ern the shades and gradations that distinguish characters
seemingly alike. Company, various company, is the only school for this
knowledge. You ought to be, by this time, at least in the third form of
that school, from whence the rise to the uppermost is easy and quick; but
then you must have application and vivacity; and you must not only bear
with, but even seek restraint in most companies, instead of stagnating in
one or two only, where indolence and love of ease may be indulged.

In the plan which I gave you in my last,--[That letter is missing.]--for
your future motions, I forgot to tell you; that, if a king of the Romans
should be chosen this year, you shall certainly be at that election; and
as, upon those occasions, all strangers are excluded from the place of
the election, except such as belong to some ambassador, I have already
eventually secured you a place in the suite of the King's Electoral
Ambassador, who will be sent upon that account to Frankfort, or wherever
else the election may be. This will not only secure you a sight of the
show, but a knowledge of the whole thing; which is likely to be a
contested one, from the opposition of some of the electors, and the
protests of some of the princes of the empire. That election, if there is
one, will, in my opinion, be a memorable era in the history of the
empire; pens at least, if not swords, will be drawn; and ink, if not
blood, will be plentifully shed by the contending parties in that
dispute. During the fray, you may securely plunder, and add to your
present stock of knowledge of the 'jus publicum imperii'. The court of
France hath, I am told, appointed le President Ogier, a man of great
abilities, to go immediately to Ratisbon, 'pour y souffler la discorde'.
It must be owned that France hath always profited skillfully of its
having guaranteed the treaty of Munster; which hath given it a constant
pretense to thrust itself into the affairs of the empire. When France got
Alsace yielded by treaty, it was very willing to have held it as a fief
of the empire; but the empire was then wiser. Every power should be very
careful not to give the least pretense to a neighboring power to meddle
with the affairs of its interior. Sweden hath already felt the effects of
the Czarina's calling herself Guarantee of its present form of
government, in consequence of the treaty of Neustadt, confirmed afterward
by that of Abo; though, in truth, that guarantee was rather a provisio