wonder at it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters: but you idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well, that one can almost say of you two, et cantare pares et respondere parati? Charles will explain this Latin to you.
I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master Strangerways; for, to be sure, you are a strange boy. Is this true?
Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it to you when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you both!—Chesterfield. [Bath, Oct. 27, 1771.]
MAXIMS.[1]
A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.
A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.
If a fool knows a secret, he tells it because he is a fool; if a knave knows one, he tells it wherever it is his interest to tell it. But women and young men
- ↑ These maxims are referred to on page 324.
