eper than the surface. It is the exterior
that always engages their hearts; and I would never advise you to give
yourself much trouble about their understandings. Princes in general
(I mean those Porphyrogenets who are born and bred in purple) are
about the pitch of women; bred up like them, and are to be addrest and
gained in the same manner. They always see, they seldom weigh. Your
luster, not your solidity, must take them; your inside will afterward
support and secure what your outside has acquired.

With weak people (and they undoubtedly are three parts in four of
mankind) good breeding, address, and manners are everything; they can
go no deeper: but let me assure you, that they are a great deal, even
with people of the best understandings. Where the eyes are not
pleased, and the heart is not flattered, the mind will be apt to stand
out. Be this right or wrong, I confess, I am so made myself.
Awkwardness and ill breeding shock me, to that degree, that where I
meet with them, I can not find in my heart to inquire into the
intrinsic merit of that person; I hastily decide in myself, that he
can have none; and am not sure, I should not even be sorry to know
that he had any. I often paint you in my imagination, in your present
_lontananza_; and, while I view you in the light of ancient and modern
learning, useful and ornamental knowledge, I am charmed with the
prospect; but when I view you in another light, and represent you
awkward, ungraceful, ill bred, with vulgar air and manners, shambling
toward me with inattention and distractions, I shall not pretend to
describe to you what I feel, but will do as a skilful painter did
formerly, draw a veil before the countenance of the father.

I dare say you know already enough of architecture to know that the
Tuscan is the strongest and most solid of all the orders; but, at the
same time, it is the coarsest and clumsiest of them. Its solidity does
extremely well for the foundation and base floor of a great edifice;
but, if the whole building be Tuscan, it will attract no eyes, it will
stop no passengers, it will invite no interior examination; people
will take it for granted that the finishing and furnishing can not be
worth seeing, where the front is so unadorned and clumsy. But, if upon
the solid Tuscan foundation, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian
orders rise gradually with all their beauty, proportions, and
ornaments, the fabric seizes the most incurious eye, and sto