Mr. Harte tells me that you have grown very much since your illness; if you get up to five feet ten, or even nine inches, your figure will probably be a good one; and if well dressed and genteel, will probably please; which is a much greater advantage to a man than people commonly think.  Lord Bacon calls it a letter of recommendation.

I would wish you to be the omnis homo, ‘l’homme universel’.  You are nearer it, if you please, than ever anybody was at your age; and if you will but, for the course of this next year only, exert your whole attention to your studies in the morning, and to your address, manners, air and tournure in the evenings, you will be the man I wish you, and the man that is rarely seen.

Our letters go, at best, so irregularly, and so often miscarry totally, that for greater security I repeat the same things.  So, though I acknowledged by last post Mr. Harte’s letter of the 8th September, N. S., I acknowledge it again by this to you.  If this should find you still at Verona, let it inform you that I wish you would set out soon for Naples; unless Mr. Harte should think it better for you to stay at Verona, or any other place on this side Rome, till you go there for the Jubilee.  Nay, if he likes it better, I am very willing that you should go directly from Verona to Rome; for you cannot have too much of Rome, whether upon account of the language, the curiosities, or the company.  My only reason for mentioning Naples, is for the sake of the climate, upon account of your health; but if Mr. Harte thinks that your health is now so well restored as to be above climate, he may steer your course wherever he thinks proper:  and, for aught I know, your going directly to Rome, and consequently staying there so much the longer, may be as well as anything else.  I think you and I cannot put our affairs in better hands than in Mr. Harte’s; and I will stake his infallibility against the Pope’s, with some odds on his side.  Apropos of the Pope:  remember to be presented to him before you leave Rome, and go through the necessary ceremonies for it, whether of kissing his slipper or his b—–­h; for I would never deprive myself of anything that I wanted to do or see, by refusing to comply with an established custom.  When I was in Catholic countries, I never declined kneeling in their churches at the elevation, nor elsewhere, when the Host went by.  It is a complaisance due to the custom of the place, and by no means, as some silly people have imagined, an implied approbation of their doctrine.  Bodily attitudes and situations are things so very indifferent in themselves, that I would quarrel with nobody about them.  It may, indeed, be improper for Mr. Harte to pay that tribute of complaisance, upon account of his character.

This letter is a very long, and possibly a very tedious one; but my anxiety for your perfection is so great, and particularly at this critical and decisive period of your life, that I am only afraid of omitting, but never of repeating, or dwelling too long upon anything that I think may be of the least use to you.  Have the same anxiety for yourself, that I have for you, and all will do well.  Adieu! my dear child.