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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+#9 in our series by The Earl of Chesterfield
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+Title: Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: August, 2002  [Etext #3359]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 03/09/01]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
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+
+Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+
+
+
+                           LETTERS TO HIS SON
+                      By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+                     on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                            MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                                 and a
+
+                               GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXXXVII
+
+LONDON, New-year's Day, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: 'Molti e felici', and I have done upon that subject, one
+truth being fair, upon the most lying day in the whole year.
+
+I have now before me your last letter of the 21st December, which I am
+glad to find is a bill of health: but, however, do not presume too much
+upon it, but obey and honor your physician, "that thy days may be long in
+the land."
+
+Since my last, I have heard nothing more concerning the ribband ; but I
+take it for granted it will be disposed of soon.  By the way, upon
+reflection, I am not sure that anybody but a knight can, according to
+form, be employed to make a knight.  I remember that Sir Clement Cotterel
+was sent to Holland, to dub the late Prince of Orange, only because he
+was a knight himself; and I know that the proxies of knights, who cannot
+attend their own installations, must always be knights.  This did not
+occur to me before, and perhaps will not to the person who was to
+recommend you: I am sure I will not stir it; and I only mention it now,
+that you may be in all events prepared for the disappointment, if it
+should happen.
+
+G----- is exceedingly flattered with your account, that three thousand of
+his countrymen; all as little as himself, should be thought a sufficient
+guard upon three-and-twenty thousand of all the nations in Europe; not
+that he thinks himself, by any means, a little man, for when he would
+describe a tall handsome man, he raises himself up at least half an inch
+to represent him.
+
+The private news from Hamburg is, that his Majesty's Resident there is
+woundily in love with Madame -------; if this be true, God send him,
+rather than her, a good DELIVERY!  She must be 'etrennee' at this season,
+and therefore I think you should be so too: so draw upon me as soon as
+you please, for one hundred pounds.
+
+Here is nothing new, except the unanimity with which the parliament gives
+away a dozen of millions sterling; and the unanimity of the public is as
+great in approving of it, which has stifled the usual political and
+polemical argumentations.
+
+Cardinal Bernis's disgrace is as sudden, and hitherto as little
+understood, as his elevation was.  I have seen his poems, printed at
+Paris, not by a friend, I dare say; and to judge by them, I humbly
+conceive his Eminency is a p-----y.  I will say nothing of that excellent
+headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month, except O KING,
+LIVE FOREVER.
+
+Good-night to you, whoever you pass it with.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXXXVIII
+
+LONDON, February 2, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I am now (what I have very seldom been) two letters in
+your debt: the reason was, that my head, like many other heads, has
+frequently taken a wrong turn; in which case, writing is painful to me,
+and therefore cannot be very pleasant to my readers.
+
+I wish you would (while you have so good an opportunity as you have at
+Hamburg) make yourself perfectly master of that dull but very useful
+knowledge, the course of exchange, and the causes of its almost perpetual
+variations; the value and relation of different coins, the specie, the
+banco, usances, agio, and a thousand other particulars.  You may with
+ease learn, and you will be very glad when you have learned them; for,
+in your business, that sort of knowledge will often prove necessary.
+
+I hear nothing more of Prince Ferdinand's garter: that he will have one
+is very certain; but when, I believe, is very uncertain; all the other
+postulants wanting to be dubbed at the same time, which cannot be, as
+there is not ribband enough for them.
+
+If the Russians move in time, and in earnest, there will be an end of our
+hopes and of our armies in Germany: three such mill-stones as Russia,
+France, and Austria, must, sooner or later, in the course of the year,
+grind his Prussian Majesty down to a mere MARGRAVE of Brandenburg.  But I
+have always some hopes of a change under a 'Gunarchy' --[Derived from the
+Greek word 'Iuvn'  a woman, and means female government]--where whim and
+humor commonly prevail, reason very seldom, and then only by a lucky
+mistake.
+
+I expect the incomparable fair one of Hamburg, that prodigy of beauty,
+and paragon of good sense, who has enslaved your mind, and inflamed your
+heart.  If she is as well 'etrennee' as you say she shall, you will be
+soon out of her chains; for I have, by long experience, found women to be
+like Telephus's spear, if one end kills, the other cures.
+
+There never was so quiet, nor so silent a session of parliament as the
+present; Mr. Pitt declares only what he would have them do, and they do
+it 'nemine contradicente', Mr. Viner only expected.
+
+Duchess Hamilton is to be married, to-morrow, to Colonel Campbell, the
+son of General Campbell, who will some day or other be Duke of Argyle,
+and have the estate.  She refused the Duke of B-----r for him.
+
+Here is a report, but I believe a very groundless one, that your old
+acquaintance, the fair Madame C------e, is run away from her husband,
+with a jeweler, that 'etrennes' her, and is come over here; but I dare
+say it is some mistake, or perhaps a lie.  Adieu!  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXXXIX
+
+LONDON, February 27, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: In your last letter, of the 7th, you accuse me, most
+unjustly, of being in arrears in my correspondence; whereas, if our
+epistolary accounts were fairly liquidated, I believe you would be
+brought in considerably debtor.  I do not see how any of my letters to
+you can miscarry, unless your office-packet miscarries too, for I always
+send them to the office.  Moreover, I might have a justifiable excuse for
+writing to you seldomer than usual, for to be sure there never was a
+period of time, in the middle of a winter, and the parliament sitting,
+that supplied so little matter for a letter.  Near twelve millions have
+been granted this year, not only 'nemine contradicente', but, 'nemine
+quicquid dicente'.  The proper officers bring in the estimates; it is
+taken for granted that they are necessary and frugal; the members go to
+dinner; and leave Mr. West and Mr. Martin to do the rest.
+
+I presume you have seen the little poem of the "Country Lass," by Soame
+Jenyns, for it was in the "Chronicle"; as was also an answer to it, from
+the "Monitor."  They are neither of them bad performances; the first is
+the neatest, and the plan of the second has the most invention.  I send
+you none of those 'pieces volantes' in my letters, because they are all
+printed in one or other of the newspapers, particularly in the
+"Chronicles" ; and I suppose that you and others have all those papers
+among you at Hamburg; in which case it would be only putting you to the
+unnecessary expense of double postage.
+
+I find you are sanguine about the King of Prussia this year; I allow his
+army will be what you say; but what will that be 'vis-a-vis' French,
+Austrians, Imperialists, Swedes, and Russians, who must amount to more
+than double that number?  Were the inequality less, I would allow for the
+King of Prussia's being so much 'ipse agmen' as pretty nearly to balance
+the account.  In war, numbers are generally my omens; and, I confess,
+that in Germany they seem not happy ones this year.  In America.  I
+think, we are sure of success, and great success; but how we shall be
+able to strike a balance, as they call it, between good success there,
+and ill success upon the continent, so as to come at a peace; is more
+than I can discover.
+
+Lady Chesterfield makes you her compliments, and thanks you for your
+offer; but declines troubling you, being discouraged by the ill success
+of Madame Munchausen's and Miss Chetwynd's commissions, the former for
+beef, and the latter for gloves; neither of which have yet been executed,
+to the dissatisfaction of both.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXL
+
+LONDON, March 16, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now your letter of the 20th past lying before me,
+by which you despond, in my opinion too soon, of dubbing your Prince; for
+he most certainly will have the Garter; and he will as probably have it
+before the campaign opens, as after.  His campaign must, I doubt, at best
+be a defensive one; and he will show great skill in making it such; for
+according to my calculation, his enemies will be at least double his
+number.  Their troops, indeed, may perhaps be worse than his; but then
+their number will make up that defect, as it will enable them to
+undertake different operations at the same time.  I cannot think that the
+King of Denmark will take a part in the present war; which he cannot do
+without great possible danger; and he is well paid by France for his
+neutrality; is safe, let what will turn out; and, in the meantime,
+carries on his commerce with great advantage and security; so that that
+consideration will not retard your visit to your own country, whenever
+you have leave to return, and that your own ARRANGEMENTS will allow you.
+A short absence animates a tender passion, 'et l'on ne recule que pour
+mieux sauter', especially in the summer months; so that I would advise
+you to begin your journey in May, and continue your absence from the dear
+object of your vows till after the dog-days, when love is said to be
+unwholesome.  We have been disappointed at Martinico; I wish we may not
+be so at Guadaloupe, though we are landed there; for many difficulties
+must be got over before we can be in possession of the whole island.
+A pro pos de bottes; you make use of two Spanish words, very properly,
+in your letter; were I you, I would learn the Spanish language, if there
+were a Spaniard at Hamburg who could teach me; and then you would be
+master of all the European languages that are useful; and, in my mind,
+it is very convenient, if not necessary, for a public man to understand
+them all, and not to be obliged to have recourse to an interpreter for
+those papers that chance or business may throw in his way.  I learned
+Spanish when I was older than you; convinced by experience that, in
+everything possible, it was better to trust to one's self than to any
+other body whatsoever.  Interpreters, as well as relaters, are often
+unfaithful, and still oftener incorrect, puzzling, and blundering.  In
+short, let it be your maxim through life to know all you can know,
+yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others.
+This rule has been of infinite service to me in the course of my life.
+
+I am rather better than I was; which I owe not to my physicians, but to
+an ass and a cow, who nourish me, between them, very plentifully and
+wholesomely; in the morning the ass is my nurse, at night the cow; and I
+have just now, bought a milch-goat, which is to graze, and nurse me at
+Blackheath.  I do not know what may come of this latter, and I am not
+without apprehensions that it may make a satyr of me; but, should I find
+that obscene disposition growing upon me, I will check it in time, for
+fear of endangering my life and character by rapes.  And so we heartily
+bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLI
+
+LONDON, March 30, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I do not like these frequent, however short, returns of
+your illness; for I doubt they imply either want of skill in your
+physician, or want of care in his patient.  Rhubarb, soap, and chalybeate
+medicines and waters, are almost always specifics for obstructions of the
+liver; but then a very exact regimen is necessary, and that for a long
+continuance.  Acids are good for you, but you do not love them; and sweet
+things are bad for you, and you do love them.  There is another thing
+very bad for you, and I fear you love it too much.  When I was in
+Holland, I had a slow fever that hung upon me a great while; I consulted
+Boerhaave, who prescribed me what I suppose was proper, for it cured me;
+but he added, by way of postscript to his prescription, 'Venus rarius
+colatur'; which I observed, and perhaps that made the medicines more
+effectual.
+
+I doubt we shall be mutually disappointed in our hopes of seeing one
+another this spring, as I believe you will find, by a letter which you
+will receive at the same time with this, from Lord Holderness; but as
+Lord Holderness will not tell you all, I will, between you and me, supply
+that defect.  I must do him the justice to say that he has acted in the
+most kind and friendly manner possible to us both.  When the King read
+your letter, in which you desired leave to return, for the sake of
+drinking the Tunbridge waters, he said, "If he wants steel waters, those
+of Pyrmont are better than Tunbridge, and he can have them very fresh at
+Hamburg.  I would rather he had asked me to come last autumn, and had
+passed the winter here; for if he returns now, I shall have nobody in
+those quarters to inform me of what passes; and yet it will be a very-
+busy and important scene."  Lord Holderness, who found that it would not
+be liked, resolved to push it no further; and replied, he was very sure
+that when you knew his Majesty had the least objection to your return at
+this time, you would think of it no longer; and he owned that he (Lord
+Holderness) had given you encouragement for this application last year,
+then thinking and hoping that there would be little occasion for your
+presence at Hamburg this year.  Lord Holderness will only tell you, in
+his letter, that, as he had some reason to believe his moving this matter
+would be disagreeable to the King, he resolved, for your sake, not to
+mention it.  You must answer his letter upon that footing simply, and
+thank him for this mark of his friendship, for he has really acted as
+your friend.  I make no doubt of your having willing leave to return in
+autumn, for the whole winter.  In the meantime, make the best of your
+'sejour' where you are; drink the Pyrmont waters, and no wine but
+Rhenish, which, in your case is the only proper one for you.
