of time, and for which alone it is thought worth while to inquire into his history, to write comments on him, or to introduce him to notice with prefatory dissertation. From those books which I have already mentioned, you will derive as much knowledge as you will require in this department; unless you should make literary history a favourite aud peculiar study. It is indeed a very entertaining study; and in the course of correspondence, I may sometimes take the liberty of giving you some hints upon it. But I think you may acquire all the biographical knowledge of the old classics, which you will at present want, from an occasional inspection of the obvious authors whom I have recommended. Indeed I have no great pleasure in mere translation, or in transcription; and I am unwilling to offer a dish to your Lordship, which has been so often hashed in every mode, that the most ingenious cookery can scarcely give it a new flavour. So much has been done in the illustration of the classics, that little room is left for useful addition. Our forefathers have cleared the country, and levelled and illuminated the roads; but let not the facility of travelling unnerve our resolution, or lull us to an indolent and inglorious repose. I am, &c. LETTER III. MY LORD, As a vague and desultory study in youth contributes chiefly to amusement, I must intreat you to avoid the habit of it at present, and to form a plan and fix a scope. It is, my Lord, your duty to be a politician. But I wish you to be a politician in the most extensive sense: one who sincerely loves his country, understands its real interest, and has judgment and spirit to promote it. Under the idea of a politician, in your Lordship's rank and station, I comprehend the knowledge and the liberality of a true philosopher. Your desire, you tell me, is, to lead an honourable life, adorned with the lights of learning; to attain a pure and elegant style in writing and conversation, and a commanding eloquence in the senate. Let this then be your scope; and let all your efforts in study have a reference to it. The character is so great to which you aspire, that there is scarcely any part of science and polite learning, which is not in some degree conducive to it. But the multitude of objects which requires your attention, renders it necessary to form something of a plan. I do not mean a strict and inflexible rule, which tends rather to shackle, than to facilitate the movements of the mind; but I mean such a system of application, as may guide without painful restraint, and govern steadily, yet without the severity of unrelaxing despotism. A thousand circumstances must arise, which may render a temporary deviation from a plan of study, far more conducive to the end, than an inviolable adherence to it. Throughout life we are often governed by unavoidable circumstances; and he that would conduct himself entirely by rule in little as well as great matters, must retreat from society; must live alone in the world, and out of the reach of its wonderful vicissitudes. A plan of study is chiefly useful in pointing out a return to the right way, after we have been forced by circumstances to desert it. It may be compared to a great turnpike-road leading to the place of the traveller's destination. He may frequently find out a shorter, or a pleasanter path; but he is in no danger of losing himself, while he keeps in view the highway, proceeds in a line nearly parallel, and knows how to return to it when danger or difficulties occur. Many severe students in the universities have prescribed to themselves a plan of study, in which the business of every hour of the day has been scrupulously allotted. But I never heard that they arrived at any great superiority over those who allowed themselves a little latitude. The mind, especially when enlivened by genius, loves its liberty; and roves with delight, like the bee, in search of flowers of its own undirected choice. I suspect, my Lord, that they knew but little of the human mind, who supposed it capable of making a successful transition from one study to another, during eight or ten hours of the day, by the sound of the clock. I am of opinion that the abrupt dereliction of a subject, in which the attention is deeply engaged, to enter on another directed by a written plan, would often be found no less injurious than unpleasant. Indeed, though many have begun to study in the trammels of severe method; yet few, I believe, have continued it long, or felt it on experience beneficial. What is done well, is usually done with pleasure, and from choice. Restraint is in its nature irksome to the free-born mind. It is only to be imposed where the utility compensates the pain. I shall therefore never recommend it to you when it is unnecessary. Obey the impulse of the moment, even if the object to which it leads is but collaterally connected with your principal scope. You perceive, therefore, that the plan which I advise is liberal. I hope that you will find it agreeable; and, without unnecessary pain in the pursuit, arrive at the excellence you desire. LETTER IV. I am, &c. MY LORD, YOUR lordship expressed a wish in your last letter, that I would be more explicit on the plan which I advised you to pursue. I am happy in finding you desirous of information, and wish it may be in my power to offer such as you may experience to be truly useful. I think it right, my lord, to lay the foundation of your future improvements, in that kind of elegant and pleasing learning, which the French call the BELLES LETTRES; the English, classical learning; and the ancients, the studies of humanity. You have already made a very considerable progress in this department under your tutor. But it must be confessed, that you have read the classics hitherto, rather for the sake of acquiring the ancient languages, and exemplifying the rules of grammar, than |