for instance, Nathaniel Bacon ought to be extracted in the best method you can: but in general my advice to you is, not to common-place upon paper, but, as an equivalent to it, to endeavour to range and methodize in your head what you read, and by so doing frequently and habitually to fix matter in the memory. I desired you some time since to read. Lord Clarendon's History of the civil wars. I have lately read a much honester and more instructive book, of the same period of history; it is the History of the Parliament, by Thomas May, * Esq. etc. I will * May, the translator of Lucan, had been much countenanced by Charles the First, send it to you as soon as you return to Cambridge. If you have not read Burnet's History of his own Times, I beg you will. I hope your father is well. My love to the girls. Your ever affectionate. but quitted the court on some personal disgust, and afterwards became Secretary to the Parliament. His history was published in 1647 under their authority and licence, and cannot by any means be considered as an impartial work. It is however well worthy of being attentively read; and the contemptuous character given of it by Clarendon (Life, vol. I. p. 35,) is as much belów its real merit as Clarendon's own history is superior to it. LETTER X. Pay Office, April 9, 1755. MY DEAR NEPHEW, I REJOICE extremely to hear that your father and the girls are not unentertained in their travels; in the mean time your travels through the paths of literature, arts, and sciences, (a road, sometimes set with flowers, and sometimes difficult, laborious, and arduous,) are not only infinitely more profitable in future, but at present, upon the whole, infinitely more delightful. My own travels at present are none of the pleasantest: I am going through a fit of the gout; with much proper pain and what proper patience I may. Avis au lecteur, my sweet boy: remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Let no excesses lay the foundations of gout and the rest of Pandora's box; nor any immoralities, or vicious courses sow the seeds of a too late and painful repentance. Here ends my sermon, which, I trust, you are not fine gentleman enough, or in plain English, silly fellow enough, to laugh at, Lady Hester is much |