from their rank, their merit, or their beauty, require constant
attention; for a young man can never improve in company where he thinks
he may neglect himself. A new bow must be constantly kept bent; when it
grows older, and has taken the right turn, it may now and then be
relaxed.

I have this moment paid your draft of L89 75s.; it was signed in a very
good hand; which proves that a good hand may be written without the
assistance of magic. Nothing provokes me much more, than to hear people
indolently say that they cannot do, what is in everybody's power to do,
if it be but in their will. Adieu.




LETTER CXLI

LONDON, May 6, O. S. 1751.

MY DEAR FRIEND: The best authors are always the severest critics of their
own works; they revise, correct, file, and polish them, till they think
they have brought them to perfection. Considering you as my work, I do
not look upon myself as a bad author, and am therefore a severe critic. I
examine narrowly into the least inaccuracy or inelegance, in order to
correct, not to expose them, and that the work may be perfect at last.
You are, I know, exceedingly improved in your air, address, and manners,
since you have been at Paris; but still there is, I believe, room for
further improvement before you come to that perfection which I have set
my heart upon seeing you arrive at; and till that moment I must continue
filing and polishing. In a letter that I received by last post, from a