the amiable abhorrence you feel for the scene of vice and folly, (and of real misery and perdition, under the false notion of pleasure and spirit,) which has opened to you at your college, and at the same time, the manly, brave, generous, and wise resolution and true spirit, with which you resisted and repulsed the first attempts upon a mind and heart, I thank God, infinitely too firm and noble, as well as too elegant and enlightened, to be in any danger of yielding to such contemptible and wretched corruptions. You charm me with the de

a

scription of Mr. Wheler, and while

The Rev. John Wheler, prebendary of Westminster. The friendship formed between this

you say you could adore him, I could adore you for the natural, genuine love of virtue, which speaks in all you feel, say, or do. As to your companions let this be your rule. Cultivate the acquaintance with Mr. Wheler which you have so fortunately begun: and in general, be sure to associate with men much older than yourself: scholars whenever you can: but always with men of decent and honourable lives. As their age and learning, superior both to your own, must necessarily, in good sense, and

gentleman and Lord Camelford at so early a period of their lives, was founded in mutual esteem, and continued uninterrupted till Lord Camelford's death.

in the view of acquiring knowledge from them, entitle them to all deference, and submission of your own lights to theirs, you will particularly practise that first and greatest rule for pleasing in conversation, as well as for drawing instruction and improvement from the company of one's superiors in age and knowledge, namely, to be a patient, attentive, and well-bred hearer, and to answer with modesty: to deliver your own opinions sparingly and with proper diffidence; and if you are forced to desire farther information or explanation upon a point, to do it with proper apologies for the trouble you give: or if obliged to differ, to do it with all possible candour, and an unpreju

diced desire to find and ascertain truth, with an entire indifference to

the side on which that truth is to be found. There is likewise a particular attention required to contradict with good manners; such as, begging pardon, begging leave to doubt, and such like phrases. Pythagoras enjoined his scholars an absolute silence for a long noviciate. I am far from approving such a taciturnity: but I highly recommend the end and intent of Pythagoras's injunction; which is to dedicate the first parts of life more to hear and learn, in order to collect materials, out of which to form opinions founded on proper lights, and well-examined sound principles, than to be presuming, prompt, and flippant

in hazarding one's own slight crude notions of things; and thereby exposing the nakedness and emptiness of the mind, like a house opened to company before it is fitted either with necessaries, or any ornaments for their reception and entertainment. And not only will this disgrace follow from such temerity and presumption, but a more serious danger is sure to ensue, that is, the embracing errors for truths, prejudices for principles; and when that is once done, (no matter how vainly and weakly,) the adhering perhaps to false and dangerous notions, only because one has declared for them, and submitting, for life, the understanding and conscience to a yoke of base and servile prejudices,