Having said so much on this point in my last letter, I should run the
risk of repetition if I dwelt longer upon it here. I only mention it at
all to give it again the most prominent position in your studies, and to
recommend its invariably occupying a daily place in them. For every
other pursuit, two or three times a week might answer as well, perhaps
better, as it would be too great an interruption to devote to each only
so short a period of time as could be allotted to it in a daily
distribution. It may be desirable, before I take leave of the subject of
your deeper studies, to mention here some of the books which will give
you the most effectual aid in the formation of your mind.
Butler's Analogy will be perhaps the very best to begin with: you must
not, however, flatter yourself that you in any degree understand this or
other books of the same nature until you penetrate into their extreme
difficulty,--until, in short, you find out that you can _not_ thoroughly
understand them _yet_. Queen Caroline, George II.'s wife, in the hope of
proving to Bishop Horsley how fully she appreciated the value of the
work I have just mentioned, told him that she had it constantly beside
her at her breakfast-table, to read a page or two in it whenever she had
an idle moment.
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