“I am extremely mortified at Lord Mahone’s too great vivacity. Lord Stanhope brought him to Tunbridge to spend a day with me. I was pleased with his conversation and manners, and particularly in not finding him so exotick as I expected. His sentiments and language appear to me perfectly good English, such as suited the heir of an English peer, and not borrow’d from _un bourgeois de Genève_, which, with all due respect to Jean Jacques, I take to be much inferior in nobleness of mind as well as dignity of office. But his lordship’s attack on Mr. Knight and his presenting articles to a candidate, looks as if he had steep’d his patriotism in the Lake of Geneva. Lord Stanhope is a very respectable man; has great virtues and great talents. These, under the military discipline of worldly warfare, do great things, while they lead and command regiments of inferior minds which fight under them. But in our days the unconnected patriot makes just such a figure in the political system as the _preux_ chevalier would do now in the military. Nothing is to be done in these days by single combat. Neither the patriot nor the champion would be able to effect the abolition of the exorbitant toll of a bridge. If I had a son, I should desire him never to wander single in quest of adventures. Virtue, wisdom, honours, prosperity, happiness, are all to be found on the turnpike road, or not to be found at all.... “I had strong inclinations to make you and my brother at Horton a visit when I left Tunbridge; but as a northern journey was then in contemplation, I durst not propose such a measure to Mr. Montagu. He still talks of our going to Northumberland, but delays setting out. In the meantime, winter approaches. He is in very good health and spirits, but extremely feeble; goes to bed every afternoon by five o’clock, and seems by no means equal to so fatiguing a journey; so I hope it will end in talk.... Mr. Montagu loves delay so well, he intends not to set out till a fortnight after me. He did not leave London till the middle of August, tho’ he had not any business to detain him. “... If I had children, I should be much more solicitous about their temper than talents. As many hours in the day as a man of the finest parts is peevish or in a passion, he is more contemptible than a blockhead, and suffers (though he does not know it) the internal scorn and contempt of every rational creature that is in good humour. We are, too, much earlier able to judge of a child’s temper than capacity. Minds ripen at very different ages. If the understanding is naturally slow, preceptors should be patient, and not put it too much out of its natural pace. Some children apprehend quick; others acquire everything with difficulty. In the latter case, they should be encouraged, led, and not driven.”