mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribes of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc.  The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.  He applies himself intensely to the former; he only amuses himself with the latter.  Of this little sort of knowledge, which I have just hinted at, you will find at least as much as you need wish to know, in a superficial but pretty French book, entitled, ‘Spectacle de la Nature’; which will amuse you while you read it, and give you a sufficient notion of the various parts of nature.  I would advise you to read it, at leisure hours.  But that part of nature, which Mr. Harte tells me you have begun to study with the Rector magnificus, is of much greater importance, and deserves much more attention; I mean astronomy.  The vast and immense planetary system, the astonishing order and regularity of those innumerable worlds, will open a scene to you, which not only deserves your attention as a matter of curiosity, or rather astonishment; but still more, as it will give you greater, and consequently juster, ideas of that eternal and omnipotent Being, who contrived, made, and still preserves that universe, than all the contemplation of this, comparatively, very little orb, which we at present inhabit, could possibly give you.  Upon this subject, Monsieur Fontenelle’s ‘Pluralite des Mondes’, which you may read in two hours’ time, will both inform and please you.  God bless you!  Yours.

LETTER LIX

London, December 13, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  The last four posts have brought me no letters, either from you or from Mr. Harte, at which I am uneasy; not as a mamma would be, but as a father should be:  for I do not want your letters as bills of health; you are young, strong, and healthy, and I am, consequently, in no pain about that:  moreover, were either you or Mr. Harte ill, the other would doubtless write me word of it.  My impatience for yours or Mr. Harte’s letters arises from a very different cause, which is my desire to hear frequently of the state and progress of your mind.  You are now at that critical period of life when every week ought to produce fruit or flowers answerable to your culture, which I am sure has not been neglected; and it is by your letters, and Mr. Harte’s accounts of you, that, at this distance, I can only judge at your gradations to maturity; I desire, therefore, that one of you two will not fail to write to me once a week.  The sameness of your present way of life, I easily conceive, would not make out a very interesting letter to an indifferent bystander; but so deeply concerned as I am in the game you are playing, even the least move is to me of importance, and helps me to judge of the final event.