unless to such as understand no other language. At this rate, you will
never speak it well, which I am very desirous that you should do, and of
which you would, in time, find the advantage. Whoever has not the command
of a language, and does not speak it with facility, will always appear
below himself when he converses in that language; the want of words and
phrases will cramp and lame his thoughts. As you now know German enough
to express yourself tolerably, speaking it very often will soon make you
speak it very well: and then you will appear in it whatever you are. What
with your own Saxon servant and the swarms of Germans you will meet with
wherever you go, you may have opportunities of conversing in that
language half the day; and I do very seriously desire that you will, or
else all the pains that you have already taken about it are lost. You
will remember likewise, that, till you can write in Italian, you are
always to write to me in German.

Mr. Harte's conjecture concerning your distemper seems to be a very
reasonable one; it agrees entirely with mine, which is the universal rule
by which every man judges of another man's opinion. But, whatever may
have been the cause of your rheumatic disorder, the effects are still to
be attended to; and as there must be a remaining acrimony in your blood,
you ought to have regard to that, in your common diet as well as in your
medicines; both which should be of a sweetening alkaline nature, and
promotive of perspiration. Rheumatic complaints are very apt to return,
and those returns would be very vexatious and detrimental to you; at your
age, and in your course of travels. Your time is, now particularly,
inestimable; and every hour of it, at present, worth more than a year
will be to you twenty years hence. You are now laying the foundation of
your future character and fortune; and one single stone wanting in that
foundation is of more consequence than fifty in the superstructure; which
can always be mended and embellished if the foundation is solid. To carry