LETTER VII.

Bath, March 30, 1754.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

I AM much obliged to

you for your kind remembrance and wishes for my health. It is much recovered by the regular fit of gout, of which I am still lame in both feet, and I may hope for better health hereafter in consequence. I have

thought it long since we conversed: I waited to be able to give you a

E

better account of my health, and in part, to leave you time to make advances in your plan of study, of which I am very desirous to hear an account. I desire you will be so good to let me know particularly, if you have gone through the abridgement of Burnet's History of the Reformation, and the Treatise of Father Paul on Benefices; also how much of Locke you have read. I beg of you not to mix any other English reading with what I recommended to you. I propose to save you much time and trouble, by pointing out to you such books, in succession, as will carry you the shortest way to the things you must know to fit yourself for

the business of the world, and give you the clearer knowledge of them, by keeping them unmixed with superfluous, vain, empty trash. Let me hear, my dear child, of your French also; as well as of those studies which are more properly university studies. I cannot tell you better how truly and tenderly I love you, than by telling you I am most solicitously bent on your doing every thing that is right, and laying the foundations of your future happiness and figure in the world, in such a course of improvement, as will not fail to make you a better man, while it makes you a more knowing one. Do you rise early? I hope you have already

made to yourself the habit of doing it: if not, let me conjure you to ac

quire it. Remember your friend

Horace. Et ni Posces ante Diem librum cum lumine, si non Intendes animum studiis, et rebus honestis, Invidià vel Amore miser torquebere.

Adieu.

Your ever affectionate uncle.

I USE a pen with some dif

ficulty, being still lame in my hand with the gout: I can not however delay writing this line to you on the course of English history I propose for you. If you have finished the Abridgment of English History and of Burnet's History of the Reformation, I recommend to you next (before any other reading of history) Oldcastle's