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take account of your industry according to its de

serts.

The study which I require of you will make no shew, will advance slowly; and it will perhaps discourage you to find that many years of studentship are still before you. But, my friend, true learning and true gain are the real blessings of speculative life; and our lifetime is not so short. Still, however long it may be, we shall always have more to learn: God be praised that it is so!

And now may God bless your labours, and give you a right mind, that you may carry them on to your own welfare and happiness, to the joy of your parents, and of us all who have your virtue and respectability sincerely at heart.

6. Henry Kirke White to Mr. Maddock.

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Winteringham, August 3, 1804. MY DEAR BEN,-I am all anxiety to learn the issue of your proposal to your father. Surely it will proceed; surely a plan laid out with such fair prospects happiness to you, as well as me, will not be frustrated. Write to me the moment you have any information on the subject. I think we shall be happy together at Cambridge; and in the ardent pursuit of Christian knowledge and Christian virtue, we shall be doubly united. We were before friends; now, I hope, likely to be still more emphatically so. But I must not anticipate.

I left Nottingham without seeing my brother Neville, who arrived there two days after me. This is a circumstance which I much regret; but I hope he will come this way when he goes, according to his intention, to a watering-place. Neville has been a good brother to me; and there are not many

things which would give me more pleasure than, after so long a separation, to see him again. I dare not hope that I shall meet you and him together, in October, at Nottingham.

My days flow on here in an even tenor. They are, indeed, studious days, for my studies seem to multiply on my hands; and I am so much occupied with them, that I am becoming a mere bookworm, running over the rules of Greek versification in my walks, instead of expatiating on the beauties of the surrounding scenery. Winteringham is indeed now a delightful place: the trees are in full verdure, the flocks are browsing the fields, and my former walks are become dry under foot, which I have never known them to be before. The opening vista, from our churchyard, over the Humber, to the hills and receding vales of Yorkshire, assumes a thousand new aspects. I sometimes watch it at evening, when the sun is just gilding the summits of the hills, and the lowlands are beginning to take a browner hue. The showers partially falling in the distance, while all is serene above me; the swelling sail, rapidly falling down the river; and, not the least of all, the villages, woods, and villas, on the opposite bank, sometimes render this scene quite enchanting to me. It is no contemptible relaxation, after a man has been puzzling his brains over the intricacies of Greek choruses all the day, to come out and unbend his mind with careless thought and negligent fancies, while he refreshes his body with the fresh air of the country. I wish you to have a taste of these pleasures with me; and if ever I should live to be blessed with a quiet parsonage, and that great object of my ambition, a garden, I have no doubt but we shall be, for some short intervals at least, two quiet contented bodies. These will be our relaxations; our business will be of a nobler kind. Let us vigilantly fortify ourselves

against the exigencies of the serious appointment we are, with God's blessing, to fulfil; and if we go into the Church prepared to do our duty, there is every reasonable prospect that our labours will be blessed in them. As your habits generally have been averse to what is called close application, it will be too much for your strength, as well as unadvisable in other points of view, to study very intensely; but regularly you may, and must, read: and depend upon it, a man will work more wonders by stated and constant application than by unnatural and forced endeavours.

7. Henry Kirke White to Mr. Maddock.

Winteringham, January 31, 1805. DEAR BEN, -I have long been convinced of the truth of what you say respecting the effects of close reading on a man's mind, in a religious point of view; and I am more and more convinced, that literature is very rarely the source of satisfaction of mind to a Christian. I would wish you to steer clear of too abstracted and subtle a mode of thinking and reasoning; and you will so be happier than your friend. A relish for books will be a sweet source of amusement, and a salutary relaxation to you throughout life; but let it not be more than a relish, if you value your own peace. I think, however, that you ought to strengthen your mind a little with logic; and for this purpose I would advise you to go through Euclid with sedulous and serious attention, and likewise to read Duncan through. You are too desultory a reader, and regard amusement too much. If you wish your reading in good earnest to amuse you when you are old, as well as now in your youth, you will take care to form a taste for substantial and

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sound authors, and will not be the less eager to study a work because it requires a little labour to understand it. After you have read Euclid, and amused yourself with the sublime speculations of some of our best metaphysical writers, you will derive much pleasure from Butler's Analogy, without exception the most unanswerable demonstration of the folly of infidelity that the world ever saw. Books like these will give you more strength of mind, and consistent firmness, than either you or I now possess; while, on the other hand, the effeminate panada of magazines, tales, and the tribe of penny-catching pamphlets, of which desultory readers are so fond, only tend to enervate the mind, and incapacitate it for every species of manly exertion.

8. Rev. W. Jones (on Good Manners).

PROPRIETY of behaviour in company is necessary to every gentleman; for without good manners he can neither be acceptable to his friends, nor agreeable in conversation to strangers.

The three sources of ill manners are-pride, ill nature, and want of sense; so that every person who is already endowed with humility, good nature, and good sense, will learn good manners with little or no teaching.

A writer, who had great knowledge of mankind, has defined good manners as "the art of making those people easy with whom we converse;" and his definition cannot be mended. The ill qualities above mentioned all tend naturally to make people uneasy: pride assumes all conversation to itself, and makes the company insignificant; ill-nature makes offensive reflections; and folly makes no distinction of persons or occasions. Good manners are therefore in part negative: let but a sensible person

refrain from pride and ill-nature, and his conversation will give satisfaction.

So far as good manners are positive, and related to good-breeding, there are many established forms, which are to be learned by experience and conversation in the world.

But there is one plain rule, worth all the rest added together,—that a person who pretends to the character and behaviour of a gentleman should do every thing with gentleness; with an easy, quiet, friendly manner, which doubles the value of every word and action. A forward, noisy, importunate, overbearing way of talking, is the very quintessence of ill-breeding; and hasty contradiction, unseasonable interruption of persons in their discourse, especially of elders or superiors, loud laughter, winkings, grimaces, and affected contortions of the body, are not only of low extractions in themselves, but are the natural symptoms of self-sufficiency and impudence.

It is a sign of great ignorance to talk much to other people of things in which they have no interest; and to be speaking familiarly by name of distant persons to those who have no knowledge of them. It shews that the ideas are comprehended within a very narrow sphere, and that the memory has but few objects.

If you speak of any thing remarkable in its way, many inconsiderate people have a practice of telling you something of the same kind, which they think much more remarkable. If any person in the company is recommended for what they do, they will be instantly telling you of somebody else whom they know, who does it much better: and thus a modest person, who meant to entertain, is disappointed and confounded by another's rudeness. True gentility, when improved by good sense, avoids every appearance of self-importance; and polite humility takes

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