s of a gentleman, and taken with your
equals at least, but rather with your superiors, and those chiefly
French.

Inquire into the characters of the several Academicians, before you form
a connection with any of them; and be most upon your guard against those
who make the most court to you.

You cannot study much in the Academy; but you may study usefully there,
if you are an economist of your time, and bestow only upon good books
those quarters and halves of hours, which occur to everybody in the
course of almost every day; and which, at the year's end, amount to a
very considerable sum of time. Let Greek, without fail, share some part
of every day; I do not mean the Greek poets, the catches of Anacreon, or
the tender complaints of Theocritus, or even the porter-like language of
Homer's heroes; of whom all smatterers in Greek know a little, quote
often, and talk of always; but I mean Plato, Aristoteles, Demosthenes,
and Thucydides, whom none but adepts know. It is Greek that must
distinguish you in the learned world, Latin alone will not: and Greek
must be sought to be retained, for it never occurs like Latin. When you
read history or other books of amusement, let every language you are
master of have its turn, so that you may not only retain, but improve in
everyone. I also desire that you will converse in German and Italian,
with all the Germans and the Italians with whom you converse at all. This
will be a very agreeable and flattering thing to them, and a very useful
one to you.

Pray apply yourself diligently to your exercises; for though the doing
them well is not supremely meritorious, the doing them ill is illiberal,
vulgar, and ridiculous.

I recommend theatrical representations to you; which are excellent at
Paris. The tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the comedies of
Moliere, well attended to, are admirable lessons, both for the heart and
the head. There is not, nor ever was, any theatre comparable to the
French. If the music of the French operas does not please your Italian
ear, the words of them, at least, are sense and poetry, which is much
more than I can, say of any Italian opera that I ever read or heard in my
life.

I send you the inclosed letter of recommendation to Marquis Matignon,
which I would have you deliver to him as soon as you can; you will, I am
sure, feel the good effects of his warm friendship for me and Lord
Bolingbroke, who has also wrote to him upon your subject. By that, an