gs
deserve a degree of care, a second-rate attention; they give an
additional lustre to real merit. My Lord Bacon says, that a pleasing
figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation. It is certainly an
agreeable forerunner of merit, and smoothes the way for it.

Remember that I shall see you at Hanover next summer, and shall expect
perfection; which if I do not meet with, or at least something very near
it, you and I shall, not be very well together. I shall dissect and
analyze you with a microscope; so that I shall discover the least speck
or blemish. This is fair warning; therefore take your measures
accordingly. Yours.

LETTER XIII

LONDON, August 21, O. S. 1747.

DEAR BOY: I reckon that this letter has but a bare chance of finding you
at Lausanne; but I was resolved to risk it, as it is the last that I
shall write to you till you are settled at Leipsig. I sent you by the
last post, under cover to Mr. Harte, a letter of recommendation to one of
the first people at Munich; which you will take care to present to him in
the politest manner; he will certainly have you presented to the
electoral family; and I hope you will go through that ceremony with great
respect, good breeding, and ease. As this is the first court that ever
you will have been at, take care to inform yourself if there be any
particular, customs or forms to be observed, that you may not commit any
mistake. At Vienna men always make courtesies, instead of bows, to the
emperor; in France nobody bows at all to the king, nor kisses his hand;
but in Spain and England, bows are made, and hands are kissed. Thus every
court has some peculiarity or other, of which those who go to them ought
previously to inform themselves, to avoid blunders and awkwardnesses.

I have not time to say any more now, than to wish you good journey to
Leipsig; and great attention, both there and in going there. Adieu.

LETTER XIV

LONDON, September 21, O. S. 1747

DEAR BOY: I received, by the last post, your letter of the 8th, N. S.,
and I do not wonder that you are surprised at the credulity and
superstition of the Papists at Einsiedlen, and at their absurd stories of
their chapel. But remember, at the same time, that errors and mistakes,
however gross, in matters of opinion, if they are sincere, are to be
pitied, but not punished nor laughed at. The blindness of the
understanding is as much to be pitied as the blindness of the eye; and
there is neither jest no