generous tempers are apt to envy the great, when they consider the large opportunities such persons have of doing good to their fellow-creatures, and of acquiring the friendship and esteem of men of merit. They make no advances in vain, and are not obliged to associate with those whom they have little kindness for, like people of inferior stations, who are subject to have their proffers of friendship rejected even where they would be most fond of placing their affections. But though the great have more facility in acquiring friendships, they cannot be so certain of the sincerity of them as men of a lower rank, since the favors they bestow may acquire them flattery, instead of good-will and kindness. It has been very judiciously remarked, that we attach ourselves more by the services we perform than by those we receive, and that a man is in danger of losing his friends by obliging them too far. I should therefore choose to lie in the middle way, and to have my commerce with my friend varied both by obligations given and received. I have too much pride to be willing that all the obligations should lie on my side, and should be afraid that, if they all lay on his, he would also have too much pride to be entirely easy under them, or have a perfect complacency in my company.

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 1708-1778.

Of the event al life of this illustrious statesman, it would be impossible here to give any adequate view. From the time that he delivered his maiden speech in parliament, on the 29th of April, 1736, to the day when he fell senseless in the House of Lords, April 7, 1778, while, in his own fervid eloquence, he was addressing that body on the state of the nation, his whole life is inseparably connected with every great event in his country's history. No single individual for forty years filled so large a space in the public eye. It is deeply to be regretted that we have so few of his writings, and that no correct reports of his speeches in parliament have come down to us. The art of reporting with rapidity and accuracy, so familiar to us, of this day, was then not known. But from the encomiums which his speeches received from his contemporaries, without distinction of party, they must have been of the highest order of eloquence. Americans may well remember him with grati tude, for they had no abler defender of their rights in revolutionary times, or either side of the Atlantic. With that " abominable sentiment," OUR COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG, this great man had no sympathy; for he never hesitated to rebuke, in the severest terms, his own country, when he saw she was in the way of wrong-doing.

The most interesting relic that we have of this greatest of statesmen, his "Letters to his Nephew, Thomas Pitt, (afterwards Lord Camelford,) then at Cambridge." No volume of equal size contains more valuable instructions for a young student than these letters. They exhibit "a great orator, states, man, and patriot, in one of the most interesting relations of private society Not, as in the cabinet or the senate, enforcing by a vigorous and commanding

eloquence, those counsels to which his country owed her pre-eminence and glory; but implanting, with parental kindness into the mind of an ingenuous youth, seeds of wisdom and virtue, which ripened into full maturity in the character of a most accomplished man: directing him to the acquisition of knowledge, as the best instrument of action; teaching him, by the cultivation of his reason, to strengthen and establish in his heart those principles of moral rectitude which were congenial to it; and, above all, exhorting him to regulate the whole conduct of his life by the predominant influence of gratitude and obedience to God, as the only sure groundwork of every human duty.”

"What parent, anxious for the character and success of a son, would not, in all that related to his education, gladly have resorted to the advice of such a man? What youthful spirit, animated by any desire of future excellence, and looking for the gratification of that desire, in the pursuits of honorable ambition, or in the consciousness of an upright, active, and useful life, would not embrace with transport any opportunity of listening on such a subject to the lessons of Lord Chatham? They are here before him: not delivered with the authority of a preceptor, or a parent, but tempered by the affection of a friend towards a disposition and character well entitled to such regard.”1

STUDY OF THE CLASSICS RECOMMENDED.

MY DEAR NEPHEW:

BATH, October 12, 1751.

As I have been moving about from place to place, your letter reached me here, at Bath, but very lately, after making a considerable circuit to find me. I should have otherwise, my dear child, returned you thanks for the very great pleasure you have given me, long before now. The very good account you give me of your studies, and that delivered in very good Latin, for your time, has filled me with the highest expectation of your future improvements: I see the foundations so well laid, that I do not make the least doubt but you will become a perfect good scholar; and have the pleasure and applause that will attend the several advantages hereafter, in the future course of your life, that you can only acquire now by your emulation and noble labors in the pursuit of learning, and of every acquirement that is to make you superior to other gentlemen. I rejoice to hear that you have begun Homer's Iliad; and have made so great a progress in Virgil. I hope you taste and love those authors particularly. You cannot read them too much: they are not only the two greatest poets, but they contain the finest lessons for your age to imbibe: lessons of honor, courage, disinterestedness, love of truth, command of temper, gentleness of behavior, humanity, and, in one word. virtue in its true signification. Go on, my dear nephew. and drink as deep as you can of these divine springs: the pleasure of the draught is equal at least to the prodigious advantages of it to the heart and morals.

1 Lord Grenville's Preface to the Letters. Read also, Rev. Francis Thackeray's "History of the Rt. Hon William Pitt," 2 vols. 4to.

I shall be highly pleased to hear from you, and to know what authors give you most pleasure. I desire my service to Mr. Leech: pray tell him I will write to him soon about your studies. I am, with the greatest affection, My dear child,

Your loving uncle.

GENERAL ADVICE TO THE YOUTHFUL STUDENT.

MY DEAR NEPHEW:

BATH, January 14, 1754.

