reap the fruits of it: a foldier who goes on only in the beaten track, without making himself thoroughly acquainted with the nature of his bufinefs, is little better than a piece of clock-work, which must be set in motion, and never deviates from the path affigned it. After this, you will learn to know the world: Bruyere's characters, and Rochefoucault's maxims will be found very useful to you in thefe writers you will fee the portraits of all forts of men, both in their public and private capacity. History is another picture which you fhould carefully examine all the operations of the heart and mind are there defcribed in the most interefting manner. Boffuet's treatise on this subject is confidered as a mafter-piece. Books of mere amufement, which do not take their place 'till after thofe of inftruction, are however neceffary, by way of relaxation, to prevent fatigue. I know no romance worth reading except Don Quixote and, Telemachus; almost all the rest are either trifling or mischievous: fiction is never made use of with fafety; it either ferves to embellish vice, or to ridicule virtue. It is very right that you fhould read the best poets: poetry elevates the mind, warms the imagination, and makes us perfect in the art of expreffion; but care must be taken to study the poets with difcretion: profe, being lefs likely to feduce the mind, is more proper for young perfons who fuffer themselves too eafily to be impofed upon: we can never be too much on our guard against the glaring appearance of what is falsely accounted beautiful: I have known many people whose tafte has been spoiled by reading nothing but poetry: the rhyme feduces, the harmony of numbers bewitches; and what is oftentimes only fiction, paffes for truth. • Never purchase books without confulting learned and judicious friends; and remember that it is not the number, but the choice of books which really adorns and improves the mind: the library of a military man is large enough, if it contains two or three hundred volumes; they who have more, either keep them for the use of others, or to flatter their own vanity: how many noblemen are there, who make no more ufe of their library, than of their green-houfe; feldom, if ever, entering into ' either! I have heard it affirmed by a celebrated writer, that almost all modern works are only copies; and that we ought only to ftudy fuch as are originals: I am forry this author is now no more; because he would have given you the best information on this head; but you will eafily meet with other learned perfons who will readily direct your ftudies. If you pursue the plan here propofed, you will divide into four claffes all the books which you have any need of; the firft will include books on the fubject of religion; the fecond, books of inftruction in your profeffion; the third, thofe which are proper to introduce you to to natural and moral philofophy; and the fourth, books of mere amusement. We never read to advantage, but when we read methodically. There are other works, which we may run through; fuch as, the daily, and periodical publications; which may ferve to give you a fuperficial knowlege of what is paffing in the literary world; and will prevent your being a stranger to what is talked of in company on these subjects: but always fhew wisdom and discretion enough not to confound this kind of writing with thofe numerous publications, which good sense and religion equally difclaim. Improper reading is the ruin of young minds: forbidden books ought to be confidered in the light of evil company. Neither the ftyle of a work, nor the name of an author can excufe your reading either what is fatyrical or impure; vice is always vice, under whatever colours it prefents itfelf. There are theatrical performances, fo decent that we may venture to go through them, and fo interefting, that we cannot help wishing to do it be prudent, without affectation; and you will never have any vain fcruples. The books, which you have hitherto read, are little more than the elements, and as it were the alphabets of fcience; thofe which you should hereafter read, ought to contain the knowledge of things, and found reafoning upon them. There are different kinds of ftudy appropriated to all ages and flations. The mind of an ecclefiaftic demands a very different fort of culti vation from that of a man of the world. The generality of mankind are fatisfied with being able to write and to speak well; but this is not fufficient for perfons in your fituation: your country requires, that as foldiers you should be well inftructed, fo as to be able to give a fatisfactory reason for whatever you do you will moreover find in fudy the happy fecret of not being burthenfome to any one; and will have a perpetual fource of entertainment in yourfelves. Well chofen books are our best friends; we find them always ready when we want them, and when judiciously chofen, they always fpeak the truth to us. It is a great happiness to be able fometimes to endure folitude: we must learn how to withdraw ourselves from the converfe of men, as well as how to bear with it; we muft lay in a ftore of knowledge against approaching old age: by reading, we enlarge the fphere of our underftanding; and we afterwards feel much greater pleasure in the midit of fociety. All thefe advantages will attend you, if you love study, and cultivate your intellectual faculties. • Your father-alas! I would to God he were now fupplying my place on this important fubject! your father has often told me, that in great towns a love of study preserved him from a thousand dangers, and that in little villages it ferved him inftead of company: be poffeffed of this refource; for knowlege is a treasure which no thief can steal: yet do not feek this treafure 1 3 fure at the expence of your health. Immoderate application to ftudy exhaufts the fpirits, and fatigues the mind. Take heed alfo that learning does not make you pofitive or pedantic; the more men really know, the lefs they affect to fhew it. We make every man our enemy, whom we humiliate by an affected fuperiority but he who regards his own intereft, feeks only to make himfelf friends: if it be true that ignorance is defpifed, it is not lefs true that prefumptuous knowlege is generally hated an oftentatious display of learning never fucceeds. You must not expect to find study always agreeable: like the rofe, it has its beautjes, but is not without its thorns: the beginning of every fcience, as M. de Fontenelle obferves, is dif ficult; and nothing but affiduity and labour will enable you to tate the pleasures of it. I fhould recommend it to you to devote three hours at least in every day to ftudy; two in the morning, and one in the evening; you are never to forget that you owe fomething to your rank in life, as well as to fociety; and that it is with the foul as it is with the body; exceffive hunger and repletion are both injurious to it; by the one it is famifhed, by the other it is overloaded. 