+
+Next week Mr. Harte will send you his "Gustavus Adolphus," in two
+quartos; it will contain many new particulars of the life of that real
+hero, as he has had abundant and authentic materials, which have never
+yet appeared.  It will, upon the whole, be a very curious and valuable
+history; though, between you and me, I could have wished that he had been
+more correct and elegant in his style.  You will find it dedicated to one
+of your acquaintance, who was forced to prune the luxuriant praises
+bestowed upon him, and yet has left enough of all conscience to satisfy a
+reasonable man.  Harte has been very much out of order these last three
+or four months, but is not the less intent upon sowing his lucerne, of
+which he had six crops last year, to his infinite joy, and, as he says,
+profit.  As a gardener, I shall probably have as much joy, though not
+quite so much profit, by thirty or forty shillings; for there is the
+greatest promise of fruit this year at 'Blackheath, that ever I saw in my
+life.  Vertumnus and Pomona have been very propitious to me: as for
+Priapus, that tremendous garden god, as I no longer invoke him, I cannot
+expect his protection from the birds and the thieves.
+
+Adieu!  I will conclude like a pedant, 'Levius fit patientia quicquid
+corrigere est nefas.'
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLII
+
+LONDON, April 16, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: With humble submission to you, I still say that if Prince
+Ferdinand can make a defensive campaign this year, he will have done a
+great deal, considering the great inequality of numbers.  The little
+advantages of taking a regiment or two prisoners, or cutting another to
+pieces, are but trifling articles in the great account; they are only the
+pence, the pounds are yet to come; and I take it for granted, that
+neither the French, nor the Court of Vienna, will have 'le dementi' of
+their main object, which is unquestionably Hanover; for that is the
+'summa summarum'; and they will certainly take care to draw a force
+together for this purpose, too great for any that Prince Ferdinand has,
+or can have, to oppose them.  In short, mark the end on't, 'j'en augure
+mal'.  If France, Austria, the Empire, Russia, and Sweden, are not, at
+long run, too hard for the two Electors of Hanover and Brandenburg, there
+must be some invisible power, some tutelar deities, that miraculously
+interpose in favor of the latter.
+
+You encourage me to accept all the powers that goats, asses, and bulls,
+can give me, by engaging for my not making an ill use of them; but I own,
+I cannot help distrusting myself a little, or rather human nature; for it
+is an old and very true observation, that there are misers of money, but
+none of power; and the non-use of the one, and the abuse of the other,
+increase in proportion to their quantity.
+
+I am very sorry to tell you that Harte's "Gustavus Adolphus" does not
+take at all, and consequently sells very little: it is certainly
+informing, and full of good matter; but it is as certain too, that the
+style is execrable: where the devil he picked it up, I cannot conceive,
+for it is a bad style, of a new and singular kind; it is full of
+Latinisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, and all isms but Anglicisms; in some
+places pompous, in others vulgar and low.  Surely, before the end of the
+world, people, and you in particular, will discover that the MANNER, in
+everything, is at least as important as the matter; and that the latter
+never can please, without a good degree of elegance in the former.  This
+holds true in everything in life: in writing, conversing, business, the
+help of the Graces is absolutely necessary; and whoever vainly thinks
+himself above them, will find he is mistaken when it will be too late to
+court them, for they will not come to strangers of an advanced age.
+There is an history lately come out, of the "Reign of Mary Queen of
+Scots" and her son (no matter by whom) King James, written by one
+Robertson, a Scotchman, which for clearness, purity, and dignity of
+style, I will not scruple to compare with the best historians extant,
+not excepting Davila, Guicciardini, and perhaps Livy.  Its success has
+consequently been great, and a second edition is already published and
+bought up.  I take it for granted, that it is to be had, or at least
+borrowed, at Hamburg, or I would send it to you.
+
+I hope you drink the Pyrmont waters every morning.  The health of the
+mind depends so much upon the health of the body, that the latter
+deserves the utmost attention, independently of the senses.  God send you
+a very great share of both!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLIII
+
+LONDON, April 27, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND : I have received your two letters of the loth and 13th,
+by the last mail; and I will begin my answer to them, by observing to you
+that a wise man, without being a Stoic, considers, in all misfortunes
+that befall him, their best as well as their worst side; and everything
+has a better and a worse side.  I have strictly observed that rule for
+many years, and have found by experience that some comfort is to be
+extracted, under most moral ills, by considering them in every light,
+instead of dwelling, as people are too apt to do, upon the gloomy side of
+the object.  Thank God, the disappointment that you so pathetically groan
+under, is not a calamity which admits of no consolation.  Let us simplify
+it, and see what it amounts to.  You are pleased with the expectation of
+coming here next month, to see those who would have been pleased with
+seeing you.  That, from very natural causes, cannot be, and you must pass
+this summer at Hamburg, and next winter in England, instead of passing
+this summer in England, and next winter at Hamburg.  Now, estimating
+things fairly, is not the change rather to your advantage?  Is not the
+summer more eligible, both for health and pleasure, than the winter, in
+that northern frozen zone?  And will not the winter in England supply you
+with more pleasures than the summer, in an empty capital, could have
+done?  So far then it appears, that you are rather a gainer by your
+misfortune.
+
+The TOUR too, which you propose making to Lubeck, Altena, etc., will both
+amuse and inform you; for, at your age, one cannot see too many different
+places and people; since at the age you are now of, I take it for granted
+that you will not see them superficially, as you did when you first went
+abroad.
+
+This whole matter then, summed up, amounts to no more than this--that you
+will be here next winter, instead of this summer.  Do not think that all
+I have said is the consolation only of an old philosophical fellow,
+almost insensible of pleasure or pain, offered to a young fellow who has
+quick sensations of both.  No, it is the rational philosophy taught me by
+experience and knowledge of the world, and which I have practiced above
+thirty years.
+
+I always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse by fretting;
+this enabled me to go through the various scenes of life in which I have
+been an actor, with more pleasure and less pain than most people.  You
+will say, perhaps, one cannot change one's nature; and that if a person
+is born of a very sensible, gloomy temper, and apt to see things in the
+worst light, they cannot help it, nor new-make themselves.  I will admit
+it, to a certain degree; and but to a certain degree; for though we
+cannot totally change our nature, we may in a great measure correct it,
+by reflection and philosophy; and some philosophy is a very necessary
+companion in this world, where, even to the most fortunate, the chances
+are greatly against happiness.
+
+I am not old enough, nor tenacious enough, to pretend not to understand
+the main purport of your last letter; and to show you that I do, you may
+draw upon me for two hundred pounds, which, I hope, will more than clear
+you.
+
+Good-night: 'aquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem': Be neither
+transported nor depressed by the accidents of life.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLIV
+
+BLACKHEATH, May 16, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your secretary's last letter of the 4th, which I received
+yesterday, has quieted my fears a good deal, but has not entirely
+dissipated them. YOUR FEVER STILL CONTINUES, he says, THOUGH IN A LESS
+DEGREE.  Is it a continued fever, or an intermitting one?  If the former,
+no wonder that you are weak, and that your head aches.  If the latter,
+why has not the bark, in substance and large doses, been administered?
+for if it had, it must have stopped it by this time.  Next post, I hope,
+will set me quite at ease.  Surely you have not been so regular as you
+ought, either in your medicines or in your general regimen, otherwise
+this fever would not have returned; for the Doctor calls it, YOUR FEVER
+RETURNED, as if you had an exclusive patent for it.  You have now had
+illnesses enough, to know the value of health, and to make you implicitly
+follow the prescriptions of your physician in medicines, and the rules of
+your own common sense in diet; in which, I can assure you, from my own
+experience, that quantity is often worse than quality; and I would rather
+eat half a pound of bacon at a meal, than two pounds of any the most
+wholesome food.
+
+I have been settled here near a week, to my great satisfaction; 'c'est ma
+place', and I know it, which is not given to everybody.  Cut off from
+social life by my deafness, as well as other physical ills, and being at
+best but the ghost of my former self, I walk here in silence and solitude
+as becomes a ghost: with this only difference, that I walk by day,
+whereas, you know, to be sure, that other ghosts only appear by night.
+My health, however, is better than it was last year, thanks to my almost
+total milk diet.  This enables me to vary my solitary amusements, and
+alternately to scribble as well as read, which I could not do last year.
+Thus I saunter away the remainder, be it more or less, of an agitated and
+active life, now reduced (and I am not sure that I am a loser by the
+change) to so quiet and serene a one, that it may properly be called
+still life.
+
+The French whisper in confidence, in order that it may be the more known
+and the more credited, that they intend to invade us this year, in no
+less than three places; that is England, Scotland, and Ireland.  Some of
+our great men, like the devils, believe and tremble; others, and one
+little one whom I know, laugh at it; and, in general, it seems to be but
+a poor, instead of a formidable scarecrow.  While somebody was at the
+head of a moderate army, and wanted (I know why) to be at the head of a
+great one, intended invasions were made an article of political faith;
+and the belief of them was required, as in the Church the belief of some
+absurdities, and even impossibilities, is required upon pain of heresy,
+excommunication, and consequently damnation, if they tend to the power
+and interest of the heads of the Church.  But now that there is a general
+toleration, and that the best subjects, as well as the best Christians,
+may believe what their reasons find their consciences suggest, it is
+generally and rationally supposed the French will threaten and not
+strike, since we are so well prepared, both by armies and fleets, to
+receive and, I may add, to destroy them.  Adieu!  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLV
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 15, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter of the 5th, which I received yesterday, gave
+me great satisfaction, being all in your own hand; though it contains
+great, and I fear just complaints of your ill state of health.  You do
+very well to change the air; and I hope that change will do well by you.
+I would therefore have you write after the 20th of August, to Lord
+Holderness, to beg of him to obtain his Majesty's leave for you to return
+to England for two or three months, upon account of your health.  Two or
+three months is an indefinite time, which may afterward insensibly
+stretched to what length one pleases; leave that to me.  In the meantime,
+you may be taking your measures with the best economy.
+
+The day before yesterday, an express arrived from Guadaloupe which
+brought an account of our being in possession of the whole island.  And I
+make no manner of doubt but that, in about two months, we shall have as
+good news from Crown-point, Quebec, etc.  Our affairs in Germany, I fear,
+will not be equally prosperous; for I have very little hopes for the King
+of Prussia or Prince Ferdinand.  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 25, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The two last mails have brought me no letter from you or
+your secretary.  I will take this as a sign that you are better; but,
+however, if you thought that I cared to know, you should have cared to
+have written.  Here the weather has been very fine for a fortnight
+together, a longer term than in this climate we are used to hold fine
+weather by.  I hope it is so, too, at Hamburg, or at least at the villa
+to which you are gone; but pray do not let it be your 'villa viciosa', as
+those retirements are often called, and too often prove; though, by the
+way, the original name was 'villa vezzosa'; and by wags miscalled
+'viciosa'.
+
+I have a most gloomy prospect of affairs in Germany; the French are
+already in possession of Cassel, and of the learned part of Hanover, that
+is Gottingen; where I presume they will not stop 'pour l'amour des belles
+lettres', but rather go on to the capital, and study them upon the coin.
+My old acquaintance, Monsieur Richelieu, made a great progress there in
+metallic learning and inscriptions.  If Prince Ferdinand ventures a
+battle to prevent it, I dread the consequences; the odds are too great
+against him.  The King of Prussia is still in a worse situation; for he
+has the Hydra to encounter; and though he may cut off a head or two,
+there will still be enough left to devour him at last.  I have, as you
+know, long foretold the now approaching catastrophe; but I was Cassandra.
+Our affairs in the new world have a much more pleasing aspect; Guadaloupe
+is a great acquisition, and Quebec, which I make no doubt of, will still
+be greater.  But must all these advantages, purchased at the price of so
+much English blood and treasure, be at last sacrificed as a peace-
+offering?  God knows what consequences such a measure may produce; the
+germ of discontent is already great, upon the bare supposition of the
+case; but should it be realized, it will grow to a harvest of
+disaffection.
