least anything that you cannot get as well at
Leipsig as here. Do but continue to deserve, and, I assure you, that you
shall never want anything I can give.

Do not apprehend that my being out of employment may be any prejudice to
you. Many things will happen before you can be fit for business; and when
you are fit, whatever my situation may be, it will always be in my power
to help you in your first steps; afterward you must help yourself by your
own abilities. Make yourself necessary, and, instead of soliciting, you
will be solicited. The thorough knowledge of foreign affairs, the
interests, the views, and the manners of the several courts in Europe,
are not the common growth of this country. It is in your power to acquire
them; you have all the means. Adieu! Yours.

LETTERS TO HIS SON

LETTER XXXV

LONDON, April 1, O. S. 1748.

DEAR BOY: I have not received any letter, either from you or from Mr.
Harte, these three posts, which I impute wholly to accidents between this
place and Leipsig; and they are distant enough to admit of many. I always
take it for granted that you are well, when I do not hear to the
contrary; besides, as I have often told you, I am much more anxious about
your doing well, than about your being well; and, when you do not write,
I will suppose that you are doing something more useful. Your health will
continue, while your temperance continues; and at your age nature takes
sufficient care of the body, provided she is left to herself, and that
intemperance on one hand, or medicines on the other, do not break in upon
her. But it is by no means so with the mind, which, at your age
particularly, requires great and constant care, and some physic. Every
quarter of an hour, well or ill employed, will do it essential and
lasting good or harm. It requires also a great deal of exercise, to bring
it to a state of health and vigor. Observe the difference there is
between minds cultivated, and minds uncultivated, and you will, I am
sure, think that you cannot take too much pains, nor employ too much of
your time in the culture of your own. A drayman is probably born with as
good organs as Milton, Locke, or Newton; but, by culture, they are as
much more above him as he is above his horse. Sometimes, indeed,
extraordinary geniuses have broken out by the force of nature, without
the assistance of education; but those instances are too rare for anybody
to trust to; and even they would make a much greater