with a certainty of being rightly informed! It is knowledge, more than
quick, flashy parts, that makes a man of business. A man who is master of
his matter, twill, with inferior parts, be too hard in parliament, and
indeed anywhere else, for a man of-better parts, who knows his subject
but superficially: and if to his knowledge he joins eloquence and
elocution, he must necessarily soon be at the head of that assembly; but
without those two, no knowledge is sufficient.

Lord Huntingdon writes me word that he has seen you, and that you have
renewed your old school-acquaintance.

Tell me fairly your opinion of him, and of his friend Lord Stormount: and
also of the other English people of fashion you meet with. I promise you
inviolable secrecy on my part. You and I must now write to each other
--as friends, and without the least reserve; there will for the future be
a thousand-things in my letters, which I would not have any mortal living
but yourself see or know. Those you will easily distinguish, and neither
show nor repeat; and I will do the same by you.

To come to another subject (for I have a pleasure in talking over every
subject with you): How deep are you in Italian? Do you understand
Ariosto, Tasso, Boccaccio and Machiavelli? If you do, you know enough of
it and may know all the rest, by reading, when you have time. Little or
no business is written in Italian, except in Italy; and if you know
enough of it to understand the few Italian letters that may in time come
in your way, and to speak Italian tolerably to those very few Italians
who speak no French, give yourself no further trouble about that language
till you happen to have full leisure to perfect yourself in it. It is not
the same with regard to German; your speaking and writing it well, will
particularly distinguish you from every other man in England; and is,