LETTER XXVI

LONDON, January 29, O. S. 1748.

DEAR BOY: I find, by Mr. Harte's last letter, that many of my letters to
you and him, have been frozen up on their way to Leipsig; the thaw has, I
suppose, by this time, set them at liberty to pursue their journey to
you, and you will receive a glut of them at once. Hudibras alludes, in
this verse,

"Like words congealed in northern air,"

to a vulgar notion, that in Greenland words were frozen in their
utterance; and that upon a thaw, a very mixed conversation was heard in
the air, of all those words set at liberty. This conversation was, I
presume, too various and extensive to be much attended to: and may not
that be the case of half a dozen of my long letters, when you receive
them all at once? I think that I can, eventually, answer that question,
thus: If you consider my letters in their true light, as conveying to you
the advice of a friend, who sincerely wishes your happiness, and desires
to promote your pleasure, you will both read and attend to them; but, if
you consider them in their opposite, and very false light, as the
dictates of a morose and sermonizing father, I am sure they will be not
only unattended to, but unread. Which is the case, you can best tell me.
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it
the least. I hope that your want of experience, of which you must be