A FINE EDITION.--If I am rightly informed, I am now writing to a fine gentleman, in a scarlet coat laced with gold, a brocade waistcoat, and all other suitable ornaments. The natural partiality of every author for his own works, makes me very glad to hear that Mr. Harte has thought this last edition of mine worth so fine a binding; and, as he has bound it in red, and gilt it upon the back, I hope he will take care that it shall be _lettered_ too. A showish binding attracts the eyes, and engages the attention of everybody; but with this difference, that women, and men who are like women, mind the binding more than the book, whereas men of sense and learning immediately examine the inside, and, if they find that it does not answer the finery on the outside, they throw it by with the greater indignation and contempt. I hope that when this edition of my works shall be opened and read, the best judges will find connection, consistency, solidity, and spirit in it. Mr. Harte may _recensere_ and _emendare_ as much as he pleases; but it will be to little purpose if you do not co-operate with him. The work will be imperfect. [_April 3, O. S., 1747._] TWO KINDS OF SALT.--Swiss salt is, I dare say, very good, yet I am apt to suspect it falls a little short of the true Attic salt, in which there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. The same Attic salt seasoned all Greece; a great deal of it was exported afterwards to Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition called urbanity, which, in some time, was brought to very near the perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with these two kinds of salt the better you will keep, and the more you will be relished. [_April, 1747._] ONE THING AT A TIME.--If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. [_Same date._]