of virtue pay you with the sweet rewards of a self-approving heart and an applauding country! and may I enjoy the true satisfaction of seeing your fame and happiness, and of thinking that I may have been fortunate enough to have contributed, in any small degree, to do common justice to kind nature by a suitable education! I am no very good judge of the question concerning the books; I believe they are your own in the same sense that your wearing apparel is. I would retain them, and leave the candid and equitable Mr. *** to plan, with the honest Mr. ***, schemes of perpetual vexation. As to the persons just mentioned, I trust

that you bear about

you a mind and

heart much superior to such malice: and that you are as little capable of resenting it, with any sensations but those of cool decent contempt, as you are of fearing the consequences of such low efforts. As to the caution money I think you have done well. The case of the chambers, I conceive, you likewise apprehend rightly. Let me know in your next what these two articles require you to pay down, and how far your present cash is exhausted, and I will direct Mr. Campbell to give you credit accordingly. Believe me, my dear Nephew, truly happy to be of use to you.

Your ever affectionate.

LETTER XV.

Wotton, Aug. 7, 1755.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

I HAVE only time at present

to let you know I am setting out for London; when I return to Sunning Hill, which I propose to do in a few days, I shall have considered the question about a letter to ****, and will send you my thoughts upon it. As to literature, I know you are not idle, under so many and so strong

motives to animate you to the ardent pursuit of improvement. For English history, read the revolutions of York and Lancaster in Pere d'Orleans, and no more of the father; the life of Edward the Fourth, and so downwards all the life writers of our kings, except such as you have already read. For Queen Ann's reign the continuator of Rapin.

Farewell, my dearest nephew, for

to day.

Your most affectionate uncle.

LETTER XVI.

Bath, Sept. 25, 1755.

I HAVE not conversed with my dear nephew a long time: I have been much in a post-chaise, living a wandering Scythian life, and he has been more usefully employed than in reading or writing letters; travelling through the various, instructing, and entertaining road of history. I have a particular pleasure in hearing now