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CONTAINING

EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS BOOKS,

RECOMMENDED BY

LORD CHESTERFIELD

TO

MR. STANHOPE.*

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

THE POLITE PHILOSOPHER;

Or, An Essay on the Art which makes a Man happy in himself, and agreeable to others:

DR. BLAIR'S ADVICE TO YOUTH,

DR. FORDYCE ON HONOUR AS A PRINCIPLE;

LORD BURGHLEY'S TEN PRECEPTS TO
HIS SON;

DR. FRANKLIN'S WAY TO WEALTH;

AND

POPE'S UNIVERSAL PRAYER.

* See Page 118.

ADVICE

OF

A MOTHER TO HER SON!

BY THE

MARCHIONESS DE LAMBERT.

A Tract particularly recommended to his Son by Lord Chesterfield.

WHATEVER care is used in the education of children, it is still too little to answer the end; to make it succeed, there must be excellent governors; but where shall we find them, when princes find it difficult to get and keep them for themselves? Where can we meet with men so much superior to others, as to deserve to be intrusted with their conduct? Yet the first years of a man's life are precious, since they lay, the foundation of the merit of the

rest.

There are but two seasons of life in which truth distinguishes itself for our advantage: in youth, for our instruction; and in our advanced years, to comfort us. In the age that passions reign, truth generally quits us for the time.

Two celebrated men,* out of their friendship to me, have had the care of your education; but as

*P. Boubours and P. Cheminais.

they were obliged to follow the method of studies settled in colleges, they applied themselves more in your early youth to improve your mind with learning, than to make you know the world, or instruct you in the decorum of life.

I am geing, my son, to give you some precepts for the conduct of yours; read them without thinking it a trouble. They are not dry lectures, that carry the air of a mother's authority: they are rather the advice of a friend, and have this merit, that they come from my heart.

At your entering the world, you must certainly propose to yourself some end or other: you have too inuch sense to care to live without any design at all; nor can you aspire to any thing more becoming and worthy of you than glory. It is a noble view for you to entertain; but it is fit for you to know what is meant by the term, and what notion you frame of it.

This is the

It is of various kinds, and each profession has a glory that is peculiar to it. In yours, my son, it means the glory that attends valour. glory of heroes; it makes a brighter figure than any other; it always carries with it the true marks of honour and the recompenses it deserves: Fame seems to have no tongue but to sound their praise; and when you arrive at a certain degree of reputation, every thing you do is considerable. All the

world has agreed to give the pre-eminence to military virtues; it is no more than their due. They cast dear enough; but there are several ways of discharging their obligation.

Some engage in the profession of arms, merely to avoid the shame of degenerating from their ancestors; others follow it not only out of duty, but

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