It is seldom that we have such a continuous series of original letters as these. From the first _badinage_ to his son, then five years old, who was then in Holland, in which he explains what a republic is, and how clean is Holland in comparison with London; from the times when he explains how Poetry is made, and who the Muses are, and sends his little son accounts of all the Greek and Roman legends; from the times when he writes, “Let us return to our Geography that we may amuse ourselves with maps;” and in the middle of a letter of affection, having mentioned Cicero, starts off “apropos of him,” and gives his little son his whole history, and that of Demosthenes after him; to the times when the boy is able to retort on him for inconsistency in calling Ovidius Ovid, and not calling Tacitus Tacit; through all his explanations of what Irony is and is not; through his pedantic “by the ways;” his definitions (_pace_ Professor Freeman) of Ancient and Modern History; his sarcasms and his descriptions: down to the time when his advice is about quadrille tables and ministers and kings, the series is absolutely unbroken and of unflagging interest. They are at the best, as he says himself, “what one man of the world writes to another.” “I am not writing poetry,” he says, “but useful reflections.” “Surely it is of great use to a young man before he starts out for a country full of mazes, windings and turnings, to have at least a good map of it by some experienced traveller.” And so the old man gives us his map of life as he had seen it. It is exactly the same estimate in result as Cicero gave in the _De Oratore_: “Men judge most things under the influence of either hate, or love, or desire, or anger, or grief, or joy, or hope, or fear, or error, or some other passion, than by truth, or precepts, or standard of right, or justice, or law.” “The proper study of mankind is man,” and if we disapprove of the morality of Cicero and his epoch no less than of Chesterfield’s, we must yet remember that in the one instance, as in the other, their precepts were the purveyors of very soundest advice. His standard is, as has been already pointed out, that of the eighteenth century. “Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.” “It is an active, cheerful, seducing good breeding which must gain you the good-will and first sentiments of the men and affections of the women. You must carefully watch and attend to their passions, their tastes, their little humors and weaknesses, and _aller au devant_.” “Make love to the most impertinent beauty that you meet with, and be gallant with all the rest.”