forever a dirty, rough mineral, in the cabinets of some few curious collectors.  You have; I hope, that solidity and cohesion of parts; take now as much pains to get the lustre.  Good company, if you make the right use of it, will cut you into shape, and give you the true brilliant polish.  A propos of diamonds:  I have sent you by Sir James Gray, the King’s Minister, who will be at Venice about the middle of September, my own diamond buckles; which are fitter for your young feet than for my old ones:  they will properly adorn you; they would only expose me.  If Sir James finds anybody whom he can trust, and who will be at Venice before him, he will send them by that person; but if he should not, and that you should be gone from Venice before he gets there, he will in that case give them to your banker, Monsieur Cornet, to forward to you, wherever you may then be.  You are now of an age, at which the adorning your person is not only not ridiculous, but proper and becoming.  Negligence would imply either an indifference about pleasing, or else an insolent security of pleasing, without using those means to which others are obliged to have recourse.  A thorough cleanliness in your person is as necessary for your own health, as it is not to be offensive to other people.  Washing yourself, and rubbing your body and limbs frequently with a fleshbrush, will conduce as much to health as to cleanliness.  A particular attention to the cleanliness of your mouth, teeth, hands, and nails, is but common decency, in order not to offend people’s eyes and noses.

I send you here inclosed a letter of recommendation to the Duke of Nivernois, the French Ambassador at Rome; who is, in my opinion, one of the prettiest men I ever knew in my life.  I do not know a better model for you to form yourself upon; pray observe and frequent him as much as you can.  He will show you what manners and graces are.  I shall, by successive posts, send you more letters, both for Rome and Naples, where it will be your own fault entirely if you do not keep the very best company.

As you will meet swarms of Germans wherever you go, I desire that you will constantly converse with them in their own language, which will improve you in that language, and be, at the same time, an agreeable piece of civility to them.

Your stay in Italy will, I do not doubt, make you critically master of Italian; I know it may, if you please, for it is a very regular, and consequently a very easy language.  Adieu!  God bless you!

LETTER LXXV

London, July 20, O. S. 1749.

Dear boy:  I wrote to Mr. Harte last Monday, the 17th, O. S., in answer to his letter of the 20th June, N. S., which I had received but the day before, after an interval of eight posts; during which I did not know whether you or he existed, and indeed I began to think that you did not.  By that letter you ought at this time to be at Venice; where I hope you are arrived in perfect health, after the baths of Tiefler, in case you have made use of them.  I hope they are not hot baths, if your lungs are still tender.