+
+You are now, to be sure, taking the previous necessary measures for your
+return here in the autumn and I think you may disband your whole family,
+excepting your secretary, your butler, who takes care of your plate,
+wine, etc., one or at most two, maid servants, and your valet de chambre
+and one footman, whom you will bring over with you.  But give no mortal,
+either there or here, reason to think that you are not to return to
+Hamburg again.  If you are asked about it, say, like Lockhart, that you
+are 'le serviteur des Evenemens'; for your present appointments will do
+you no hurt here, till you have some better destination.  At that season
+of the year, I believe it will be better for you to come by sea than by
+land, but that you will be best able to judge of from the then
+circumstances of your part in the world.
+
+Your old friend Stevens is dead of the consumption that has long been
+undermining him.  God bless you, and send you health.
+
+
+
+[Another two year lapse in the letters.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLVII
+
+BATH, February 26, 1761.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I am very glad to hear that your election is finally
+settled, and to say the truth, not sorry that Mr. ---- has been compelled
+to do, 'de mauvaise grace', that which he might have done at first in a
+friendly and handsome manner.  However, take no notice of what is passed,
+and live with him as you used to do before; for, in the intercourse of
+the world, it is often necessary to seem ignorant of what one knows, and
+to have forgotten what one remembers.
+
+I have just now finished Coleman's play, and like it very well; it is
+well conducted, and the characters are well preserved.  I own, I expected
+from the author more dialogue wit; but, as I know that he is a most
+scrupulous classic, I believe he did not dare to put in half so much wit
+as he could have done, because Terence had not a single grain; and it
+would have been 'crimen laesae antiquitatis'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLVIII
+
+BATH, November 21, I76I.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 19th.  If
+I find any alterations by drinking these waters, now six days, it is
+rather for the better; but, in six days more, I think I shall find with
+more certainty what humor they are in with me; if kind, I will profit of,
+but not abuse their kindness; all things have their bounds, 'quos ultra
+citrave nequit consistere rectum'; and I will endeavor to nick that
+point.
+
+The (queen's jointure is larger than, from SOME REASONS, I expected it
+would be, though not greater than the very last precedent authorized.
+The case of the late Lord Wilmington was, I fancy, remembered.
+
+I have now good reason to believe that Spain will declare war to us, that
+is, that it will very soon, if it has not already, avowedly assist
+France, in case the war continues.  This will be a great triumph to Mr.
+Pitt, and fully justify his plan of beginning with Spain first, and
+having the first blow, which is often half the battle.
+
+Here is a great deal of company, and what is commonly called good
+company, that is, great quality.  I trouble them very little, except at
+the pump, where my business calls me; for what is company to a deaf man,
+or a deaf man to company?
+
+Lady Brown, whom I have seen, and who, by the way, has got the gout in
+her eye, inquired very tenderly after you.  And so I elegantly rest,
+Yours, till death.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLIX
+
+BATH, December 6, 1761.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I have been in your debt some time, which, you know,
+I am not very apt to be: but it was really for want of specie to pay.
+The present state of my invention does not enable me to coin; and you
+would have had as little pleasure in reading, as I should have in writing
+'le coglionerie' of this place; besides, that I am very little mingled in
+them.  I do not know whether I shall be able to follow, your advice, and
+cut a winner; for, at present, I have neither won nor lost a single
+shilling.  I will play on this week only; and if I have a good run, I
+will carry it off with me; if a bad one, the loss can hardly amount to
+anything considerable in seven days, for I hope to see you in town to-
+morrow sevennight.
+
+I had a dismal letter from Harte, last week; he tells me that he is at
+nurse with a sister in Berkshire; that he has got a confirmed jaundice,
+besides twenty other distempers.  The true cause of these complaints I
+take to be the same that so greatly disordered, and had nearly destroyed
+the most august House of Austria, about one hundred and thirty years ago;
+I mean Gustavus Adolphus; who neither answered his expectations in point
+of profit nor reputation, and that merely by his own fault, in not
+writing it in the vulgar tongue; for as to facts I will maintain that it
+is one of the best histories extant.
+
+'Au revoir', as Sir Fopling says, and God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCL
+
+BATH, November 2, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I arrived here, as I proposed, last Sunday; but as ill
+as I feared I should be when I saw you.  Head, stomach, and limbs, all
+out of order.
+
+I have yet seen nobody but Villettes, who is settled here for good, as it
+is called.  What consequences has the Duke of Devonshire's resignation
+had?  He has considerable connections and relations; but whether any of
+them are resigned enough to resign with him, is another matter.  There
+will be, to be sure, as many, and as absurd reports, as there are in the
+law books; I do not desire to know either; but inform me of what facts
+come to your knowledge, and of such reports only as you believe are
+grounded.  And so God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLI
+
+BATH, November 13, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter, and believe that your
+preliminaries are very near the mark; and, upon that supposition, I think
+we have made a tolerable good bargain with Spain; at least full as good
+as I expected, and almost as good as I wished, though I do not believe
+that we have got ALL Florida; but if we have St. Augustin, I suppose
+that, by the figure of 'pars pro toto', will be called all Florida.  We
+have by no means made so good a bargain with France; for, in truth, what
+do we get by it, except Canada, with a very proper boundary of the river
+Mississippi!  and that is all.  As for the restrictions upon the French
+fishery in Newfoundland, they are very well 'per la predica', and for the
+Commissary whom we shall employ: for he will have a good salary from
+hence, to see that those restrictions are complied with; and the French
+will double that salary, that he may allow them all to be broken through.
+It is plain to me, that the French fishery will be exactly what it was
+before the war.
+
+The three Leeward islands, which the French yield to us, are not, all
+together, worth half so much as that of St. Lucia, which we give up to
+them.  Senegal is not worth one quarter of Goree.  The restrictions of
+the French in the East Indies are as absurd and impracticable as those of
+Newfoundland; and you will live to see the French trade to the East
+Indies, just as they did before the war.  But after all I have said, the
+articles are as good as I expected with France, when I considered that no
+one single person who carried on this negotiation on our parts was ever
+concerned or consulted in any negotiation before.  Upon the whole, then,
+the acquisition of Canada has cost us fourscore millions sterling.  I am
+convinced we might have kept Guadaloupe, if our negotiators had known how
+to have gone about it.
+
+His most faithful Majesty of Portugal is the best off of anybody in this,
+transaction, for he saves his kingdom by it, and has not laid out one
+moidore in defense of it.  Spain, thank God, in some measure, 'paye les
+pots cassis'; for, besides St. Augustin, logwood, etc., it has lost at
+least four millions sterling, in money, ships, etc.
+
+Harte is here, who tells me he has been at this place these three years,
+excepting some few excursions to his sister; he looks ill, and laments
+that he has frequent fits of the yellow jaundice.  He complains of his
+not having heard from you these four years; you should write to him.
+These waters have done me a great deal of good, though I drink but two-
+thirds of a pint in the whole day, which is less than the soberest of my
+countrymen drink of claret at every meal.
+
+I should naturally think, as you do, that this session will be a stormy
+one, that is, if Mr. Pitt takes an active part; but if he is pleased, as
+the Ministers say, there is no other AEolus to blow a storm.  The Dukes
+of Cumberland, Newcastle, and Devonshire, have no better troops to attack
+with than the militia; but Pitt alone is ipse agmen.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLII
+
+BATH, November 27, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND : I received your letter this morning, and return you the
+ball 'a la volee'.  The King's speech is a very prudent one; and as I
+suppose that the addresses in answer to it were, as usual, in almost the
+same words, my Lord Mayor might very well call them innocent.  As his
+Majesty expatiates so much upon the great ACHIEVEMENTS of the war, I
+cannot help hoping that, when the preliminaries shall be laid before
+Parliament IN DUE TIME, which, I suppose, means after the respective
+ratifications of all the contracting parties, that some untalked of and
+unexpected advantage will break out in our treaty with France; St. Lucia,
+at least.  I see in the newspapers an article which I by no means like,
+in our treaty with Spain; which is, that we shall be at liberty to cut
+logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, BUT BY PAYING FOR IT.  Who does not see
+that this condition may, and probably will, amount to a prohibition, by
+the price which the Spaniards may set it at?  It was our undoubted right,
+and confirmed to us by former treaties, before the war, to cut logwood
+gratis; but this new stipulation (if true) gives us a privilege something
+like a reprieve to a criminal, with a 'non obstante' to be hanged.
+
+I now drink so little water, that it can neither do me good nor hurt; but
+as I bathe but twice a-week, that operation, which does my rheumatic
+carcass good, will keep me here some time longer than you had allowed.
+
+Harte is going to publish a new edition of his "Gustavus," in octavo;
+which, he tells me, he has altered, and which, I could tell him, he
+should translate into English, or it will not sell better than the
+former; for, while the world endures, style and manner will be regarded,
+at least as much as matter.  And so, 'Diem vous aye dans sa sainte
+garde'!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLIII
+
+BATH, December 13, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, with the inclosed
+preliminaries, which we have had here these three days; and I return
+them, since you intend to keep them, which is more than I believe the
+French will.  I am very glad to find that the French are to restore all
+the conquests they made upon us in the East Indies during this war; and I
+cannot doubt but they will likewise restore to us all the cod that they
+shall take within less than three leagues of our coasts in North America
+(a distance easily measured, especially at sea), according to the spirit,
+though not the letter of the treaty.  I am informed that the strong
+opposition to the peace will be in the House of Lords, though I cannot
+well conceive it; nor can I make out above six or seven, who will be
+against it upon a division, unless (which I cannot suppose) some of the
+Bishops should vote on the side of their maker.  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLIV
+
+BATH, December 13, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter, which gave me a very
+clear account of the debate in your House.  It is impossible for a human
+creature to speak well for three hours and a half; I question  even if
+Belial, who, according to Milton, was the orator of the fallen angels,
+ever spoke so long at a time.
+
+There must have been, a trick in Charles Townshend's speaking for the
+Preliminaries; for he is infinitely above having an opinion.  Lord
+Egremont must be ill, or have thoughts of going into some other place;
+perhaps into Lord Granville's, who they say is dying: when he dies, the
+ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all.
+
+I shall be in town, barring accidents, this day sevennight, by
+dinnertime; when I have ordered a haricot, to which you will be very
+welcome, about four o'clock.  'En attendant Dieu vous aye dans sa sainte
+garde'!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLV
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 14, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I received, by the last mail, your letter of the 4th,
+from The Hague; so far so good.
+
+You arrived 'sonica' at The Hague, for our Ambassador's entertainment; I
+find he has been very civil to you.  You are in the right to stop for two
+or three days at Hanau, and make your court to the lady of that place.
+--[Her Royal Highness Princess Mary of England, Landgravine of Hesse.]--
+Your Excellency makes a figure already in the newspapers; and let them,
+and others, excellency you as much as they please, but pray suffer not
+your own servants to do it.
+
+Nothing new of any kind has happened here since you went; so I will wish
+you a good-night, and hope God will bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 14, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Ratisbon, where I
+am glad that you are arrived safe.  You are, I find, over head and ears
+engaged in ceremony and etiquette.  You must not yield in anything
+essential, where your public character may suffer; but I advise you, at
+the same time, to distinguish carefully what may, and what may not affect
+it, and to despise some German 'minutiae'; such as one step lower or
+higher upon the stairs, a bow more or less, and such sort of trifles.
+
+By what I see in Cressener's letter to you, the cheapness of wine
+compensates the quantity, as the cheapness of servants compensates the
+number that you must make use of.
+
+Write to your mother often, if it be but three words, to prove your
+existence; for, when she does not hear from you, she knows to a
+demonstration that you are dead, if not buried.
+
+The inclosed is a letter of the utmost consequence, which I was desired
+to forward, with care and speed, to the most Serene LOUIS.
+
+My head is not well to-day.  So God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 1, 1763.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope that by this time you are pretty well settled at
+Ratisbon, at least as to the important points of the ceremonial; so that
+you may know, to precision, to whom you must give, and from whom you must
+require the 'seine Excellentz'.  Those formalities are, no doubt,
+ridiculous enough in themselves; but yet they are necessary for manners,
+and sometimes for business; and both would suffer by laying them quite
+aside.
