y. This, I persuade
myself, will happen, from that degree of sense which I think you have;
and therefore I will go on advising, and with hopes of success.

You are now settled for some time at Leipsig; the principal object of
your stay there is the knowledge of books and sciences; which if you do
not, by attention and application, make yourself master of while you are
there, you will be ignorant of them all the rest of your life; and, take
my word for it, a life of ignorance is not only a very contemptible, but
a very tiresome one. Redouble your attention, then, to Mr. Harte, in your
private studies of the 'Literae Humaniores,' especially Greek. State your
difficulties, whenever you have any; and do not suppress them, either
from mistaken shame, lazy indifference, or in order to have done the
sooner. Do the same when you are at lectures with Professor Mascow, or
any other professor; let nothing pass till you are sure that you
understand it thoroughly; and accustom yourself to write down the capital
points of what you learn. When you have thus usefully employed your
mornings, you may, with a safe conscience, divert yourself in the
evenings, and make those evenings very useful too, by passing them in
good company, and, by observation and attention, learning as much of the
world as Leipsig can teach you. You will observe and imitate the manners
of the people of the best fashion there; not that they are (it may be)
the best manners in the world; but because they are the best manners of
the place where you are, to which a man of sense always conforms. The
nature of things (as I have often told you) is always and everywhere the
same; but the modes of them vary more or less, in every country; and an
easy and genteel conformity to them, or rather the assuming of them at
proper times, and in proper places, is what particularly constitutes a
man of the world, and a well-bred man.

Here is advice enough, I think, and too much, it may be, you will think,
for one letter; if you follow it, you will get knowledge, character, and
pleasure by it; if you do not, I only lose 'operam et oleum,' which, in
all events, I do not grudge you.

I send you, by a person who sets out this day for Leipsig, a small packet
from your Mamma, containing some valuable things which you left behind,
to which I have added, by way of new-year's gift, a very pretty
tooth-pick case; and, by the way, pray take great care of your teeth, and
keep them extremely c