As by this time you must be able to write German tolerably well, I desire that you will not fail to write a German letter, in the German character, once every fortnight, to Mr. Grevenkop:  which will make it more familiar to you, and enable me to judge how you improve in it.

Do not forget to answer me the questions, which I asked you a great while ago, in relation to the constitution of Saxony; and also the meaning of the words ‘Landsassii and Amptsassii’.

I hope you do not forget to inquire into the affairs of trade and commerce, nor to get the best accounts you can of the commodities and manufactures, exports and imports of the several countries where you may be, and their gross value.

I would likewise have you attend to the respective coins, gold, silver, copper, etc., and their value, compared with our coin’s; for which purpose I would advise you to put up, in a separate piece of paper, one piece of every kind, wherever you shall be, writing upon it the name and the value.  Such a collection will be curious enough in itself; and that sort of knowledge will be very useful to you in your way of business, where the different value of money often comes in question.

I am doing to Cheltenham to-morrow, less for my health; which is pretty good, than for the dissipation and amusement of the journey.  I shall stay about a fortnight.

L’Abbe Mably’s ‘Droit de l’Europe’, which Mr. Harte is so kind as to send me, is worth your reading.  Adieu.

LETTER XLIV.

Cheltenham, July 6, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  Your school-fellow, Lord Pulteney,—­[Only child of the Right Hon. William Pulteney, Earl of Bath.  He died before his father.]—­set out last week for Holland, and will, I believe, be at Leipsig soon after this letter:  you will take care to be extremely civil to him, and to do him any service that you can while you stay there; let him know that I wrote to you to do so.  As being older, he should know more than you; in that case, take pains to get up to him; but if he does not, take care not to let him feel his inferiority.  He will find it out of himself without your endeavors; and that cannot be helped:  but nothing is more insulting, more mortifying and less forgiven, than avowedly to take pains to make a man feel a mortifying inferiority in knowledge, rank, fortune, etc.  In the two last articles, it is unjust, they not being in his power:  and in the first it is both ill-bred and ill-natured.  Good-breeding, and good-nature, do incline us rather to raise and help people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.  The constant practice of what the French call ‘les Attentions’, is a most necessary ingredient in the art of pleasing; they flatter the self-love of those to whom they are shown; they engage, they captivate, more than things of much greater importance.  The duties of social life every man is obliged to discharge; but these attentions are voluntary acts, the free-will offerings of good-breeding and good nature; they are received, remembered, and returned as such.  Women, particularly, have a right to them; and any omission in that respect is downright ill-breeding.