accepted the first effort of my friendship with generosity and candour,
and you will, I doubt not, continue to behold my sincerity with a
favourable eye.

Shall I venture to say that I am sorry you have commenced so intimate a
connexion with the marquis of San Severino? Even the character of him
with which you have favoured me, represents him to my wary sight as too
agreeable not to be dangerous. But I have heard of him from others, a
much more unpleasing account.

Alas, my friend, under how fair an outside are the most pernicious
principles often concealed! Your honest heart would not suspect, that an
appearance of politeness frequently covers the most rooted selfishness.
The man who is all gentleness and compliance abroad, is often a tyrant
among his domestics. The attendants upon a court put on their faces
as they put on their clothes. And it is only after a very long
acquaintance, after having observed them in their most unguarded hours,
that you can make the smallest discovery of their real characters.
Remember, my dear Rinaldo, the maxim of the incomparable philosopher of
Geneva: "Man is not naturally amiable." If the human character shews
less pleasing and attractive in the obscurity of retreat, and among the
unfinished personages of a college, believe me, the natives of a court
are not a whit more disinterested, or have more of the reality of
friendship. The true difference is, that the one wears a disguise, and
the other appear as they are.

I do not mean however to impute all the faults I have mentioned to the
marquis of San Severino. He is probably in the vulgar sense of the word
good-natured. As you have already expressed it, he knows not how to
refuse the requests, or contradict the present inclinations of those