| Description | My dear Son,
I wrote to you by the last mail to Mr. Frege's at Leipzig. I have this day wrote to Mr. Reinhard, which you'l please to deliver to him; but least he should be return'd from Leipzig, I send you herein a press copy of the letter I have wrote to him, by which you will see my sentiments and wishes, and I beg you will forward the original one to him and conform to those wishes as near as circumstances will admit.
My present fears are that you will have taken your departure to Freyburg, and if that is the case you may stay so long as you can gain any knowledge and improvement, and then I submit it to Mr. Reinhard's advice and your own judgment whether you shall join Mr. Collins or go to study chymistry under Mr. Wiegleb at Langensalza or go into a counting house for six or twelve months, either at Leipzig or Hamburgh, as you'l see by my letter to Mr. Reinhard what my future views are. A knowledg of mechanicks, mathematicks, chymistry, mechanick arts, and commerce, join'd to the character of an honest man, is what I am very anxious you should possess, and thereby continue to embelish, extend, and enrich the house I have layd the foundation of.
The Lunar meeting is this day held at Soho, to which will be added Dr. Jackson, Dean of Christ Church, and two other Oxford philosophers, which puts it out of my power to write more to you than to beg you will keep up a correspondence with Collins, that you may make any appointment with him which you may think or find necessary, and I beg you will write very often to me and never let your correspondence with your friend Mr. Reinhard dye away, for I am sure he is a worthy good man.
I believe I shall go to London tomorrow on account of a misfortune that hath befallen one of your sister's teeth, and Mr. Dumerge advises her to come to town directly. She is in other respects well, and desires her love to you. I am, in great hast, your truly affectionate father,
Mattw. Boulton
Present my best compliments to Mr. Frege. My press copys of my letter to Mr. Reinhard are not good ones, but you may read them by holding them up between your eye and the light. Mr. Frege will assist and advise you in any thing you may stand in need of, I am perswaded.
If you should go through Naumberg or Nurinburg, I beg you will endeavour to see their manufactures, particularly those for makeing the brass tinsill (clinquant), their false leaf gold or Dutch metal, and their bronze powders, and their rolling mills; and what ever towns you pass through I beg you'l enquire after and see their manufactures, that you may become acquainted with mechanick arts in general.
[Edited transcript.] |