ASTRONOMY.--But that part of nature which, Mr. Harte tells me, you have begun to study, with the _Rector magnificus_, is of much greater importance, and deserves much more attention; I mean astronomy. The vast and immense planetary system, the astonishing order and regularity of those innumerable worlds, will open a scene to you which not only deserves your attention as a matter of curiosity, or rather astonishment; but, still more, as it will give you greater and consequently juster ideas of that eternal and omnipotent Being, who contrived, made, and still preserves that universe, than all the contemplation of this, comparatively, very little orb, which we at present inhabit, could possibly give you. Upon this subject, Monsieur Fontenelle’s “Pluralité des Mondes,” which you may read in two hours’ time, will both inform and please you. God bless you! Yours. [_Same date._] The whole morning, if diligently and attentively devoted to solid studies, will go a great way at the year’s end; and the evenings spent in the pleasures of good company will go as far in teaching you a knowledge not much less necessary than the other--I mean the knowledge of the world. Between these two necessary studies, that of books in the morning, and that of the world in the evening, you see that you will not have one minute to squander or slattern away. Nobody ever lent themselves more than I did, when I was young, to the pleasures and dissipation of good company; I even did it too much. But then, I can assure you that I always found time for serious studies; and when I could find it no other way, I took it out of my sleep, for I resolved always to rise early in the morning, however late I went to bed at night; and this resolution I have kept so sacred that, unless when I have been confined to my bed by illness, I have not for more than forty years ever been in bed at nine o’clock in the morning, but commonly up before eight. [_Dec. 13, 1748._] WRITING.--Why do you not form your Roman characters better? for I maintain that it is in every man’s power to write what hand he pleases; and consequently that he ought to write a good one. You form, particularly, your ee and your ll in zigzag, instead of making them straight, as thus, _ee_, _ll_; a fault very easily mended. You will not, I believe, be angry with this little criticism, when I tell you that, by all the accounts I have had of late, from Mr. Harte and others, this is the only criticism that you give me occasion to make. [_Dec. 20, 1748._]