The life of ‘les Milords Anglois’ is regularly, or, if you will, irregularly, this.  As soon as they rise, which is very late, they breakfast together, to the utter loss of two good morning hours.  Then they go by coachfuls to the Palais, the Invalides, and Notre-Dame; from thence to the English coffee-house, where they make up their tavern party for dinner.  From dinner, where they drink quick, they adjourn in clusters to the play, where they crowd up the stage, dressed up in very fine clothes, very ill-made by a Scotch or Irish tailor.  From the play to the tavern again, where they get very drunk, and where they either quarrel among themselves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the streets, and are taken up by the watch.  Those who do not speak French before they go, are sure to learn none there.  Their tender vows are addressed to their Irish laundress, unless by chance some itinerant Englishwoman, eloped from her husband, or her creditors, defrauds her of them.  Thus they return home, more petulant, but not more informed, than when they left it; and show, as they think, their improvement by affectedly both speaking and dressing in broken French:—­

          “Hunc to Romane caveito.”

Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French; improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to their vices.  Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for remonstrances do not suit with your age.  In French companies in general you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish yours in their faces.  People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.  Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the company of les Gens d’Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw it.  Your are then thought, from that seeming unwillingness, to have still more knowledge than it may be you really have, and with the additional merit of modesty into the bargain.  A man who talks of, or even hints at, his ‘bonnes fortunes’, is seldom believed, or, if believed, much blamed; whereas a man who conceals with care is often supposed to have more than he has, and his reputation of discretion gets him others.  It is just so with a man of learning; if he affects to show it, it is questioned, and he is reckoned only superficial; but if afterward it appears that he really has it, he is pronounced a pedant.  Real merit of any kind, ’ubi est non potest diu celari’; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man’s exhibiting it himself.  It may not always be rewarded as it ought, but it will always be known.  You will in general find the women of the beau monde at Paris more instructed than the men, who are bred up singly for the army, and thrown into it at twelve or thirteen years old; but then that sort of education, which makes them ignorant of books, gives them a great knowledge of the world, an easy address, and polite manners.