+
+I have lately had an attack of a new complaint, which I have long
+suspected that I had in my body, 'in actu primo', as the pedants call it,
+but which I never felt in 'actu secundo' till last week, and that is a
+fit of the stone or gravel.  It was, thank God, but a slight one; but it
+was 'dans toutes les formes'; for it was preceded by a pain in my loins,
+which I at first took for some remains of my rheumatism; but was soon
+convinced of my mistake, by making water much blacker than coffee, with a
+prodigious sediment of gravel.  I am now perfectly easy again, and have
+no more indications of this complaint.
+
+God keep you from that and deafness!  Other complaints are the common,
+and almost the inevitable lot of human nature, but admit of some
+mitigation.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 22, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You will, by this post, hear from others that Lord
+Egremont died two days ago of an apoplexy; which, from his figure, and
+the constant plethora he lived in, was reasonably to be expected.  You
+will ask me, who is to be Secretary in his room: To which I answer, that
+I do not know.  I should guess Lord Sandwich, to be succeeded in the
+Admiralty by Charles Townshend; unless the Duke of Bedford, who seems to
+have taken to himself the department of Europe, should have a mind to it.
+This event may perhaps produce others; but, till this happened,
+everything was in a state of inaction, and absolutely nothing was done.
+Before the next session, this chaos must necessarily take some form,
+either by a new jumble of its own atoms, or by mixing them with the more
+efficient ones of the opposition.
+
+I see by the newspapers, as well as by your letter, that the difficulties
+still exist about your ceremonial at Ratisbon; should they, from pride
+and folly, prove insuperable, and obstruct your real business, there is
+one expedient which may perhaps remove difficulties, and which I have
+often known practiced; but which I believe our people know here nothing
+of; it is, to have the character of MINISTER only in your ostensible
+title, and that of envoy extraordinary in your pocket, to produce
+occasionally, especially if you should be sent to any of the Electors in
+your neighborhood; or else, in any transactions that you may have, in
+which your title of envoy extraordinary may create great difficulties, to
+have a reversal given you, declaring that the temporary suspension of
+that character, 'ne donnera pas la moindre atteinte ni a vos droits,
+ni a vos pretensions'.  As for the rest, divert yourself as well as you
+can, and eat and drink as little as you can.  And so God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 1, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Great news!  The King sent for Mr. Pitt last Saturday,
+and the conference lasted a full hour; on the Monday following another
+conference, which lasted much longer; and yesterday a third, longer ,
+than either.  You take for granted, that the treaty was concluded and
+ratified; no such matter, for this last conference broke it entirely off;
+and Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple went yesterday evening to their respective
+country houses.  Would you know what it broke off upon, you must ask the
+newsmongers, and the coffee-houses; who, I dare say, know it all very
+minutely; but I, who am not apt to know anything that I do not know,
+honestly and humbly confess, that I cannot tell you; probably one party
+asked too much, and the other would grant too little.  However, the
+King's dignity was not, in my mind, much consulted by their making him
+sole plenipotentiary of a treaty, which they were not in all events
+determined to conclude.  It ought surely to have been begun by some
+inferior agent, and his Majesty should only have appeared in rejecting or
+ratifying it.  Louis XIV. never sat down before a town in person, that
+was not sure to be taken.
+
+However, 'ce qui est differe n'est pas perdu'; for this matter must be
+taken up again, and concluded before the meeting of the parliament,
+and probably upon more disadvantageous terms to the present Ministers,
+who have tacitly admitted, by this negotiation, what their enemies have
+loudly proclaimed, that they are not able to carry on affairs.  So much
+'de re politica'.
+
+I have at last done the best office that can be done to most married
+people; that is, I have fixed the separation between my brother and his
+wife; and the definitive treaty of peace will be proclaimed in about a
+fortnight; for the only solid and lasting peace, between a man and his
+wife, is, doubtless, a separation.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 30, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  You will have known, long before this, from the office,
+that the departments are not cast as you wished; for Lord Halifax, as
+senior, had of course his choice, and chose the southern, upon account of
+the colonies.  The Ministry, such as it is, is now settled 'en attendant
+mieux'; but, in, my opinion cannot, as they are, meet the parliament.
+
+The only, and all the efficient people they have, are in the House of
+Lords: for since Mr. Pitt has firmly engaged Charles Townshend to him,
+there is not a man of the court side, in the House of Commons, who has
+either abilities or words enough to call a coach.  Lord B---- is
+certainly playing 'un dessous de cartes', and I suspect that it is with
+Mr. Pitt; but what that 'dessous' is, I do not know, though all the
+coffeehouses do most exactly.
+
+The present inaction, I believe, gives you leisure enough for 'ennui',
+but it gives you time enough too for better things; I mean reading useful
+books; and, what is still more useful, conversing with yourself some part
+of every day.  Lord Shaftesbury recommends self-conversation to all
+authors; and I would recommend it to all men; they would be the better
+for it.  Some people have not time, and fewer have inclination, to enter
+into that conversation; nay, very many dread it, and fly to the most
+trifling dissipations, in order to avoid it; but, if a man would allot
+half an hour every night for this self-conversation, and recapitulate
+with himself whatever he has done, right or wrong, in the course of the
+day, he would be both the better and the wiser for it.  My deafness gives
+me more than a sufficient time for self-conversation; and I have found
+great advantages from it.  My brother and Lady Stanhope are at last
+finally parted.  I was the negotiator between them; and had so much
+trouble in it, that I would much rather negotiate the most difficult
+point of the 'jus publicum Sacri Romani Imperii' with the whole Diet of
+Ratisbon, than negotiate any point with any woman.  If my brother had had
+some of those self-conversations, which I recommend, he would not, I
+believe, at past sixty, with a crazy, battered constitution, and deaf
+into the bargain, have married a young girl, just turned of twenty, full
+of health, and consequently of desires.  But who takes warning by the
+fate of others?  This, perhaps, proceeds from a negligence of
+selfconversation.  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXI
+
+BLACKHEATH, October 17, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The last mail brought me your letter of the 2d instant,
+as the former had brought me that of the 25th past.  I did suppose that
+you would be sent over, for the first day of the session; as I never knew
+a stricter muster, and no furloughs allowed.  I am very sorry for it, for
+the reasons you hint at; but, however, you did very prudently, in doing,
+'de bonne grace', what you could not help doing; and let that be your
+rule in every thing for the rest of your life.  Avoid disagreeable things
+as much as by dexterity you can; but when they are unavoidable, do them
+with seeming willingness and alacrity.  Though this journey is ill-timed
+for you in many respects, yet, in point of FINANCES, you will be a gainer
+by it upon the whole; for, depend upon it, they will keep you here till
+the very last day of the session: and I suppose you have sold your
+horses, and dismissed some of your servants.  Though they seem to
+apprehend the first day of the session so much, in my opinion their
+danger will be much greater in the course of it.
+
+When you are at Paris, you will of course wait upon Lord Hertford, and
+desire him to present you to the King; at the same time make my
+compliments to him, and thank him for the very obliging message he left
+at my house in town; and tell him, that, had I received it in time from
+thence, I would have come to town on purpose to have returned it in
+person.  If there are any new little books at Paris, pray bring them me.
+I have already Voltaire's 'Zelis dans le Bain', his 'Droit du Seigneur',
+and 'Olympie'.  Do not forget to call once at Madame Monconseil's, and as
+often as you please at Madame du Pin's.  Au revoir.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXII
+
+BATH, November 24, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I arrived here, as you suppose in your letter, last
+Sunday ; but after the worst day's journey I ever had in my life: it
+snowed and froze that whole morning, and in the evening it rained and
+thawed, which made the roads so slippery, that I was six hours coming
+post from the Devizes, which is but eighteen miles from hence; so that,
+but for the name of coming post, I might as well have walked on foot.  I
+have not yet quite got over my last violent attack, and am weak and
+flimsy.
+
+I have now drank the waters but three days; so that, without a miracle,
+I cannot yet expect much alteration, and I do not in the least expect a
+miracle.  If they proved 'les eaux de Jouvence' to me, that would be a
+miracle indeed; but, as the late Pope Lambertini said, 'Fra noi, gli
+miracoli sono passati girt un pezzo'.
+
+I have seen Harte, who inquired much after you: he is dejected and
+dispirited, and thinks himself much worse than he is, though he has
+really a tendency to the jaundice.  I have yet seen nobody else, nor do I
+know who here is to be seen; for I have not yet exhibited myself to
+public view, except at the pump, which, at the time I go to it, is the
+most private place in Bath.
+
+After all the fears and hopes, occasioned severally by the meeting of the
+parliament, in my opinion, it will prove a very easy session.  Mr. Wilkes
+is universally given up; and if the ministers themselves do not wantonly
+raise difficulties, I think they will meet with none.  A majority of two
+hundred is a great anodyne.  Adieu!  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXIII
+
+BATH, December 3, 1763.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Last post brought me your letter of the 29th past.  I
+suppose C----- T----- let off his speech upon the Princess's portion,
+chiefly to show that he was of the opposition; for otherwise, the point
+was not debatable, unless as to the quantum, against which something
+might be said; for the late Princess of Orange (who was the eldest
+daughter of a king) had no more, and her two sisters but half, if I am
+not mistaken.
+
+It is a great mercy that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of our rights
+and liberties, is out of danger, and may live to fight and write again in
+support of them; and it is no less a mercy, that God hath raised up the
+Earl of S------ to vindicate and promote true religion and morality.
+These two blessings will justly make an epoch in the annals of this
+country.
+
+I have delivered your message to Harte, who waits with impatience for
+your letter.  He is very happy now in having free access to all Lord
+Craven's papers, which, he says, give him great lights into the 'bellum
+tricenale'; the old Lord Craven having been the professed and valorous
+knight-errant, and perhaps something more, to the Queen of Bohemia; at
+least, like Sir Peter Pride, he had the honor of spending great part of
+his estate in her royal cause:
+
+I am by no means right yet; I am very weak and flimsy still; but the
+doctor assures me that strength and spirits will return; if they do,
+'lucro apponam', I will make the best of them; if they do not, I will not
+make their want still worse by grieving and regretting them.  I have
+lived long enough, and observed enough, to estimate most things at their
+intrinsic, and not their imaginary value; and, at seventy, I find nothing
+much worth either desiring or fearing.  But these reflections, which suit
+with seventy, would be greatly premature at two-and-thirty.  So make the
+best of your time; enjoy the present hour, but 'memor ultimae'.  God
+bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXIV
+
+BATH, December 18, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, in which you
+reproach me with not having written to you this week.  The reason was,
+that I did not know what to write.  There is that sameness in my life
+here, that EVERY DAY IS STILL BUT AS THE FIRST.  I see very few people;
+and, in the literal sense of the word, I hear nothing.
+
+Mr. L------ and Mr. C----- I hold to be two very ingenious men; and your
+image of the two men ruined, one by losing his law-suit, and the other by
+carrying it, is a very just one.  To be sure, they felt in themselves
+uncommon talents for business and speaking, which were to reimburse them.
+
+Harte has a great poetical work to publish, before it be long; he has
+shown me some parts of it.  He had entitled it "Emblems," but I persuaded
+him to alter that name for two reasons; the first was, because they were
+not emblems, but fables; the second was, that if they had been emblems,
+Quarles had degraded and vilified that name to such a degree, that it is
+impossible to make use of it after him; so they are to be called fables,
+though moral tales would, in my mind, be the properest name.  If you ask
+me what I think of those I have seen, I must say, that 'sunt plura bona,
+quaedam mediocria, et quaedam----'
+
+Your report of future changes, I cannot think is wholly groundless; for
+it still runs strongly in my head, that the mine we talked of will be
+sprung, at or before the end of the session.
+
+I have got a little more strength, but not quite the strength of
+Hercules; so that I will not undertake, like him, fifty deflorations in
+one night; for I really believe that I could not compass them.  So good-
+night, and God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXV
+
+BATH, December 24, 1763.
