"Sir, Your most obedient, Most humble Servant."
I think they ought, in those parts where the materials are so easy to work, and at the same time so durable, when any one of their heroes comes home from the wars, to erect his statue in snow upon the mountains, there to remain from generation to generation. A gentleman who is apt to expatiate upon any hint, took this occasion to deliver his opinion upon our ordinary method of sending young gentlemen to travel for their education. "It is certain," said he, "if gentlemen travel at an age proper for them, during the course of their voyages, their accounts to their friends, and after their return, their discourses and conversations, will have in them something above what we can meet with from those who have not had those advantages. At the same time it is to be observed, that every temper and genius is not qualified for this way of improvement. Men may change their climate, but they cannot their nature. A man that goes out a fool, cannot ride or sail himself into common-sense. Therefore let me but walk over London Bridge with a young man, and I'll tell you infallibly whether going over the Rialto at Venice will make him wiser. It is not to be imagined how many I have saved in my time from banishment, by letting their parents know they were good for nothing. But this is to be done with much tenderness. There is my cousin Harry has a son, who is the dullest mortal that was ever born into our house. He had got his trunk and his books all packed up to be transported into foreign parts, for no reason but because the boy never talked; and his father said he wanted to know the world. I could not say to a fond parent, that the boy was dull; but looked grave, and told him, the youth was very thoughtful, and I feared he might have some doubts about religion, with which it was not proper to go into Roman Catholic countries. He is accordingly kept here till he declares himself upon some points, which I am sure he will never think of. By this means, I have prevented the dishonour of having a fool of our house laughed at in all parts of Europe. He is now with his father upon his own estate, and he has sent to me to get him a wife, which I shall do with all convenient speed; but it shall be such a one, whose good nature shall hide his faults, and good sense supply them. The truth of it is, that race is of the true British kind: they are of our country only; it hurts them to transplant them, and they are destroyed if you pretend to improve them. Men of this solid make are not to be hurried up and down the world, for (if I may so speak) they are naturally at their wit's end; and it is an impertinent part to disturb their repose, that they may give you only a history of their bodily occurrences, which is all they are capable of observing. Harry had an elder brother who was tried in this way. I remember, all he could talk of at his return, was, that he had like to have been drowned at such a place, he fell out of a chaise at another, he had a better stomach when he moved northward than when he turned his course to the parts in the south, and so forth. It is therefore very much to be considered, what sense a person has of things when he is setting out; and if he then knows none of his friends and acquaintance but by their clothes and faces, it is my humble opinion that he stay at home. His parents should take care to marry him, and see what they can get out of him that way; for there is a certain sort of men who are no otherwise to be regarded, but as they descend from men of consequence, and may beget valuable successors. And if we consider, that men are to be esteemed only as they are useful, while a stupid wretch is at the head of a great family, we may say, the race is suspended, as properly as when it is all gone, we say, it is extinct."