what do you think made our friend, Lord A——­e, Colonel of a regiment of guards, Governor of Virginia, Groom of the Stole, and Ambassador to Paris; amounting in all to sixteen or seventeen thousand pounds a year?  Was it his birth?  No, a Dutch gentleman only.  Was it his estate?  No, he had none.  Was it his learning, his parts, his political abilities and application?  You can answer these questions as easily, and as soon, as I can ask them.  What was it then?  Many people wondered, but I do not; for I know, and will tell you.  It was his air, his address, his manners, and his graces.  He pleased, and by pleasing he became a favorite; and by becoming a favorite became all that he has been since.  Show me any one instance, where intrinsic worth and merit, unassisted by exterior accomplishments, have raised any man so high.  You know the Due de Richelieu, now ‘Marechal, Cordon bleu, Gentilhomme de la Chambre’, twice Ambassador, etc.  By what means?  Not by the purity of his character, the depth of his knowledge, or any uncommon penetration and sagacity.  Women alone formed and raised him.  The Duchess of Burgundy took a fancy to him, and had him before he was sixteen years old; this put him in fashion among the beau monde:  and the late Regent’s oldest daughter, now Madame de Modene, took him next, and was near marrying him.  These early connections with women of the first distinction gave him those manners, graces, and address, which you see he has; and which, I can assure you, are all that he has; for, strip him of them, and he will be one of the poorest men in Europe.  Man or woman cannot resist an engaging exterior; it will please, it will make its way.  You want, it seems, but ’quelques couches’; for God’s sake, lose no time in getting them; and now you have gone so far, complete the work.  Think of nothing else till that work is finished; unwearied application will bring about anything:  and surely your application can never be so well employed as upon that object, which is absolutely necessary to facilitate all others.  With your knowledge and parts, if adorned by manners and graces, what may you not hope one day to be?  But without them, you will be in the situation of a man who should be very fleet of one leg but very lame of the other.  He could not run; the lame leg would check and clog the well one, which would be very near useless.

From my original plan for your education, I meant to make you ’un homme universel’; what depends on me is executed, the little that remains undone depends singly upon you.  Do not then disappoint, when you can so easily gratify me.  It is your own interest which I am pressing you to pursue, and it is the only return that I desire for all the care and affection of, Yours.

LETTER CLXVIII

London, May 31, O. S. 1752