Now from great things to little ones; the transition is to me easy, because nothing seems little to me that can be of any use to you.  I hope you take great care of your mouth and teeth, and that you clean them well every morning with a sponge and tepid water, with a few drops of arquebusade water dropped into it; besides washing your mouth carefully after every meal, I do insist upon your never using those sticks, or any hard substance whatsoever, which always rub away the gums, and destroy the varnish of the teeth.  I speak this from woeful experience; for my negligence of my teeth, when I was younger than you are, made them bad; and afterward, my desire to have them look better, made me use sticks, irons, etc., which totally destroyed them; so that I have not now above six or seven left.  I lost one this morning, which suggested this advice to you.

I have received the tremendous wild boar, which your still more tremendous arm slew in the immense deserts of the Palatinate; but have not yet tasted of it, as it is hitherto above my low regimen.  The late King of Prussia, whenever he killed any number of wild boars, used to oblige the Jews to buy them, at a high price, though they could eat none of them; so they defrayed the expense of his hunting.  His son has juster rules of government, as the Code Frederick plainly shows.

I hope, that, by this time, you are as well ‘ancre’ at Berlin as you was at Munich; but, if not, you are sure of being so at Dresden.  Adieu.

LETTER CXCVII

London, February 26, 1754.

My dear friend:  I have received your letters of the 4th, from Munich, and of the 11th from Ratisbon; but I have not received that of the 31st January, to which you refer in the former.  It is to this negligence and uncertainty of the post, that you owe your accidents between Munich and Ratisbon:  for, had you received my letters regularly, you would have received one from me before you left Munich, in which I advised you to stay, since you were so well there.  But, at all events, you were in the wrong to set out from Munich in such weather and such roads; since you could never imagine that I had set my heart so much upon your going to Berlin, as to venture your being buried in the snow for it.  Upon the whole, considering all you are very well off.  You do very well, in my mind, to return to Munich, or at least to keep within the circle of Munich, Ratisbon, and Manheim, till the weather and the roads are good:  stay at each or any of those places as long as ever you please; for I am extremely indifferent about your going to Berlin.