at Aix-la-Chapelle, will be the common subject of most conversations; in which you will take care to ask the proper questions:  as, what is the meaning of the Assiento contract for negroes, between England and Spain; what the annual ship; when stipulated; upon what account suspended, etc.  You will likewise inform yourself about Guastalla, now given to Don Philip, together with Parma and Placentia; who they belonged to before; what claim or pretensions Don Philip had to them; what they are worth; in short, everything concerning them.  The cessions made by the Queen of Hungary to the King of Sardinia, are, by these preliminaries, confirmed and secured to him:  you will inquire, therefore, what they are, and what they are worth.  This is the kind of knowledge which you should be most thoroughly master of, and in which conversation will help you almost as much as books:  but both are best.  There are histories of every considerable treaty, from that of Westphalia to that of Utrecht, inclusively; all which I would advise you to read.  Pore Bougeant’s, of the treaty of Westphalia, is an excellent one; those of Nimeguen, Ryswick, and Utrecht, are not so well written; but are, however, very useful.  ’L’Histoire des Traites de Paix’, in two volumes, folio, which I recommended to you some time ago, is a book that you should often consult, when you hear mention made of any treaty concluded in the seventeenth century.

Upon the whole, if you have a mind to be considerable, and to shine hereafter, you must labor hard now.  No quickness of parts, no vivacity, will do long, or go far, without a solid fund of knowledge; and that fund of knowledge will amply repay all the pains that you can take in acquiring it.  Reflect seriously, within yourself, upon all this, and ask yourself whether I can have any view, but your interest, in all that I recommend to you.  It is the result of my experience, and flows from that tenderness and affection with which, while you deserve them, I shall be, Yours.

Make my compliments to Mr. Harte, and tell him that I have received his letter of the 24th, N. S.

LETTER XLI

London, May 31, O. S. 1748

Dear boy:  I have received, with great satisfaction, your letter of the 28th N. S., from Dresden:  it finishes your short but clear account of the Reformation which is one of those interesting periods of modern history, that can not be too much studied nor too minutely known by you.  There are many great events in history, which, when once they are over, leave things in the situation in which they found them.  As, for instance, the late war; which, excepting the establishment in Italy for Don Philip, leave things pretty much in state quo; a mutual restitution of all acquisitions being stipulated by the preliminaries of the peace.  Such events undoubtedly deserve your notice, but yet not so minutely as those, which