world--but I don't
understand these matters. Possibly your uncle (poor man) does not manage
them well. However, he says no time is to be lost. You are to return
immediately to England, and come down to his house in--shire. It is
supposed you will have some contest, but be certain eventually to come
in.

"You will also, in this visit to Lord Glenmorris, have an excellent
opportunity of securing his affection; you know it is some time since he
saw you, and the greater part of his property is unentailed. If you come
into the House you must devote yourself wholly to it, and I have no fear
of your succeeding; for I remember, when you were quite a child, how
well you spoke, 'My name is Norval,' and 'Romans, countrymen, and
lovers,' I heard Mr. Canning speak the other day, and I think his voice
is quite like yours; in short, I make no doubt of seeing you in the
ministry in a very few years.

"You see, my dear son, that it is absolutely necessary you should set
out immediately. You will call on Lady--, and you will endeavour to make
firm friends of the most desirable among your present acquaintance; so
that you may be on the same footing you are now, should you return
to Paris. This a little civility will easily do: nobody (as I before
observed), except in England, ever loses by politeness; by the by, that
last word is one you must never use, it is too Gloucester-place like.

"You will also be careful, in returning to England, to make very little
use of French phrases; no vulgarity is more unpleasing. I could not
help being exceedingly amused by a book written the other day, which
professes to give an accurate description of good society. Not knowing
what to make us say in English, the author has made us talk nothing but
French. I have often wondered what common people think of us, since
in their novels they always affect to pourtray us so different from
themselves. I am very much afraid we are in all things exactly like
them, except in being more simple and unaffected. The higher the rank,
indeed, the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to. This is
the chief reason why our manners are better than low persons: ours are
more natural, because they imitate no one else; theirs are affected,
because they think to imitate ours; and whatever is evidently
borrowed becomes vulgar. Original affection is sometimes ton--imitated
affectation, always bad.

"Well, my dear Henry, I must now conclude this letter, already too lo