LETTER XXXVI

London, April 15, O. S. 1748

Dear boy:  Though I have no letters from you to acknowledge since my last to you, I will not let three posts go from hence without a letter from me.  My affection always prompts me to write to you; and I am encouraged to do it, by the hopes that my letters are not quite useless.  You will probably receive this in the midst of the diversions of Leipsig fair; at which, Mr. Harte tells me, that you are to shine in fine clothes, among fine folks.  I am very glad of it, as it is time that you should begin to be formed to the manners of the world in higher life.  Courts are the best schools for that sort of learning.  You are beginning now with the outside of a court; and there is not a more gaudy one than that of Saxony.  Attend to it, and make your observations upon the turn and manners of it, that you may hereafter compare it with other courts which you will see; And, though you are not yet able to be informed, or to judge of the political conduct and maxims of that court, yet you may remark the forms, the ceremonies, and the exterior state of it.  At least see everything that you can see, and know everything that you can know of it, by asking questions.  See likewise everything at the fair, from operas and plays, down to the Savoyard’s raree-shows.

Everything is worth seeing once; and the more one sees, the less one either wonders or admires.

Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and tell him that I have just now received his letter, for which I thank him.  I am called away, and my letter is therefore very much shortened.  Adieu.

I am impatient to receive your answers to the many questions that I have asked you.

LETTER XXXVII

London, April 26, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  I am extremely pleased with your continuation of the history of the Reformation; which is one of those important eras that deserves your utmost attention, and of which you cannot be too minutely informed.  You have, doubtless, considered the causes of that great event, and observed that disappointment and resentment had a much greater share in it, than a religious zeal or an abhorrence of the errors and abuses of popery.

Luther, an Augustine monk, enraged that his order, and consequently himself, had not the exclusive privilege of selling indulgences, but that the Dominicans were let into a share of that profitable but infamous trade, turns reformer, and exclaims against the abuses, the corruption, and the idolatry, of the church of Rome; which were certainly gross enough for him to have seen long before, but which he had at least acquiesced in, till what he called the rights, that is, the profit, of his order came to be touched.  It is true, the church of Rome furnished him ample matter for complaint and reformation, and he laid hold of it ably.