+
+DEAR FRIEND: I confess I was a good deal surprised at your pressing me so
+strongly to influence Parson Rosenhagen, when you well know the
+resolution I had made several years ago, and which I have scrupulously
+observed ever since, not to concern myself, directly or indirectly, in
+any party political contest whatsoever.  Let parties go to loggerheads as
+much and as long as they please; I will neither endeavor to part them,
+nor take the part of either; for I know them all too well.  But you say,
+that Lord Sandwich has been remarkably civil, and kind to you.  I am very
+glad of it, and he can by no means impute to you my obstinacy, folly, or
+philosophy, call it what you please: you may with great truth assure him,
+that you did all you could to obey his commands.
+
+I am sorry to find that you are out of order, but I hope it is only a
+cold; should it be anything more, pray consult Dr. Maty, who did you so
+much good in your last illness, when the great medicinal Mattadores did
+you rather harm.  I have found a Monsieur Diafoirus here, Dr. Moisy, who
+has really done me a great deal of good; and I am sure I wanted it a
+great deal when I came here first.  I have recovered some strength, and a
+little more will give me as much as I can make use of.
+
+Lady Brown, whom I saw yesterday, makes you many compliments; and I wish
+you a merry Christmas, and a good-night.  Adieu !
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXVI
+
+BATH, December 31, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Gravenkop wrote me word, by the last post, that you were
+laid up with the gout: but I much question it, that is, whether it is the
+gout or not.  Your last illness, before you went abroad, was pronounced
+the gout, by the skillful, and proved at last a mere rheumatism.  Take
+care that the same mistake is not made this year; and that by giving you
+strong and hot medicines to throw out the gout, they do not inflame the
+rheumatism, if it be one.
+
+Mr. Wilkes has imitated some of the great men of antiquity, by going into
+voluntary exile: it was his only way of defeating both his creditors and
+his prosecutors.  Whatever his friends, if he has any, give out of his
+returning soon, I will answer for it, that it will be a long time before
+that soon comes.
+
+I have been much out of order these four days of a violent cold which I
+do not know how I got, and which obliged me to suspend drinking the
+waters: but it is now so much better, that I propose resuming them for
+this week, and paying my court to you in town on Monday or Tuesday seven-
+night: but this is 'sub spe rati' only.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 20, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I have this moment received your letter of the 3d from
+Prague, but I never received that which you mention from Ratisbon; this
+made me think you in such rapid motion, that I did not know where to take
+aim.  I now suppose that you are arrived, though not yet settled, at
+Dresden; your audiences and formalities are, to be sure, over, and that
+is great ease of mind to you.
+
+I have no political events to acquaint you with; the summer is not the
+season for them, they ripen only in winter; great ones are expected
+immediately before the meeting of parliament, but that, you know, is
+always the language of fears and hopes.  However, I rather believe that
+there will be something patched up between the INS and the OUTS.
+
+The whole subject of conversation, at present, is the death and will of
+Lord Bath: he has left above twelve hundred thousand pounds in land and
+money; four hundred thousand pounds in cash, stocks, and mortgages; his
+own estate, in land, was improved to fifteen thousand pounds a-year, and
+the Bradford estate, which he ----- is as much; both which, at only five-
+and twenty years' purchase, amount to eight hundred thousand pounds; and
+all this he has left to his brother, General Pulteney, and in his own
+disposal, though he never loved him.  The legacies he has left are
+trifling; for, in truth, he cared for nobody: the words GIVE and BEQUEATH
+were too shocking for him to repeat, and so he left all in one word to
+his brother.  The public, which was long the dupe of his simulation and
+dissimulation, begins to explain upon him; and draws such a picture of
+him as I gave you long ago.
+
+Your late secretary has been with me three or four times; he wants
+something or another, and it seems all one to him what, whether civil or
+military; in plain English, he wants bread.  He has knocked at the doors
+of some of the ministers, but to no purpose.  I wish with all my heart
+that I could help him: I told him fairly that I could not, but advised
+him to find some channel to Lord B-----, which, though a Scotchman, he
+told me he could not.  He brought a packet of letters from the office to
+you, which I made him seal up; and keep it for you, as I suppose it makes
+up the series of your Ratisbon letters.
+
+As for me, I am just what I was when you left me, that is, nobody.  Old
+age steals upon me insensibly.  I grow weak and decrepit, but do not
+suffer, and so I am content.
+
+Forbes brought me four books of yours, two of which were Bielefeldt's
+"Letters," in which, to my knowledge, there are many notorious lies.
+
+Make my compliments to Comte Einsiedel, whom I love and honor much; and
+so good-night to 'seine Excellentz'.
+
+Now our correspondence may be more regular, and I expect a letter from
+you every fortnight.  I will be regular on my part: but write oftener to
+your mother, if it be but three lines.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 27,1764
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, two days ago, your letter of the 11th from
+Dresden, where I am very glad that, you are safely arrived at last.  The
+prices of the necessaries of life are monstrous there; and I do not
+conceive how the poor natives subsist at all, after having been so long
+and so often plundered by their own as well as by other sovereigns.
+
+As for procuring you either the title or the appointments of
+Plenipotentiary, I could as soon procure them from the Turkish as from
+the English Ministry; and, in truth, I believe they have it not to give.
+
+Now to come to your civil list, if one may compare small things with
+great: I think I have found out a better refreshment for it than you
+propose; for to-morrow I shall send to your cashier, Mr. Larpent, five
+hundred pounds at once, for your use, which, I presume, is better than by
+quarterly payments; and I am very apt to think that next midsummer day,
+he will have the same sum, and for the same use, consigned to him.
+
+It is reported here, and I believe not without some foundation, that the
+queen of Hungary has acceded to the Family Compact between France and
+Spain: if so, I am sure it behooves us to form in time a counter
+alliance, of at least equal strength; which I could easily point out, but
+which, I fear, is not thought of here.
+
+The rage of marrying is very prevalent; so that there will be probably a
+great crop of cuckolds next winter, who are at present only 'cocus en
+herbs'.  It will contribute to population, and so far must be allowed to
+be a public benefit.  Lord G------, Mr. B-------, and Mr. D-------, are,
+in this respect, very meritorious; for they have all married handsome
+women, without one shilling fortune.  Lord must indeed take some pains to
+arrive at that dignity: but I dare say he will bring it about, by the
+help of some young Scotch or Irish officer.  Good-night, and God bless
+you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 3, 1764.
+
+DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter of the 13th past.  I see that
+your complete arrangement approaches, and you need not be in a hurry to
+give entertainments, since so few others do.
+
+Comte Flemming is the man in the world the best calculated to retrieve
+the Saxon finances, which have been all this century squandered and
+lavished with the most absurd profusion: he has certainly abilities,
+and I believe integrity; I dare answer for him, that the gentleness and
+flexibility of his temper will not prevail with him to yield to the
+importunities of craving and petulant applications.  I see in him another
+Sully; and therefore I wish he were at the head of our finances.
+
+France and Spain both insult us, and we take it too tamely; for this is,
+in my opinion, the time for us to talk high to them.  France, I am
+persuaded, will not quarrel with us till it has got a navy at least equal
+to ours, which cannot be these three or four years at soonest; and then,
+indeed, I believe we shall hear of something or other; therefore, this is
+the moment for us to speak loud; and we shall be feared, if we do not
+show that we fear.
+
+Here is no domestic news of changes and chances in the political world;
+which, like oysters, are only in season in the R months, when the
+parliament sits.  I think there will be some then, but of what kind, God
+knows.
+
+I have received a book for you, and one for myself, from Harte.  It is
+upon agriculture, and will surprise you, as I confess it did me.  This
+work is not only in English, but good and elegant English; he has even
+scattered graces upon his subject; and in prose, has come very near
+Virgil's "Georgics" in verse.  I have written to him, to congratulate his
+happy transformation.  As soon as I can find an opportunity, I will send
+you your copy.  You (though no Agricola) will read it with pleasure.
+
+I know Mackenzie, whom you mention.  'C'est une delie; sed cave'.
+
+Make mine and Lady Chesterfield's compliments to Comte et Comtesse
+Flemming; and so, 'Dieu vous aye en sa sainte garde'!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 14, 1764
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 30th past, by
+which I find that you had not then got mine, which I sent you the day
+after I had received your former; you have had no great loss of it; for,
+as I told you in my last, this inactive season of the year supplies no
+materials for a letter; the winter may, and probably will, produce an
+abundant crop, but of what grain I neither know, guess, nor care.  I take
+it for granted, that Lord B------ 'surnagera encore', but by the
+assistance of what bladders or cork-waistcoats God only knows.  The death
+of poor Mr. Legge, the epileptic fits of the Duke of Devonshire, for
+which he is gone to Aix-la-Chapelle, and the advanced age of the Duke of
+Newcastle, seem to facilitate an accommodation, if Mr. Pitt and Lord Bute
+are inclined to it.
+
+You ask me what I think of the death of poor Iwan, and of the person who
+ordered it.  You may remember that I often said, she would murder or
+marry him, or probably both; she has chosen the safest alternative; and
+has now completed her character of femme forte, above scruples and
+hesitation.  If Machiavel were alive, she would probably be his heroine,
+as Caesar Borgia was his hero.  Women are all so far Machiavelians, that
+they are never either good or bad by halves; their passions are too
+strong, and their reason too weak, to do anything with moderation.  She
+will, perhaps, meet, before it is long, with some Scythian as free from
+prejudices as herself.  If there is one Oliver Cromwell in the three
+regiments of guards, he will probably, for the sake of his dear country,
+depose and murder her; for that is one and the same thing in Russia.
+
+You seem now to have settled, and 'bien nippe' at Dresden.  Four
+sedentary footmen, and one running one, 'font equipage leste'.  The
+German ones will give you, 'seine Excellentz'; and the French ones, if
+you have any, Monseigneur.
+
+My own health varies, as usual, but never deviates into good.  God bless
+you, and send you better!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXI
+
+BLACKHEATH, October 4, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I have now your last letter, of the 16th past, lying
+before me, and I gave your inclosed to Grevenkop, which has put him into
+a violent bustle to execute your commissions, as well and as cheap as
+possible.  I refer him to his own letter.  He tells you true as to
+Comtesse Cosel's diamonds, which certainly nobody will buy here, unsight
+unseen, as they call it; so many minutiae concurring to increase or
+lessen the value of a diamond.  Your Cheshire cheese, your Burton ale and
+beer, I charge myself with, and they shall be sent you as soon as
+possible.  Upon this occasion I will give you a piece of advice, which by
+experience I know to be useful.  In all commissions, whether from men or
+women, 'point de galanterie', bring them in your account, and be paid to
+the uttermost farthing; but if you would show them 'une galanterie',
+let your present be of something that is not in your commission,
+otherwise you will be the 'Commissionaire banal' of all the women of
+Saxony.  'A propos', Who is your Comtesse de Cosel?  Is she daughter, or
+grand-daughter, of the famous Madame de Cosel, in King Augustus's time?
+Is she young or old, ugly or handsome?
+
+I do not wonder that people are wonderfully surprised at our tameness and
+forbearance, with regard to France and Spain.  Spain, indeed, has lately
+agreed to our cutting log wood, according to the treaty, and sent strict
+orders to their governor to allow it; but you will observe too, that
+there is not one word of reparation for the losses we lately sustained
+there.  But France is not even so tractable; it will pay but half the
+money due, upon a liquidated account, for the maintenance of their
+prisoners.  Our request, to have the Comte d'Estaing recalled and
+censured, they have absolutely rejected, though, by the laws of war, he
+might be hanged for having twice broke his parole.  This does not do
+France honor: however, I think we shall be quiet, and that at the only
+time, perhaps this century, when we might, with safety, be otherwise: but
+this is nothing new, nor the first time, by many, when national honor and
+interest have been sacrificed to private.  It has always been so: and one
+may say, upon this occasion, what Horace says upon another, 'Nam fuit
+ante Helenam'.
+
+I have seen 'les Contes de Guillaume Vade', and like most of them so
+little, that I can hardly think them Voltaire's, but rather the scraps
+that have fallen from his table, and been worked up by inferior workmen,
+under his name.  I have not seen the other book you mention, the
+'Dictionnaire Portatif'.  It is not yet come over.
