y exposes a man of slight and superficial reading;
therefore, pray make the substance and matter of such books your first
object, and their title-pages, indexes, letter, and binding, but your
second. It is the characteristic of a man of parts and good judgment to
know, and give that degree of attention that each object deserves.
Whereas little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish
away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter
deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribes of
insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies,
etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the
useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious. He applies
himself intensely to the former; he only amuses himself with the latter.
Of this little sort of knowledge, which I have just hinted at, you will
find at least as much as you need wish to know, in a superficial but
pretty French book, entitled, 'Spectacle de la Nature'; which will amuse
you while you read it, and give you a sufficient notion of the various
parts of nature. I would advise you to read it, at leisure hours. But
that part of nature, which Mr. Harte tells me you have begun to study
with the Rector magnificus, is of much greater importance, and deserves
much more attention; I mean astronomy. The vast and immense planetary
system, the astonishing order and regularity of those innumerable worlds,
will open a scene to you, which not only deserves your attention as a
matter of curiosity, or rather astonishment; but still more, as it will
give you greater, and consequently juster, ideas of that eternal and
omnipotent Being, who contrived, made, and still preserves that universe,
than all the contemplation of this, comparatively, very little orb, which
we at present inhabit, could possibly give you. Upon this subject,
Monsieur Fontenelle's 'Pluralite des Mondes', which you may read in two
hours' time, will both inform and please you. God bless you! Yours.

LETTER LIX

LONDON, December 13, O. S. 1748.

DEAR BOY: The last four posts have brought me no letters, either from you
or from Mr. Harte, at which I am uneasy; not as a mamma would be, but as
a father should be: for I do not want your letters as bills of health;
you are young, strong, and healthy, and I am, consequently, in no pain
about that: moreover, were either you or Mr. Harte ill, the other would
doubtless write