be a mere lawyer--more especially as you are very properly turning your mind, also, to the political service of your country, and to the study and practice of eloquence. You must, therefore, be a political lawyer and historian; thoroughly versed in the constitution and laws of your country, and fully acquainted with _all its statistics_, and the history of all the leading measures which have distinguished the several administrations. You must study the debates in congress, and observe what have been the actual effects upon the country of the various measures that have been most strenuously contested in their origin. You must be a master of the science of political economy, and especially of _financiering_, of which so few of our young countrymen know any thing. The habit of observing all that is passing, and thinking closely and deeply upon them, demands pre-eminently an attention to the political course of your country. But it is time to close this letter. You ask for instructions adapted to improvement in eloquence. This is a subject for a treatise, not for a letter. Cicero, however, has summed up the whole art in a few words: it is--"_apte--distincte--ornate dicere_"--to speak _to the purpose_--to speak _clearly and distinctly_--to speak _gracefully_:--to be able _to speak to the purpose_, you must understand your subject and all that belongs to it:--and then your _thoughts and method_ must be _clear in themselves_ and _clearly and distinctly enunciated_:--and lastly, your voice, style, delivery and gesture, must be _graceful and delightfully impressive_. In relation to this subject, I would strenuously advise you to two things: _Compose much, and often, and carefully, with reference to this same rule of apte, distincte, ornate;_ and let your _conversation_ have reference to the same objects. I do not mean that you should be _elaborate and formal_ in your ordinary conversation. Let it be _perfectly simple and natural_, but _always, in good time_, (to speak as the musician) and well enunciated.