t your Lordship
in mind AS HOW, that I am now full three quarter in arrear; and if SO BE
that I do not very soon receive at least one half year, I shall CUT A
VERY BAD FIGURE; FOR THIS HERE place is very dear. I shall be VASTLY
BEHOLDEN to your Lordship for THAT THERE mark of your favor; and so I
REST or REMAIN, Your, etc.

You will tell me, possibly, that this is a caricatura of an illiberal and
inelegant style: I will admit it; but assure you, at the same time, that
a dispatch with less than half these faults would blow you up forever. It
is by no means sufficient to be free from faults, in speaking and
writing; but you must do both correctly and elegantly. In faults of this
kind, it is not 'ille optimus qui minimis arguetur'; but he is
unpardonable who has any at all, because it is his own fault: he need
only attend to, observe, and imitate the best authors.

It is a very true saying, that a man must be born a poet, but that he may
make himself an orator; and the very first principle of an orator is to
speak his own language, particularly, with the utmost purity and
elegance. A man will be forgiven even great errors in a foreign language;
but in his own, even the least slips are justly laid hold of and
ridiculed.

A person of the House of Commons, speaking two years ago upon naval
affairs; asserted, that we had then the finest navy UPON THE FACE OF THE
YEARTH. This happy mixture of blunder and vulgarism, you may easily
imagine, was matter of immediate ridicule; but I can assure you that it
continues so still, and will be remembered as long as he lives and
speaks. Another, speaking in defense of a gentleman, upon whom a censure
was moved, happily said that he thought that gentleman was more LIABLE to
be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that LIABLE
can never be used in a good sense.

You have with you three or four of the best English authors, Dryden,
Atterbury, and Swift; read them with the utmost care, and with a
particular view to their language, and they may possibly correct that
CURIOUS INFELICITY OF DICTION, which you acquired at Westminster. Mr.
Harte excepted, I will admit that you have met with very few English
abroad, who could improve your style; and with many, I dare say, who
speak as ill as yourself, and, it may be, worse; you must, therefore,
take the more pains, and consult your authors and Mr. Harte the more. I
need not tell you how attentive the Romans and Greeks, particula