6 There is another inconvenience in an indifcreet love of ftudy; that it makes us too cold and philofophical; it makes men behave in company with an air of too much gravity and abfence; and gives them the appearance of old men at the age of thirty. Accuftom yourfelves to leave your books, as we leave the company of our friends; feem to forget them, till you take them up again. The world, perhaps, is very little interested in what you read; fo that probably what nearly affected you, might to them be perfectly indifferent; every one has his own particular manner of confidering things. Our converfation with the dead demands recollection and application; but that which we hold with the living fhould be full of ease, and sprightliness. If you are really fond of study, you will every where find an opportunity of gratifying your tafte: the very grafs on which you tread, and the infect which you defpife, will ferve to display the wonders of divine wifdom: accuftom yourself always to travel with a common-place-book; a landscape, a monument, a ruin, every thing of this fort finds a place in the journal of a perfon of reflection, The knowlege of cuftoms and manners is another science which deferves your attention; you will doubtless have opportunities in the course of your profeffion of feeing the different nations which furround us; war lays open every country to the obfervation of the foldier: you will then be able yourselves to mark the difference betwixt a Spaniard and a Frenchman, an Italian and an Englishman, But remember at the fame time, that in this variety there is fomething not unlike the parterres of a garden; in which each flower has its merit and perfection: it is a great error, to expect that all the world fhould be just fuch as ourselves.' U pon Upon reading this performance we have obferved fome small inaccuracies of expreffion, which the ingenious tranflator may correct in the fecond edition, if he thinks them of confequence enough to merit his attention. - . • Some circumstances gave him the preference in my regard to several young noblemen: had either of thefe [any one of thefe] fucceeded in his addreffes,' p. 9. Were I fo unhappy as to discover in either of you,' p. 28. Either would have been proper, if the lady had been addreffing herself to two of her children; but when she speaks to four, she should have faid, any of you. - • I shall endeavour to furnish you with the best instructions in my power, that you may become acceptable to your God, useful to your country, and worthy of the king, whom you have the honour to ferve,' p. 39. This is an anticlimax: it is, however, more the fault of the author, than the tranflator. The following nonfenfe is likewise to be attributed to the fame writer. Behold the bee, or the ant; a thousand times wifer *, each of them, than the man who defpifes them; these never deviate from the laws of their nature, nor from the courfe, which Providence has affigned them: it is only by an imitation of their conduct and forefight, that families are maintained, and kingdoms preserve their power and fplendor,' p. 54. There can be no doubt but families might have been maintained, and kingdoms fupported in their power and fplendor, if neither bees nor ants had ever exifted. More fenfible of this than any others,' p. 67.- Follow after virtue,' p. 168. Purfue the paths of virtue is a much better phrafe. I would to God he had furvived me,' p. 169. An abfolute folecism, which might have been easily avoided by faying, I fincerely wish. A nearer resemblance with [of] the Deity,' p. 17. I had infinitely rather,' p. 173. [I would infinitely rather] If you would oblige by your generofity, you must shew the party, whom you ferve, that you think it more bleffed to give than to receive', p. 176. To suggest this confideration, would furely mortify and humiliate, rather than, enliven or oblige. We cannot, to be fure, affift all who fuffer," p. 185. This vulgar phrafe, to be fure, ought to be utterly banished from the republic of letters.-What little improprieties of this nature may be found in the fecond volume, we shall not stay to examine. In one of Ganganelli's Letters this work is honourably men. tioned, as a complete treatife on education.' This is an encomium exceeding its merits. The fyftem is neither complete, nor uncommon. The fentiments are juft, and the advice extremely pious and falutary; but we fee no appear * Some naturalifts deny, that ants lay up any corn. ance of novelty, or extent of genius. Every paffage, howe ever, is confiftent with the pureft virtue.; and young people may read these volumes, not only with fafety, which is a very confiderable article in their favour, but with great advantage. Moral and Hiftorical Memoirs. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Dilly. TH HE firft of thefe Memoirs is employed on Foreign Travel, the ufefulness of which the author examines under a variety of confiderations, fuch as its affording a convenient opportunity to fons of family and condition, to detach themselves from many disagreeable and unbecoming connexions, to learn their exercifes, to fall infenfibly into a graceful confidence in manners and behaviour, to acquire the modern languages, and to attain a knowlege of the influence of government, religion, and climate, on the human character. In the opinion of this author, all thefe objects may be profecuted with as much fuccets, by domestic education and ftudy, without rifking the corruption, and falfe refinement of manners, which are too often the effect of travelling in foreign countries, especially at an inma ture age. The fecond Memoir treats of Refinement and Luxury, concerning the effects of which on national profperity, moral and political writers have entertained very different opinions. By fome, particularly the ancients, thefe qualities are confidered as equally pernicious to mental and corporeal vigour; while others regard them as highly advantageous, on account of the arts to which they give birth, and the more diffusive means of fubfiftence, of which they are confequently productive. After taking a general view of the fubject, the ingenious effayist concludes, that both in a moral and political light, the arts of luxury and elegance are equally adverfe to the virtue, independency, and happinefs of mixed and free ftates. The third Memoir is the fequel to the preceding, and prefents us with a comparative view of the manners of a Grecian and English woman of fashion. In drawing the former of thefe portraits, the author has recourfe to Xenophon's Oeconomics, of which he tranflates fome paffages relative to a beautiful converfation-piece between Ifchomachus and his newmarried lady. As this admirable reprefentation of ancient fimplicity cannot fail of affording fatisfaction to our readers, we fhall fubmit the following quotation to their perufal. Socrates is expreffing his furprize, that, confidering Ifchomachus's multiplicity of affairs, and many avocations in the city, yet his private and domeftic concerns fhould be fo well regulated. O, fays he, I am very little in the house, for my wife is more than equal to the management of every thing with 66 |