youth of those thorns and briers which scratched and disfigured me in the course of mine. [Bath, Oct. 4, 1746.]
His Son's Utter Dependence.—I do not,
therefore, so much as hint to you how absolutely dependent
you are on me—that you neither have nor
can have a shilling in the world but from me; and
that as I have no womanish weakness for your person,
your merit must, and will, be the only measure
of my kindness—I say, I do not hint these things to
you because I am convinced that you will act right,
upon more noble and generous principles; I mean for
the sake of doing right, and out of affection and
gratitude to me. [Same date.]
No Smattering.—Mr. Pope says, very truly,
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Castalian spring."
And what is called a smattering of everything infallibly constitutes a coxcomb. I have often, of late, reflected what an unhappy man I must now have been, if I had not acquired in my youth some fund and taste of learning. What could I have done with myself, at this age, without them? I must, as many ignorant people do, have destroyed my health and faculties by setting away the evenings; or, by wasting them frivolously in the tattle of women's company, must have exposed myself to the ridicule and