+
+I shall next week go to take my winter quarters in London, the weather
+here being very cold and damp, and not proper for an old, shattered, and
+cold carcass, like mine.  In November I will go to the Bath, to careen
+myself for the winter, and to shift the scene.  Good-night.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXII
+
+LONDON, October 19, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday morning Mr. ----- came to me, from Lord
+Halifax, to ask me whether I thought you would approve of vacating your
+seat in parliament, during the remainder of it, upon a valuable
+consideration, meaning MONEY.  My answer was, that I really did not know
+your disposition upon that subject: but that I knew you would be very
+willing, in general, to accommodate them, so far as lay in your power:
+that your election, to my knowledge, had cost you two thousand pounds;
+that this parliament had not sat above half its time; and that, for my
+part, I approved of the measure well enough, provided you had an
+equitable equivalent.  I take it for granted that you will have a letter
+from ------, by this post, to that effect, so that you must consider what
+you will do.  What I advise is this: Give them a good deal of 'Galbanum'
+in the first part of your letter.  'Le Galbanum ne coute rien'; and then
+say that you are willing to do as they please; but that you hope an
+equitable consideration will be had to the two thousand pounds, which
+your seat cost you in the present parliament, of which not above half the
+term is expired.  Moreover, that you take the liberty to remind them,
+that your being sent from Ratisbon, last session, when you were just
+settled there, put you to the expense of three or four hundred pounds,
+for which you were allowed nothing; and that, therefore, you hope they
+will not think one thousand pounds too much, considering all these
+circumstances: but that, in all events, you will do whatever they desire.
+Upon the whole, I think this proposal advantageous to you, as you
+probably will not make use of your seat this parliament; and, further, as
+it will secure you from another unpaid journey from Dresden, in case they
+meet, or fear to meet, with difficulties in any ensuing session of the
+present parliament.  Whatever one must do, one should do 'de bonne
+grace'.  'Dixi'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXIII
+
+BATH, November 10, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I am much concerned at the account you gave me of
+yourself, in your last letter.  There is, to be sure, at such a town as
+Dresden, at least some one very skillful physician, whom I hope you have
+consulted; and I would have you acquaint him with all your several
+attacks of this nature, from your great one at Laubach, to your late one
+at Dresden: tell him, too, that in your last illness in England, the
+physicians mistook your case, and treated it as the gout, till Maty came,
+who treated it as a rheumatism, and cured you.  In my own opinion,
+you have never had the gout, but always the rheumatism; which, to my
+knowledge, is as painful as the gout can possibly be, and should be
+treated in a quite different way; that is, by cooling medicines and
+regimen, instead of those inflammatory cordials which they always
+administer where they suppose the gout, to keep it, as they say, out of
+the stomach.
+
+I have been here now just a week; but have hitherto drank so little of
+the water, that I can neither speak well nor ill of it.  The number of
+people in this place is infinite; but very few whom I know.  Harte seems
+settled here for life.  He is not well, that is certain; but not so ill
+neither as he thinks himself, or at least would be thought.
+
+I long for your answer to my last letter, containing a certain proposal,
+which, by this time, I suppose has been made you, and which, in the main,
+I approve of your accepting.
+
+God bless you, my dear friend!  and send you better health!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXIV
+
+LONDON, February 26, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Your last letter, of the 5th, gave me as much pleasure
+as your former had given me uneasiness; and Larpent's acknowledgment of
+his negligence frees you from those suspicions, which I own I did
+entertain, and which I believe every one would, in the same concurrence
+of circumstances, have entertained.  So much for that.
+
+You may depend upon what I promised you, before midsummer next, at
+farthest, and AT LEAST.
+
+All I can say of the affair between you, of the Corps Diplomatique, and
+the Saxon Ministers, is, 'que voila bien du bruit pour une omelette au
+lard'.  It will most certainly be soon made up; and in that negotiation
+show yourself as moderate and healing as your instructions from hence
+will allow, especially to Comte de Flemming.  The King of Prussia, I
+believe, has a mind to insult him personally, as an old enemy, or else to
+quarrel with Saxony, that dares not quarrel with him; but some of the
+Corps Diplomatique here assure me it is only a pretense to recall his
+envoy, and to send, when matters shall be made up, a little secretary
+there, 'a moins de fraix', as he does now to Paris and London.
+
+Comte Bruhl is much in fashion here; I like him mightily; he has very
+much 'le ton de la bonne campagnie'.  Poor Schrader died last Saturday,
+without the least pain or sickness.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXV
+
+LONDON, April 22, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  The day before yesterday I received your letter of the
+3d instant.  I find that your important affair of the ceremonial is
+adjusted at last, as I foresaw it would be.  Such minutiae are often laid
+hold on as a pretense, for powers who have a mind to quarrel; but are
+never tenaciously insisted upon where there is neither interest nor
+inclination to break.  Comte Flemming, though a hot, is a wise man; and I
+was sure would not break, both with England and Hanover, upon so trifling
+a point, especially during a minority.  'A propos' of a minority; the
+King is to come to the House to-morrow, to recommend a bill to settle a
+Regency, in case of his demise while his successor is a minor.  Upon the
+King's late illness, which was no trifling one, the whole nation cried
+out aloud for such a bill, for reasons which will readily occur to you,
+who know situations, persons, and characters here.  I do not know the
+particulars of this intended bill; but I wish it may be copied exactly
+from that which was passed in the late King's time, when the present King
+was a minor.  I am sure there cannot be a better.
+
+You inquire about Monsieur de Guerchy's affair; and I will give you as
+succinct an account as I can of so extraordinary and perplexed a
+transaction: but without giving you my own opinion of it by the common
+post.  You know what passed at first between Mr. de Guerchy and Monsieur
+d'Eon, in which both our Ministers and Monsieur de Guerchy, from utter
+inexperience in business, puzzled themselves into disagreeable
+difficulties.  About three or four months ago, Monsieur du Vergy
+published in a brochure, a parcel of letters, from himself to the Duc de
+Choiseul; in which he positively asserts that Monsieur de Guerchy
+prevailed with him (Vergy) to come over into England to assassinate
+d'Eon; the words are, as well as I remember, 'que ce n'etoit pas pour se
+servir de sa plume, mais de son epee, qu'on le demandoit en Angleterre'.
+This accusation of assassination, you may imagine, shocked Monsieur de
+Guerchy, who complained bitterly to our Ministers; and they both puzzled
+on for some time, without doing anything, because they did not know what
+to do.  At last du Vergy, about two months ago, applied himself to the
+Grand Jury of Middlesex, and made oath that Mr. de Guerchy had hired him
+(du Vergy) to assassinate d'Eon.  Upon this deposition, the Grand jury
+found a bill of intended murder against Monsieur de Guerchy; which bill,
+however, never came to the Petty Jury.  The King granted a 'noli
+prosequi' in favor of Monsieur de Guerchy; and the Attorney-General is
+actually prosecuting du Vergy.  Whether the King can grant a 'noli
+prosequi' in a criminal case, and whether 'le droit des gens' extends to
+criminal cases, are two points which employ our domestic politicians, and
+the whole Corps Diplomatique.  'Enfin', to use a very coarse and vulgar
+saying, 'il y a de la merde au bout du baton, quelque part'.
+
+I see and hear these storms from shore, 'suave mari magno', etc.  I enjoy
+my own security and tranquillity, together with better health than I had
+reason to expect at my age, and with my constitution: however, I feel a
+gradual decay, though a gentle one; and I think that I shall not tumble,
+but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life.  When that will be,
+I neither know nor care, for I am very weary.  God bless you!
+
+Mallet died two days ago, of a diarrhoea, which he had carried with him
+to France, and brought back again hither.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 2, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 22d past;
+and I delayed answering your former in daily, or rather hourly
+expectation of informing you of the birth of a new Ministry; but in vain;
+for, after a thousand conferences, all things remain still in the state
+which I described to you in my last.  Lord S.  has, I believe, given you
+a pretty true account of the present state of things; but my Lord is much
+mistaken, I am persuaded, when he says that THE KING HAS THOUGHT PROPER
+TO RE-ESTABLISH HIS OLD SERVANTS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF HIS AFFAIRS; for
+he
+shows them all the public dislike possible; and, at his levee, hardly
+speaks to any of them; but speaks by the hour to anybody else.
+Conferences, in the meantime, go on, of which it is easy to guess the
+main subject, but impossible, for me at least, to know the particulars;
+but this I will venture to prophesy, that the whole will soon centre in
+Mr. Pitt.
+
+You seem not to know the character of the Queen: here it is.  She is a
+good woman, a good wife, a tender mother; and an unmeddling Queen.  The
+King loves her as a woman; but, I verily believe, has never yet spoke one
+word to her about business.  I have now told you all that I know of these
+affairs; which, I believe, is as much as anybody else knows, who is not
+in the secret.  In the meantime, you easily guess that surmises,
+conjectures, and reports are infinite; and if, as they say, truth is but
+one, one million at least of these reports must be false; for they differ
+exceedingly.
+
+You have lost an honest servant by the death of poor Louis; I would
+advise you to take a clever young Saxon in his room, of whose character
+you may get authentic testimonies, instead of sending for one to France,
+whose character you can only know from far.
+
+When I hear more, I will write more; till when, God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 15, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I told you in my last, that you should hear from me
+again, as soon as I had anything more to write; and now I have too much
+to write, therefore will refer you to the "Gazette," and the office
+letters, for all that has been done; and advise you to suspend your
+opinion, as I do, about all that is to be done.  Many more changes are
+talked of, but so idly, and variously, that I give credit to none of
+them.  There has been pretty clean sweeping already; and I do not
+remember, in my time, to have seen so much at once, as an entire new
+Board of Treasury, and two new Secretaries of State, 'cum multis aliis',
+etc.
+
+Here is a new political arch almost built, but of materials of so
+different a nature, and without a key-stone, that it does not, in my
+opinion, indicate either strength or duration.  It will certainly require
+repairs, and a key-stone next winter; and that key-stone will, and must
+necessarily be, Mr. Pitt.  It is true he might have been that keystone
+now; and would have accepted it, but not without Lord Temple's consent,
+and Lord Temple positively refused.  There was evidently some trick in
+this, but what is past my conjecturing.  'Davus sum, non OEdipus'.
+
+There is a manifest interregnum in the Treasury; for I do suppose that
+Lord Rockingham and Mr. Dowdeswell will not think proper to be very
+active.  General Conway, who is your Secretary, has certainly parts at
+least equal to his business, to which, I dare say, he will apply.  The
+same may be said, I believe, of the Duke of Grafton; and indeed there is
+no magic requisite for the executive part of those employments.  The
+ministerial part is another thing; they must scramble with their fellow-
+servants, for power and favor, as well as they can.  Foreign affairs are
+not so much as mentioned, and, I verily believe, not thought of.  But
+surely some counterbalance would be necessary to the Family compact; and,
+if not soon contracted, will be too late.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 17, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are now two letters in my debt; and I fear the gout
+has been the cause of your contracting that debt.  When you are not able
+to write yourself, let your Secretary send me two or three lines to
+acquaint me how you are.
+
+You have now seen by the London "Gazette," what changes have really been
+made at court; but, at the same time, I believe you have seen that there
+must be more, before a Ministry can be settled; what those will be, God
+knows.  Were I to conjecture, I should say that the whole will centre,
+before it is long, in Mr. Pitt and Co., the present being an
+heterogeneous jumble of youth and caducity, which cannot be efficient.
+
+Charles Townshend calls the present a Lutestring Ministry; fit only for
+the summer.  The next session will be not only a warm, but a violent one,
+as you will easily judge; if you look over the names of the INS and of
+the OUTS.
+
+I feel this beginning of the autumn, which is already very cold: the
+leaves are withered, fall apace, and seem to intimate that I must follow
+them; which I shall do without reluctance, being extremely weary of this
+silly world.  God bless you, both in it and after it!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 25, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received but four days ago your letter of the 2d
+instant.  I find by it that you are well, for you are in good spirits.
