or can I suspect that they want any recommendation with
you; I will therefore only assure you, that without them you will be most
unhappy.

As to knowledge, I have often told you, and I am persuaded you are
thoroughly convinced, how absolutely necessary it is to you, whatever
your destination may be. But as knowledge has a most extensive meaning,
and as the life of man is not long enough to acquire, nor his mind
capable of entertaining and digesting, all parts of knowledge, I will
point out those to which you should particularly apply, and which, by
application, you may make yourself perfect master of. Classical
knowledge, that is, Greek and Latin, is absolutely necessary for
everybody; because everybody has agreed to think and to call it so. And
the word ILLITERATE, in its common acceptation, means a man who is
ignorant of those two languages. You are by this time, I hope, pretty
near master of both, so that a small part of the day dedicated to them,
for two years more, will make you perfect in that study. Rhetoric, logic,
a little geometry, and a general notion of astronomy, must, in their
turns, have their hours too; not that I desire you should be deep in any
one of these; but it is fit you should know something of them all. The
knowledge more particularly useful and necessary for you, considering
your destination, consists of modern languages, modern history,
chronology, and geography, the laws of nations, and the 'jus publicum
Imperii'. You must absolutely speak all the modern Languages, as purely
and correctly as the natives of the respective countries: for whoever
does not speak a language perfectly and easily, will never appear to
advantage in conversation, nor treat with others in it upon equal terms.
As for French, you have it very well already; and must necessarily, from
the universal usage of that language, know it better and better every
day: so that I am in no pain about that: German, I suppose, you know
pretty well by this time, and will be quite master of it before you leave
Leipsig: at least, I am sure you may. Italian and Spanish will come in
their turns, and, indeed, they are both so easy, to one who knows Latin
and French, that neither of them will cost you much time or trouble.
Modern history, by which I mean particularly the history of the last
three centuries, should be the object of your greatest and constant
attention, especially those parts of it which relate more immediately to
the great powe