I could have sent you some letters to Florence, but that I knew Mr. Mann would be of more use to you than all of them.  Pray make him my compliments.  Cultivate your Italian, while you are at Florence, where it is spoken in its utmost purity, but ill pronounced.

Pray save me the seed of some of the best melons you eat, and put it up dry in paper.  You need not send it me; but Mr. Harte will bring it in his pocket when he comes over.  I should likewise be glad of some cuttings of the best figs, especially la Pica gentile and the Maltese; but as this is not the season for them, Mr. Mann will, I dare say, undertake that commission, and send them to me at the proper time by Leghorn.  Adieu.  Endeavor to please others, and divert yourself as much as ever you can, in ‘honnete et galant homme’.

P. S. I send you the inclosed to deliver to Lord Rochford, upon your arrival at Turin.

LETTER CXVIII.

London, August 6, O. S. 1750

My dear friend:  Since your letter from Sienna, which gave me a very imperfect account both of your illness and your recovery, I have not received one word either from you or Mr. Harte.  I impute this to the carelessness of the post simply:  and the great distance between us at present exposes our letters to those accidents.  But when you come to Paris, from whence the letters arrive here very regularly, I shall insist upon you writing to me constantly once a week; and that upon the same day, for instance, every Thursday, that I may know by what mail to expect your letter.  I shall also require you to be more minute in your account of yourself than you have hitherto been, or than I have required, because of the informations which I receive from time to time from Mr. Harte.  At Paris you will be out of your time, and must set up for yourself; it is then that I shall be very solicitous to know how you carry on your business.  While Mr. Harte was your partner, the care was his share, and the profit yours.  But at Paris, if you will have the latter, you must take the former along with it.  It will be quite a new world to you; very different from the little world that you have hitherto seen; and you will have much more to do in it.  You must keep your little accounts constantly every morning, if you would not have them run into confusion, and swell to a bulk that would frighten you from ever looking into them at all.  You must allow some time for learning what you do not know, and some for keeping what you do know; and you must leave a great deal of time for your pleasures; which (I repeat it, again) are now become the most necessary part of your education.  It is by conversations, dinners, suppers, entertainments, etc., in the best companies, that you must be formed for the world.  ‘Les manieres les agremens, les graces’ cannot be learned by theory; they are only to be got by use among those who have them; and they are now the main object