Some profit, at
least: he will learn the amount to a halfpenny of every stage from
Calais to Rome; he will be carried to the best inns, instructed where
there is the best wine, and sup a livre cheaper than if the youth had
been left to make the tour and the bargain himself. Look at our
governor, I beseech you! See, he is an inch taller as he relates the
advantages. And here endeth his pride, his knowledge, and his use.
But when your son gets abroad he will be taken out of his hand by
his society with men of rank and letters, with whom he will pass the
greatest part of his time."
So much for the bear-leader; and now a remark or two on the young
man's chances of getting into good foreign society; and then--the
benediction:
"Let me observe, in the first place, that company which is really
good is very rare and very shy. But you have surmounted this difficulty,
and procured him the best letters of recommendation to the
most eminent and respectable in every capital. And I answer that
he will obtain all by them which courtesy strictly stands obliged to
pay on such occasions, but no more. There is nothing in which we
are so much deceived as in the advantages proposed from our connexions
and discourse with the literati, &c.
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