LONDON,May 31,O.S.1752
MY DEAR FRIEND:The world is the book,and the only one to which,at present,I would have you apply yourself ;and the thorough knowledge of it will be of more use to you,than all the books that ever were read.
Lay aside the best book whenever you can go into the best company;and depend upon it,you change for the better.However,as the most tumultuous life,whether of business or pleasure,leaves some vacant moments every day,in which a book is the refuge of a rational being,I mean now to point out to you the method of employing those moments (which will and ought to be but few)in the most advantageous manner.
Throw away none of your time upon those trivial,futile books,published by idle or necessitous authors,for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers;such sort of books swarm and buzz about one every day;flap them away,they have no sting.'Certum pete finem',have some one object for those leisure moments,and pursue that object invariably till you have attained it;and then take some other.For instance,considering your destination,I would advise you to single out the most remarkable and interesting eras of modern history,and confine all your reading to that ERA.If you pitch upon the Treaty of Munster (and that is the proper period to begin with,in the course which I am now recommending),do not interrupt it by dipping and deviating into other books,unrelative to it;but consult only the most authentic histories,letters,memoirs,and negotiations,relative to that great transaction;reading and comparing them,with all that caution and distrust which Lord Bolingbroke recommends to you,in a better manner,and in better words than I can.
The next period worth your particular knowledge,is the Treaty of the Pyrenees:which was calculated to lay,and in effect did lay,the succession of the House of Bourbon to the crown of Spain.Pursue that in the same manner,singling,out of the millions of volumes written upon that occasion,the two or three most authentic ones,and particularly letters,which are the best authorities in matters of negotiation.Next come the Treaties of Nimeguen and Ryswick,postscripts in,a manner to those of Munster and the Pyrenees.Those two transactions have had great light thrown upon them by the publication of many authentic and original letters and pieces.The concessions made at the Treaty of Ryswick,by the then triumphant Lewis the Fourteenth,astonished all those who viewed things only superficially;but,I should think,must have been easily accounted for by those who knew the state of the kingdom of Spain,as well as of the health of its King,Charles the Second,at that time.
The interval between the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick,and the breaking out of the great war in 1702,though a short,is a most interesting one.Every week of it almost produced some great event.