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<h2> LETTER CLXXVIII </h2>
<h3> LONDON, September 26, 1752 </h3>
<p>MY DEAR FRIEND: As you chiefly employ, or rather wholly engross my
thoughts, I see every day, with increasing pleasure, the fair prospect
which you have before you. I had two views in your education; they draw
nearer and nearer, and I have now very little reason to distrust your
answering them fully. Those two were, parliamentary and foreign affairs.
In consequence of those views, I took care, first, to give you a
sufficient stock of sound learning, and next, an early knowledge of the
world. Without making a figure in parliament, no man can make any in this
country; and eloquence alone enables a man to make a figure in parliament,
unless, it be a very mean and contemptible one, which those make there who
silently vote, and who do 'pedibus ire in sententiam'. Foreign affairs,
when skillfully managed, and supported by a parliamentary reputation, lead
to whatever is most considerable in this country. You have the languages
necessary for that purpose, with a sufficient fund of historical and
treaty knowledge; that is to say, you have the matter ready, and only want
the manner. Your objects being thus fixed, I recommend to you to have them
constantly in your thoughts, and to direct your reading, your actions, and
your words, to those views. Most people think only 'ex re nata', and few
'ex professo': I would have you do both, but begin with the latter. I
explain myself: Lay down certain principles, and reason and act
consequently from them. As, for example, say to yourself, I will make a
figure in parliament, and in order to do that, I must not only speak, but
speak very well. Speaking mere common sense will by no means do; and I
must speak not only correctly but elegantly; and not only elegantly but
eloquently. In order to do this, I will first take pains to get an
habitual, but unaffected, purity, correctness and elegance of style in my
common conversation; I will seek for the best words, and take care to
reject improper, inexpressive, and vulgar ones. I will read the greatest
masters of oratory, both ancient and modern, and I will read them singly
in that view. I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old
Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents,
mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to
observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method,
their distribution, their exordia, to engage the favor and attention of
their audience; and their perorations, to enforce what they have said, and
to leave a strong impression upon the passions. Nor will I be pedant
enough to neglect the modern; for I will likewise study Atterbury, Dryden,
Pope, and Bolingbroke; nay, I will read everything that I do read in that
intention, and never cease improving and refining my style upon the best
models, till at last I become a model of eloquence myself, which, by care,
it is in every man's power to be. If you set out upon this principle, and
keep it constantly in your mind, every company you go into, and every book
you read, will contribute to your improvement, either by showing you what
to imitate, or what to avoid. Are you to give an account of anything to a
mixed company? or are you to endeavor to persuade either man or woman?
This principle, fixed in your mind, will make you carefully attend to the
choice of your words, and to the clearness and harmony of your diction.</p>
<p>So much for your parliamentary object; now to the foreign one.</p>
<p>Lay down first those principles which are absolutely necessary to form a
skillful and successful negotiator, and form yourself accordingly. What
are they? First, the clear historical knowledge of past transactions of
that kind. That you have pretty well already, and will have daily more and
more; for, in consequence of that principle, you will read history,
memoirs, anecdotes, etc., in that view chiefly. The other necessary
talents for negotiation are: the great art of pleasing and engaging the
affection and confidence, not only of those with whom you are to
cooperate, but even of those whom you are to oppose: to conceal your own
thoughts and views, and to discover other people's: to engage other
people's confidence by a seeming cheerful frankness and openness, without
going a step too far: to get the personal favor of the king, prince,
ministers, or mistresses of the court to which you are sent: to gain the
absolute command over your temper and your countenance, that no heat may
provoke you to say, nor no change of countenance to betray, what should be
a secret: to familiarize and domesticate yourself in the houses of the
most considerable people of the place, so as to be received there rather
as a friend to the family than as a foreigner. Having these principles
constantly in your thoughts, everything you do and everything you say will
some way or other tend to your main view; and common conversation will
gradually fit you for it. You will get a habit of checking any rising
heat; you will be upon your guard against any indiscreet expression; you
will by degrees get the command of your countenance, so as not to change
it upon any the most sudden accident; and you will, above all things,
labor to acquire the great art of pleasing, without which nothing is to be
done. Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation; and, if you
attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means
that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you
will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and
gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep,
and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all
who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep your own secret, and get out
other people's. Keep your own temper and artfully warm other people's.
Counterwork your rivals, with diligence and dexterity, but at the same
time with the utmost personal civility to them; and be firm without heat.
Messieurs d'Avaux and Servien did no more than this. I must make one
observation, in confirmation of this assertion; which is, that the most
eminent negotiators have allways been the politest and bestbred men in
company; even what the women call the PRETTIEST MEN. For God's sake, never
lose view of these two your capital objects: bend everything to them, try
everything by their rules, and calculate everything for their purposes.
What is peculiar to these two objects, is, that they require nothing, but
what one's own vanity, interest, and pleasure, would make one do
independently of them. If a man were never to be in business, and always
to lead a private life, would he not desire to please and to persuade? So
that, in your two destinations, your fortune and figure luckily conspire
with your vanity and your pleasures. Nay more; a foreign minister, I will
maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable
man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his
pleasures; his views are carried on, and perhaps best and most
unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by
intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those
unguarded hours of amusement.</p>
<p>These objects now draw very near you, and you have no time to lose in
preparing yourself to meet them. You will be in parliament almost as soon
as your age will allow, and I believe you will have a foreign department
still sooner, and that will be earlier than ever any other body had one.
If you set out well at one-and-twenty, what may you not reasonably hope to
be at one-and-forty? All that I could wish you! Adieu.</p>
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