THE WELL BRED MAN.--Feels himself firm and easy in all companies; is modest without being bashful, and steady without being impudent; if he is a stranger, he observes, with care, the manners and ways of the people the most esteemed at that place, and conforms to them with complaisance. Instead of finding fault with the customs of that place, and telling the people that the English ones are a thousand times better (as my countrymen are very apt to do), he commends their table, their dress, their houses, and their manners, a little more, it may be, than he really thinks they deserve. But this degree of complaisance is neither criminal nor abject; and is but a small price to pay for the good-will and affection of the people you converse with. As the generality of people are weak enough to be pleased with these little things, those who refuse to please them, so cheaply, are, in my mind, weaker than they. [_Same month, O. S., 1746._] “L’ART DE PLAIRE.”--There is a very pretty little French book written by L’Abbé de Bellegarde, entitled “_L’Art de Plaire dans la Conversation_”[29]; and, though I confess that it is impossible to reduce the art of pleasing to a system, yet this principle I will lay down, that the desire of pleasing is at least half the art of doing it; the rest depends only upon the manner, which attention, observation, and frequenting good company will teach. But if you are lazy, careless, and indifferent whether you please or not, depend upon it you never will please. [_Same date._] CHESTERFIELD’S INTENTION.--Do not think I mean to dictate as a parent; I only mean to advise as a friend, and an indulgent one, too; and do not apprehend that I mean to check your pleasures; of which, on the contrary, I only desire to be the guide, not the censor. Let my experience supply your want of it and clear your way in the progress of your 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.”