[Footnote: Gui du Faur de Pibrac (1528-1584) was a distinguished
diplomatist, magistrate, and orator, who wrote several works, of which
the _Cinquante quatrains contenant preceptes et enseignements utiles
pour la vie de l'homme, composes a l'imitation de Phocylides,
Epicharmus, et autres poetes grecs_, and which number he afterwards
increased to 126, are the best known. These quatrains, or couplets of
four verses, have been translated into nearly all European and several
Eastern languages. A most elegant reprint has been published of them, in
1874, by M. A. Lemetre, of Paris.]

[Footnote: Pierre Matthieu (1563--1621), a French historian and poet
wrote, among other works, his _Tablettes de la vie et de la mort,
quatrains de la Vanite du Monde_, a collection of 274 moral
quatrains, divided in three parts, each part of which was published
separately in an oblong shape, like a memorandum book; hence the name
_Tablettes_.]

a valuable work and full of fine sayings for you to learn by heart;
the Guide for Sinners

[Footnote: _La guide des pecheurs_, the Guide for Sinners, is a
translation in French of an ascetic Spanish work, _la guia de
pecadores_, written by a Dominican friar, Lewis, of Granada.]

is also a good book. Such writings teach people in a short time how to
spend their lives well, and if you had never read anything but such
moral books you would have known better how to submit to my commands.

CEL. Do you suppose, dear father, I can ever forget that unchangeable