+Your notion of the new birth or regeneration of the Ministry is a very
+just one; and that they have not yet the true seal of the covenant is,
+I dare say, very true; at least it is not in the possession of either of
+the Secretaries of State, who have only the King's seal; nor do I believe
+(whatever his Grace may imagine) that it is even in the possession of the
+Lord Privy Seal.  I own I am lost, in considering the present situation
+of affairs; different conjectures present themselves to my mind, but none
+that it can rest upon.  The next session must necessarily clear up
+matters a good deal; for I believe it will be the warmest and most
+acrimonious one that has been known, since that of the Excise.  The late
+Ministry, THE PRESENT OPPOSITION, are determined to attack Lord B-----
+publicly in parliament, and reduce the late Opposition, THE PRESENT
+MINISTRY, to protect him publicly, in consequence of their supposed
+treaty with him.  'En attendant mieux', the paper war is carried on with
+much fury and scurrility on all sides, to the great entertainment of such
+lazy and impartial people as myself: I do not know whether you have the
+"Daily Advertiser," and the "Public Advertiser," in which all political
+letters are inserted, and some very well-written ones on both sides; but
+I know that they amuse me, 'tant bien que mal', for an hour or two every
+morning.  Lord T------ is the supposed author of the pamphlet you
+mention; but I think it is above him.  Perhaps his brother C---- T------,
+who is by no means satisfied with the present arrangement, may have
+assisted him privately.  As to this latter, there was a good ridiculous
+paragraph in the newspapers two or three days ago.  WE HEAR THAT THE
+RIGHT HONORABLE MR. C-----T------ IS INDISPOSED AT HIS HOUSE IN
+OXFORDSHIRE, OF A PAIN IN HIS SIDE; BUT IT IS NOT SAID IN WHICH SIDE.
+
+I do not find that the Duke of York has yet visited you; if he should, it
+may be expensive, 'mais on trouvera moyen'.  As for the lady, if you
+should be very sharp set for some English flesh, she has it amply in her
+power to supply you if she pleases.  Pray tell me in your next, what you
+think of, and how you like, Prince Henry of Prussia.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXX
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Your great character of Prince Henry, which I take to be
+a very just one, lowers the King of Prussia's a great deal; and probably
+that is the cause of their being so ill together.  But the King of
+Prussia, with his good parts, should reflect upon that trite and true
+maxim, 'Qui invidet minor', or Mr. de la Rouchefoucault's, 'Que l'envie
+est la plus basse de toutes les passions, puisqu'on avoue bien des
+crimes, mais que personae n'avoue l'envie'.  I thank God, I never was
+sensible of that dark and vile passion, except that formerly I have
+sometimes envied a successful rival with a fine woman.  But now that
+cause is ceased, and consequently the effects.
+
+What shall I, or rather what can I tell you of the political world here?
+The late Ministers accuse the present with having done nothing, the
+present accuse the late ones with having done much worse than nothing.
+Their writers abuse one another most scurrilously, but sometimes with
+wit.  I look upon this to be 'peloter en attendant partie', till battle
+begins in St., Stephen's Chapel.  How that will end, I protest I cannot
+conjecture; any farther than this, that if Mr. Pitt does not come into
+the assistance of the present ministers, they will have much to do to
+stand their ground.  C----- T------ will play booty; and who else have
+they?  Nobody but C-----, who has only good sense, but not the necessary
+talents nor experience, 'AEre ciere viros martemque accendere cantu'.
+I never remember, in all my time, to have seen so problematical a state
+of affairs, and a man would be much puzzled which side to bet on.
+
+Your guest, Miss C----- , is another problem which I cannot solve.  She
+no more wanted the waters of Carlsbadt than you did.  Is it to show the
+Duke of Kingston that he cannot live without her? a dangerous experiment!
+which may possibly convince him that he can.  There is a trick no doubt
+in it; but what, I neither know nor care; you did very well to show her
+civilities, 'cela ne gute jamais rien'.  I will go to my waters, that is,
+the Bath waters, in three weeks or a month, more for the sake of bathing
+than of drinking.  The hot bath always promotes my perspiration, which is
+sluggish, and supples my stiff rheumatic limbs.  'D'ailleurs', I am at
+present as well, and better than I could reasonably expect to be, 'annu
+septuagesimo primo'.  May you be so as long, 'y mas'!  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXI
+
+LONDON, October 25, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter of the l0th 'sonica'; for I set
+out for Bath to-morrow morning.
+
+If the use of those waters does me no good, the shifting the scene for
+some time will at least amuse me a little; and at my age, and with my
+infirmities, 'il faut faire de tout bois feche'.  Some variety is as
+necessary for the mind as some medicines are for the body.
+
+Here is a total stagnation of politics, which, I suppose, will continue
+till the parliament sits to do business, and that will not be till about
+the middle of January; for the meeting on the 17th December is only for
+the sake of some new writs.  The late ministers threaten the present
+ones; but the latter do not seem in the least afraid of the former, and
+for a very good reason, which is, that they have the distribution of the
+loaves and fishes.  I believe it is very certain that Mr. Pitt will never
+come into this, or any other administration: he is absolutely a cripple
+all the year, and in violent pain at least half of it.  Such physical
+ills are great checks to two of the strongest passions to which human
+nature is liable, love and ambition.  Though I cannot persuade myself
+that the present ministry can be long lived, I can as little imagine who
+or what can succeed them, 'telle est la-disette de sujets papables'.
+The Duke of swears that he will have Lord personally attacked in both
+Houses; but I do not see how, without endangering himself at the same
+time.
+
+Miss C------ is safely arrived here, and her Duke is fonder of her than
+ever.  It was a dangerous experiment that she tried, in leaving him so
+long; but it seems she knew her man.
+
+I pity you for the inundation of your good countrymen, which overwhelms
+you; 'je sais ce qu'en vaut l'aune.  It is, besides, expensive, but, as I
+look upon the expense to be the least evil of the two, I will see if a
+New-Year's gift will not make it up.
+
+As I am now upon the wing, I will only add, God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXII
+
+BATH, November 28, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the l0th.
+I have now been here a month, bathing and drinking the waters, for
+complaints much of the same kind as yours, I mean pains in my legs, hips,
+and arms: whether gouty or rheumatic, God knows; but, I believe, both,
+that fight without a decision in favor of either, and have absolutely
+reduced me to the miserable situation of the Sphinx's riddle, to walk
+upon three legs; that is, with the assistance of my stick, to walk, or
+rather hobble, very indifferently.  I wish it were a declared gout, which
+is the distemper of a gentleman; whereas the rheumatism is the distemper
+of a hackney-coachman or chairman, who is obliged to be out in all
+weathers and at all hours.
+
+I think you will do very right to ask leave, and I dare say you will
+easily get it, to go to the baths in Suabia ; that is, supposing that you
+have consulted some skillful physician, if such a one there be, either at
+Dresden or at Leipsic, about the nature of your distemper, and the nature
+of those baths; but, 'suos quisque patimur manes'.  We have but a bad
+bargain, God knows, of this life, and patience is the only way not to
+make bad worse.  Mr. Pitt keeps his bed here, with a very real gout, and
+not a political one, as is often suspected.
+
+Here has been a congress of most of the 'ex Ministres'.  If they have
+raised a battery, as I suppose they have, it is a masked one, for nothing
+has transpired ; only they confess that they intend a most vigorous
+attack.  'D'ailleurs', there seems to be a total suspension of all
+business, till the meeting of the parliament, and then 'Signa canant'.
+I am very glad that at this time you are out of it: and for reasons that
+I need not mention: you would certainly have been sent for over, and, as
+before, not paid for your journey.
+
+Poor Harte is very ill, and condemned to the Hot well at Bristol.  He is
+a better poet than philosopher: for all this illness and melancholy
+proceeds originally from the ill success of his "Gustavus Adolphus."
+He is grown extremely devout, which I am very glad of, because that is
+always a comfort to the afflicted.
+
+I cannot present Mr. Larpent with my New-Year's gift, till I come to
+town, which will be before Christmas at farthest; till when, God bless
+you!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXIII
+
+LONDON, December 27, 1765.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I arrived here from Bath last Monday, rather, but not
+much better, than when I went over there.  My rheumatic pains, in my legs
+and hips, plague me still, and I must never expect to be quite free from
+them.
+
+You have, to be sure, had from the office an account of what the
+parliament did, or rather did not do, the day of their meeting; and the
+same point will be the great object at their next meeting; I mean the
+affair of our American Colonies, relatively to the late imposed Stamp-
+duty, which our Colonists absolutely refuse to pay.  The Administration
+are for some indulgence and forbearance to those froward children of
+their mother country; the Opposition are for taking vigorous, as they
+call them, but I call them violent measures; not less than 'les
+dragonnades'; and to have the tax collected by the troops we have there.
+For my part, I never saw a froward child mended by whipping; and I would
+not have the mother country become a stepmother.  Our trade to America
+brings in, 'communibus annis', two millions a year; and the Stamp-duty is
+estimated at but one hundred thousand pounds a year; which I would by no
+means bring into the stock of the Exchequer, at the loss or even the risk
+of a million a year to the national stock.
+
+I do not tell you of the Garter given away yesterday, because the
+newspapers will; but, I must observe, that the Prince of Brunswick's
+riband is a mark of great distinction to that family; which I believe, is
+the first (except our own Royal Family) that has ever had two blue
+ribands at a time; but it must be owned they deserve them.
+
+One hears of nothing now in town, but the separation of men and their
+wives.  Will Finch, the Ex-vice Chamberlain, Lord Warwick, and your
+friend Lord Bolingbroke.  I wonder at none of them for parting; but I
+wonder at many for still living together; for in this country it is
+certain that marriage is not well understood.
+
+I have this day sent Mr. Larpent two hundred pounds for your Christmas-
+box, of which I suppose he will inform you by this post.  Make this
+Christmas as merry a one as you can; for 'pour le peu du bon tems qui
+nous reste, rien nest si funeste, qu'un noir chagrin'.  For the new years
+--God send you many, and happy ones!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse . . . . . .
+American Colonies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Be neither transported nor depressed by the accidents of life. . . . .
+Doing, 'de bonne grace', what you could not help doing . . . . . . . .
+EVERY DAY IS STILL BUT AS THE FIRST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Everything has a better and a worse side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Extremely weary of this silly world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Gainer by your misfortune. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+I, who am not apt to know anything that I do not know. . . . . . . . .
+If I cared to know, you should have cared to have written. . . . . . .
+Intrinsic, and not their imaginary value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+My own health varies, as usual, but never deviates into good . . . . .
+National honor and interest have been sacrificed to private. . . . . .
+Neither abilities or words enough to call a coach. . . . . . . . . . .
+Neither know nor care, (when I die)  for I am very weary . . . . . . .
+Never saw a froward child mended by whipping . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Never to trust implicitly to the informations of others. . . . . . . .
+Not make their want still worse by grieving and regretting them. . . .
+Not tumble, but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life . . . .
+Nothing much worth either desiring or fearing. . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Often necessary to seem ignorant of what one knows . . . . . . . . . .
+Only solid and lasting peace, between a man and his wife . . . . . . .
+Oysters, are only in season in the R months. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Patience is the only way not to make bad worse . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Recommends self-conversation to all authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Return you the ball 'a la volee' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Settled here for good, as it is called . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Stamp-duty, which our Colonists absolutely refuse to pay . . . . . . .
+Thinks himself much worse than he is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+To seem to have forgotten what one remembers . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+We shall be feared, if we do not show that we fear . . . . . . . . . .
+Whatever one must do, one should do 'de bonne grace' . . . . . . . . .
+Who takes warning by the fate of others? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Women are all so far Machiavelians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+#9 in our series by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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+Title: Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: August, 2002  [Etext #3359]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 03/09/01]
+[Last modified date = 11/24/01]
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+Edition: 11
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+*********This file should be named lc09s11.txt or lc09s11.zip*********
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+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+                           LETTERS TO HIS SON
+                                1759-65
+
+                      By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+                     on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                            MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                                 and a
+
+                               GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXXXVII
+
+LONDON, New-year's Day, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: 'Molti e felici', and I have done upon that subject, one
+truth being fair, upon the most lying day in the whole year.
+
+I have now before me your last letter of the 21st December, which I am
+glad to find is a bill of health: but, however, do not presume too much
+upon it, but obey and honor your physician, "that thy days may be long in
+the land."
