Your lordship is very cunning, but I never imagined that you were remarkably wise.  The talents you received at your birth, if we were to speak with mathematical strictness, should rather be denominated knacks, than abilities.  They consist rather in a lucky dexterity of face, and a happy conformation of limb, than in any very elevated capacities of the intellect.  Upon that score, my lord,—­you know I am fond of comparisons, and I think I have hit upon one in this case, that must be acknowledged remarkably apposite.  I have sometimes seen a ditch, the water of which, though really shallow, has appeared to careless observers to be very deep, for no other reason but because it was muddy.  Believe me, my lord, experienced and penetrating observers are not so to be taken in.

But, as I was saying, education is a temporary thing, and your lordship’s, however lasting and laborious, is at length brought to a period.  My lord, if it so pleases the sovereign disposer of all things, I would be very well satisfied to remain in this sublunary state for some years longer, if it were only that I might live to rejoice in the exemplification of my precepts in the conduct of my pupil.  But, if this boon be granted to my merits and my prayers, at any rate I shall from this moment retire from the world.  From henceforth my secret influence is brought to its close.  I will no longer be the unseen original of the grand movements of the figures that fill the political stage.  I will stand aloof from the giddy herd.  I will not stray from my little vortex.  I will look down upon the transactions of courts and ministers, like an etherial being from a superior element.  There I shall hope to see your lordship outstrip your contemporaries, and tower above the pigmies of the day.  To repeat an idea before delivered, might be unbecoming in a fine writer, but it is characteristic and beautiful under the personage of a preceptor.  The fitnesses which nature bestowed upon your frame would not have done alone.  But joined with the lessons I have taught you, they cannot fail, unless I grossly flatter myself, to make the part which your lordship shall act sufficiently conspicuous.

Receive then, my lord, with that docility and veneration, which have at all times made the remembrance of you pleasant and reviving to my heart, the last communications of the instructor of your choice.  Yes, my lord, from henceforth you shall see me, you shall hear from me no more.  From this consideration I infer one reason why you should deeply reflect upon the precepts I have now to offer.  Remembering that these little sheets are all the legacy my affection can bestow upon you, I shall concenter in them the very quintessence and epitome of all my wisdom.  I shall provide in them a particular antidote to those defects to which nature has made you most propense.