You will hardly have read over one very long letter from me before you are troubled with a second. I intended to have writ soon, but I do it the sooner on account of your letter to your aunt, which she transmitted to me here. If any thing, my dear boy, could have happened to raise you higher in my esteem, and to endear you more to me, it is the amiable abhorrence you feel for the scene of vice and folly, (and of real misery and perdition, under the false notion of pleasure and spirit,) which has opened to you at your college, and at the same time, the manly, brave, generous, and wise resolution and true spirit, with which you resisted and repulsed the first attempts upon a mind and heart, I thank God, infinitely too firm and noble, as well as too elegant and enlightened, to be in any danger of yielding to such contemptible and wretched corruptions. You charm me with the description of Mr. Wheler, and while you say you could adore him, I could adore you for the natural, genuine love of virtue, which speaks in all you feel, say, or do. As to your companions, let this be your rule. Cultivate the acquaintance with Mr. Wheler which you have so fortunately begun and, in general, be sure to associate with men much older than yourself: scholars whenever you can: but always with men of decent and honorable lives. As their age and learning, superior both to your own, must necessarily, in good sense, and in the view of acquiring knowledge from them, entitle them to all deference, and submission of your own lights to theirs, you will particularly practise that first and greatest rule for pleasing in conversation, as well as for drawing instruction and improvement from the company of one's superiors in age and knowledge, namely, to be a patient, attentive, and well-bred hearer, and to answer with modesty: to deliver your own opinions sparingly and with proper diffidence; and if you are forced to desire farther information or explanation upon a point, to do it with proper apologies for the trouble you give: or if obliged to differ, to do it with all possible candor, and an unprejudiced desire to find and

1 The Rev. John Wheler, prebendary of Westminster. The friendship formed between this gentle man and Lord Camelford at so early a period of their lives, was founded in mutual esteem, and son. tinued uninterrupted till Lord Camelford's death.

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ascertain truth, with an entire indifference to the side on which that truth is to be found. There is likewise & particular attention required to contradict with good manners; such as, begging pardon, begging leave to doubt, and suchlike phrases. Pythagoras enjoined his scholars an absolute silence for a long novitiate. I am far from approving such a taciturnity: but I highly recommend the end and intent of Pythagoras's injunction; which is to dedicate the first parts of life more to hear and learn, in order to collect materials, out of which to form opinions founded on proper lights and well-examined sound principles, than to be presuming, prompt, and flippant in hazarding one's own slight, crude notions of things; and thereby exposing the nakedness and emptiness of the mind, like a house opened to company before it is fitted either with necessaries, or any ornaments for their reception and entertainment. And not only will this disgrace follow from such temerity and presumption, but a more serious danger is sure to ensue, that is, the embracing errors for truths, prejudices for principles; and when that is once done, (no matter how vainly and weakly,) the adhering perhaps to false and dangerous notions, only because one has declared for them, and submitting, for life, the understanding and conscience to a yoke of base and servile prejudices, vainly taken up and obstinately retained. This will never be your danger; but I thought it not amiss to offer these reflections to your thoughts. As to your manner of behaving towards these unhappy young gentlemen you describe, let it be manly and easy; decline their parties with civility; retort their raillery with raillery, always tempered with good breeding: if they banter your regularity, order, decency, and love of study, banter in return their neglect of them; and venture to own frankly, that you came to Cambridge to learn what you can, not to follow what they are pleased to call pleasure. In short, let your external behavior to them be as full of politeness and ease as your inward estimation of them is full of pity, mixed with contempt. I come now to the part of the advice I have to offer to you, which most nearly concerns your welfare, and upon which every good and honorable purpose of your life will assuredly turn; I mean the keeping up in your heart the true sentiments of religion. If you are not right towards God, you can never be so towards man : the noblest sentiment of the human breast is here brought to the Is gratitude in the number of a man's virtues? If it be, the highest benefactor demands the warmest returns of gratitude, love, and praise: Ingratum qui dixerit, omnia dixit. If a man wants this virtue where there are infinite obligations to excite and quicken it, he will be likely to want all others towards his fellow-creatures,

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1 He who pronounces one ungrateful, has said every thing.

whose utmost gifts are poor compared to those he daily receives at the hands of his never-failing Almighty Friend. "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," is big with the deepest wisdom: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and, an upright heart, that is understanding. This is eternally true, whether the wits and rakes of Cambridge allow it or not: nay, I must add of this religious wisdom, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," whatever your young gentlemen of pleasure think of a tainted health and battered constitution. Hold fast therefore by this sheet-anchor of happiness, Religion; you will often want it in the times of most dangerthe storms and tempests of life. Cherish true religion. Remember the essence of religion is, a heart void of offence towards God and man; not subtle speculative opinions, but an active vital principle of faith.

Go on, my dear child, in the admirable dispositions you have towards all that is right and good, and make yourself the love and admiration of the world! I have neither paper nor words to tell you how tenderly

I am yours.

OUR OWN REASON AND OTHERS' EXPERIENCE, TO BE USED.

BATH, February 3, 1754.

Nothing can, or ought to give me a higher satisfaction, than the obliging manner in which my dear nephew receives my most sincere and affectionate endeavors to be of use to him. You much overrate the obligation, whatever it be, which youth has to those who have trod the paths of the world before them, for their friendly advice how to avoid the inconveniences, dangers, and evils, which they themselves may have run upon, for want of such timely warnings, and to seize, cultivate, and carry forward towards perfection, those advantages, graces, virtues, and felicities, which they may have totally missed, or stopped short in the generous pursuit. To lend this helping hand to those who are beginning to tread the slippery way, seems, at best, but an office of common humanity to all; but to withhold it from one we truly love, and whose heart and mind bear every genuine mark of the very soil proper for all the amiable, manly, and generous virtues to take root, and bear their heavenly fruit; inward, conscious peace, fame among men, public love, temporal, and eternal happiness; to withhold it, I say, in such an instance, would deserve the worst of names. I am greatly pleased, my dear young friend, that you do me the justice to believe I do not mean to impose anv yoke of authority upon your understanding and conviction.