I this moment receive yours of the 17th, N. S., and cannot condole with you upon the secession of your German ‘Commensaux’; who both by your and Mr. Harte’s description, seem to be ‘des gens d’une amiable absence’; and, if you can replace them by any other German conversation, you will be a gainer by the bargain.  I cannot conceive, if you understand German well enough to read any German book, how the writing of the German character can be so difficult and tedious to you, the twenty-four letters being very soon learned; and I do not expect that you should write yet with the utmost purity and correctness, as to the language:  what I meant by your writing once a fortnight to Grevenkop, was only to make the written character familiar to you.  However, I will be content with one in three weeks or so.

I believe you are not likely to see Mr. Eliot again soon, he being still in Cornwall with his father; who, I hear, is not likely to recover.  Adieu.

LETTER LVII

London, November 29, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  I delayed writing to you till I could give you some account of the motions of your friend Mr. Eliot; for whom I know you have, and very justly, the most friendly concern.  His father and he came to town together, in a post-chaise a fortnight ago, the rest of the family remaining in Cornwall.  His father, with difficulty, survived the journey, and died last Saturday was seven-night.  Both concern and decency confined your friend, till two days ago, when I saw him; he has determined, and I think very prudently, to go abroad again; but how soon, it is yet impossible for him to know, as he must necessarily put his own private affairs in some order first; but I conjecture that he may possibly join you at Turin; sooner, to be sure, not.  I am very sorry that you are likely to be so long without the company and the example of so valuable a friend; and therefore I hope that you will make it up to yourself, as well as you can at this distance, by remembering and following his example.  Imitate that application of his, which has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom.  He does not content himself with the surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, knowing that it lies deep.  Pope says, very truly, in his “Essay on Criticism":—­

     A little learning is a dangerous thing;
     Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

I shall send you by a ship that goes to Hamburg next week (and by which Hawkins sends Mr. Harte some things that he wrote for) all those which I propose sending you by Mr. Eliot, together with a very little box that I am desired to forward to Mr. Harte.  There will be, likewise, two letters of recommendation for you to Monsieur Andrie and Comte Algarotti, at Berlin, which you will take care to deliver to them, as soon as you shall be rigged and fitted out to appear there.  They will introduce you into the best company, and I depend upon your own good sense for your avoiding of bad.  If you fall into bad and low company there, or anywhere else, you will be irrecoverably lost; whereas, if you keep good company, and company above yourself, your character and your fortune will be immovably fixed.