LONDON,November 27,O.S.1749.
DEAR BOY:While the Roman Republic flourished,while glory was pursued,and virtue practiced,and while even little irregularities and indecencies,not cognizable by law,were,however,not thought below the public care,censors were established,discretionally to supply,in particular cases,the inevitable defects of the law,which must and can only be general.This employment I assume to myself with regard to your little republic,leaving the legislative power entirely to Mr.Harte;Ihope,and believe,that he will seldom,or rather never,have occasion to exert his supreme authority;and I do by no means suspect you of any faults that may require that interposition.But,to tell you the plain truth,I am of opinion that my censorial power will not be useless to you,nor a sinecure to me.The sooner you make it both,the better for us both.I can now exercise this employment only upon hearsay,or,at most,written evidence;and therefore shall exercise it with great lenity and some diffidence;but when we meet,and that I can form my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence,I shall no more let the least impropriety,indecorum,or irregularity pass uncensured,than my predecessor Cato did.I shall read you with the attention of a critic,not with the partiality of an author:different in this respect,indeed,from most critics,that I shall seek for faults only to correct and not to expose them.I have often thought,and still think,that there are few things which people in general know less,than how to love and how to hate.They hurt those they love by a mistaken indulgence,by a blindness,nay,often by a partiality to their faults.Where they hate they hurt themselves,by ill-timed passion and rage.Fortunately for you,I never loved you in that mistaken manner.From your infancy,Imade you the object of my most serious attention,and not my plaything.
I consulted your real good,not your humors or fancies;and I shall continue to do so while you want it,which will probably be the case during our joint lives;for,considering the difference of our ages,in the course of nature,you will hardly have acquired experience enough of your own,while I shall be in condition of lending you any of mine.
People in general will much better bear being,told of their vices or crimes,than of their little failings and weaknesses.They,in some degree,justify or excuse (as they think)the former,by strong passions,seductions,and artifices of others,but to be told of,or to confess,their little failings and weaknesses,implies an inferiority of parts,too mortifying to that self-love and vanity,which are inseparable from our natures.I have been intimate enough with several people to tell them that they had said or done a very criminal thing;but I never was intimate enough with any man,to tell him,very seriously,that he had said or done a very foolish one.Nothing less than the relation between you and me can possibly authorize that freedom;but fortunately for you,my parental rights,joined to my censorial powers,give it me in its fullest extent,and my concern for you will make me exert it.Rejoice,therefore,that there is one person in the world who can and will tell you what will be very useful to you to know,and yet what no other man living could or would tell you.Whatever I shall tell you of this kind,you are very sure,can have no other motive than your interest;I can neither be jealous nor envious of your reputation or fortune,which Imust be both desirous and proud to establish and promote;I cannot be your rival either in love or in business;on the contrary,I want the rays of your rising to reflect new lustre upon my setting light.In order to this,I shall analyze you minutely,and censure you freely,that you may not (if possible)have one single spot,when in your meridian.
