more engaging than either. Remember, then, the infinite advantage of manners; cultivate and improve your own to the utmost; good sense will suggest the great rules to you, good company will do the rest. [Same date.]
Foreign Ministers.—You are the only one I
ever knew, of this country, whose education was,
from the beginning, calculated for the department
of foreign affairs; in consequence of which, if you
will invariably pursue, and diligently qualify yourself
for that object, you may make yourself absolutely
necessary to the government; and, after having
received orders as a minister abroad, send orders,
in your turn, as Secretary of State at home.
Most of our ministers abroad have taken up that
department occasionally, without having ever
thought of foreign affairs before—many of them,
without speaking any one foreign language; and all
of them without the manners which are absolutely
necessary towards being well received and making
a figure at foreign courts. [Same date.]
How to be Considerable.—Upon the whole, if
you have a mind to be considerable, and to shine
hereafter, you must labor hard now. No quickness
of parts, no vivacity, will do long, or go far, without
a solid fund of knowledge; and that fund of knowl-