+
+Since my last, I have heard nothing more concerning the ribband; but I
+take it for granted it will be disposed of soon.  By the way, upon
+reflection, I am not sure that anybody but a knight can, according to
+form, be employed to make a knight.  I remember that Sir Clement Cotterel
+was sent to Holland, to dub the late Prince of Orange, only because he
+was a knight himself; and I know that the proxies of knights, who cannot
+attend their own installations, must always be knights.  This did not
+occur to me before, and perhaps will not to the person who was to
+recommend you: I am sure I will not stir it; and I only mention it now,
+that you may be in all events prepared for the disappointment, if it
+should happen.
+
+G----- is exceedingly flattered with your account, that three thousand of
+his countrymen; all as little as himself, should be thought a sufficient
+guard upon three-and-twenty thousand of all the nations in Europe; not
+that he thinks himself, by any means, a little man, for when he would
+describe a tall handsome man, he raises himself up at least half an inch
+to represent him.
+
+The private news from Hamburg is, that his Majesty's Resident there is
+woundily in love with Madame -------; if this be true, God send him,
+rather than her, a good DELIVERY!  She must be 'etrennee' at this season,
+and therefore I think you should be so too: so draw upon me as soon as
+you please, for one hundred pounds.
+
+Here is nothing new, except the unanimity with which the parliament gives
+away a dozen of millions sterling; and the unanimity of the public is as
+great in approving of it, which has stifled the usual political and
+polemical argumentations.
+
+Cardinal Bernis's disgrace is as sudden, and hitherto as little
+understood, as his elevation was.  I have seen his poems, printed at
+Paris, not by a friend, I dare say; and to judge by them, I humbly
+conceive his Eminency is a p-----y.  I will say nothing of that excellent
+headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month, except O KING,
+LIVE FOREVER.
+
+Good-night to you, whoever you pass it with.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXXXVIII
+
+LONDON, February 2, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I am now (what I have very seldom been) two letters in
+your debt: the reason was, that my head, like many other heads, has
+frequently taken a wrong turn; in which case, writing is painful to me,
+and therefore cannot be very pleasant to my readers.
+
+I wish you would (while you have so good an opportunity as you have at
+Hamburg) make yourself perfectly master of that dull but very useful
+knowledge, the course of exchange, and the causes of its almost perpetual
+variations; the value and relation of different coins, the specie, the
+banco, usances, agio, and a thousand other particulars.  You may with
+ease learn, and you will be very glad when you have learned them; for,
+in your business, that sort of knowledge will often prove necessary.
+
+I hear nothing more of Prince Ferdinand's garter: that he will have one
+is very certain; but when, I believe, is very uncertain; all the other
+postulants wanting to be dubbed at the same time, which cannot be, as
+there is not ribband enough for them.
+
+If the Russians move in time, and in earnest, there will be an end of our
+hopes and of our armies in Germany: three such mill-stones as Russia,
+France, and Austria, must, sooner or later, in the course of the year,
+grind his Prussian Majesty down to a mere MARGRAVE of Brandenburg.  But I
+have always some hopes of a change under a 'Gunarchy'--[Derived from the
+Greek word 'Iuvn'  a woman, and means female government]--where whim and
+humor commonly prevail, reason very seldom, and then only by a lucky
+mistake.
+
+I expect the incomparable fair one of Hamburg, that prodigy of beauty,
+and paragon of good sense, who has enslaved your mind, and inflamed your
+heart.  If she is as well 'etrennee' as you say she shall, you will be
+soon out of her chains; for I have, by long experience, found women to be
+like Telephus's spear, if one end kills, the other cures.
+
+There never was so quiet, nor so silent a session of parliament as the
+present; Mr. Pitt declares only what he would have them do, and they do
+it 'nemine contradicente', Mr. Viner only expected.
+
+Duchess Hamilton is to be married, to-morrow, to Colonel Campbell, the
+son of General Campbell, who will some day or other be Duke of Argyle,
+and have the estate.  She refused the Duke of B-----r for him.
+
+Here is a report, but I believe a very groundless one, that your old
+acquaintance, the fair Madame C------e, is run away from her husband,
+with a jeweler, that 'etrennes' her, and is come over here; but I dare
+say it is some mistake, or perhaps a lie.  Adieu!  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXXXIX
+
+LONDON, February 27, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: In your last letter, of the 7th, you accuse me, most
+unjustly, of being in arrears in my correspondence; whereas, if our
+epistolary accounts were fairly liquidated, I believe you would be
+brought in considerably debtor.  I do not see how any of my letters to
+you can miscarry, unless your office-packet miscarries too, for I always
+send them to the office.  Moreover, I might have a justifiable excuse for
+writing to you seldomer than usual, for to be sure there never was a
+period of time, in the middle of a winter, and the parliament sitting,
+that supplied so little matter for a letter.  Near twelve millions have
+been granted this year, not only 'nemine contradicente', but, 'nemine
+quicquid dicente'.  The proper officers bring in the estimates; it is
+taken for granted that they are necessary and frugal; the members go to
+dinner; and leave Mr. West and Mr. Martin to do the rest.
+
+I presume you have seen the little poem of the "Country Lass," by Soame
+Jenyns, for it was in the "Chronicle"; as was also an answer to it, from
+the "Monitor."  They are neither of them bad performances; the first is
+the neatest, and the plan of the second has the most invention.  I send
+you none of those 'pieces volantes' in my letters, because they are all
+printed in one or other of the newspapers, particularly in the
+"Chronicles"; and I suppose that you and others have all those papers
+among you at Hamburg; in which case it would be only putting you to the
+unnecessary expense of double postage.
+
+I find you are sanguine about the King of Prussia this year; I allow his
+army will be what you say; but what will that be 'vis-a-vis' French,
+Austrians, Imperialists, Swedes, and Russians, who must amount to more
+than double that number?  Were the inequality less, I would allow for the
+King of Prussia's being so much 'ipse agmen' as pretty nearly to balance
+the account.  In war, numbers are generally my omens; and, I confess,
+that in Germany they seem not happy ones this year.  In America.  I
+think, we are sure of success, and great success; but how we shall be
+able to strike a balance, as they call it, between good success there,
+and ill success upon the continent, so as to come at a peace; is more
+than I can discover.
+
+Lady Chesterfield makes you her compliments, and thanks you for your
+offer; but declines troubling you, being discouraged by the ill success
+of Madame Munchausen's and Miss Chetwynd's commissions, the former for
+beef, and the latter for gloves; neither of which have yet been executed,
+to the dissatisfaction of both.  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXL
+
+LONDON, March 16, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now your letter of the 20th past lying before me,
+by which you despond, in my opinion too soon, of dubbing your Prince; for
+he most certainly will have the Garter; and he will as probably have it
+before the campaign opens, as after.  His campaign must, I doubt, at best
+be a defensive one; and he will show great skill in making it such; for
+according to my calculation, his enemies will be at least double his
+number.  Their troops, indeed, may perhaps be worse than his; but then
+their number will make up that defect, as it will enable them to
+undertake different operations at the same time.  I cannot think that the
+King of Denmark will take a part in the present war; which he cannot do
+without great possible danger; and he is well paid by France for his
+neutrality; is safe, let what will turn out; and, in the meantime,
+carries on his commerce with great advantage and security; so that that
+consideration will not retard your visit to your own country, whenever
+you have leave to return, and that your own ARRANGEMENTS will allow you.
+A short absence animates a tender passion, 'et l'on ne recule que pour
+mieux sauter', especially in the summer months; so that I would advise
+you to begin your journey in May, and continue your absence from the dear
+object of your vows till after the dog-days, when love is said to be
+unwholesome.  We have been disappointed at Martinico; I wish we may not
+be so at Guadaloupe, though we are landed there; for many difficulties
+must be got over before we can be in possession of the whole island.
+A pro pos de bottes; you make use of two Spanish words, very properly,
+in your letter; were I you, I would learn the Spanish language, if there
+were a Spaniard at Hamburg who could teach me; and then you would be
+master of all the European languages that are useful; and, in my mind,
+it is very convenient, if not necessary, for a public man to understand
+them all, and not to be obliged to have recourse to an interpreter for
+those papers that chance or business may throw in his way.  I learned
+Spanish when I was older than you; convinced by experience that, in
+everything possible, it was better to trust to one's self than to any
+other body whatsoever.  Interpreters, as well as relaters, are often
+unfaithful, and still oftener incorrect, puzzling, and blundering.  In
+short, let it be your maxim through life to know all you can know,
+yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others.
+This rule has been of infinite service to me in the course of my life.
+
+I am rather better than I was; which I owe not to my physicians, but to
+an ass and a cow, who nourish me, between them, very plentifully and
+wholesomely; in the morning the ass is my nurse, at night the cow; and I
+have just now, bought a milch-goat, which is to graze, and nurse me at
+Blackheath.  I do not know what may come of this latter, and I am not
+without apprehensions that it may make a satyr of me; but, should I find
+that obscene disposition growing upon me, I will check it in time, for
+fear of endangering my life and character by rapes.  And so we heartily
+bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLI
+
+LONDON, March 30, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I do not like these frequent, however short, returns of
+your illness; for I doubt they imply either want of skill in your
+physician, or want of care in his patient.  Rhubarb, soap, and chalybeate
+medicines and waters, are almost always specifics for obstructions of the
+liver; but then a very exact regimen is necessary, and that for a long
+continuance.  Acids are good for you, but you do not love them; and sweet
+things are bad for you, and you do love them.  There is another thing
+very bad for you, and I fear you love it too much.  When I was in
+Holland, I had a slow fever that hung upon me a great while; I consulted
+Boerhaave, who prescribed me what I suppose was proper, for it cured me;
+but he added, by way of postscript to his prescription, 'Venus rarius
+colatur'; which I observed, and perhaps that made the medicines more
+effectual.
+
+I doubt we shall be mutually disappointed in our hopes of seeing one
+another this spring, as I believe you will find, by a letter which you
+will receive at the same time with this, from Lord Holderness; but as
+Lord Holderness will not tell you all, I will, between you and me, supply
+that defect.  I must do him the justice to say that he has acted in the
+most kind and friendly manner possible to us both.  When the King read
+your letter, in which you desired leave to return, for the sake of
+drinking the Tunbridge waters, he said, "If he wants steel waters, those
+of Pyrmont are better than Tunbridge, and he can have them very fresh at
+Hamburg.  I would rather he had asked me to come last autumn, and had
+passed the winter here; for if he returns now, I shall have nobody in
+those quarters to inform me of what passes; and yet it will be a very-
+busy and important scene."  Lord Holderness, who found that it would not
+be liked, resolved to push it no further; and replied, he was very sure
+that when you knew his Majesty had the least objection to your return at
+this time, you would think of it no longer; and he owned that he (Lord
+Holderness) had given you encouragement for this application last year,
+then thinking and hoping that there would be little occasion for your
+presence at Hamburg this year.  Lord Holderness will only tell you, in
+his letter, that, as he had some reason to believe his moving this matter
+would be disagreeable to the King, he resolved, for your sake, not to
+mention it.  You must answer his letter upon that footing simply, and
+thank him for this mark of his friendship, for he has really acted as
+your friend.  I make no doubt of your having willing leave to return in
+autumn, for the whole winter.  In the meantime, make the best of your
+'sejour' where you are; drink the Pyrmont waters, and no wine but
+Rhenish, which, in your case is the only proper one for you.
+
+Next week Mr. Harte will send you his "Gustavus Adolphus," in two
+quartos; it will contain many new particulars of the life of that real
+hero, as he has had abundant and authentic materials, which have never
+yet appeared.  It will, upon the whole, be a very curious and valuable
+history; though, between you and me, I could have wished that he had been
+more correct and elegant in his style.  You will find it dedicated to one
+of your acquaintance, who was forced to prune the luxuriant praises
+bestowed upon him, and yet has left enough of all conscience to satisfy a
+reasonable man.  Harte has been very much out of order these last three
+or four months, but is not the less intent upon sowing his lucerne, of
+which he had six crops last year, to his infinite joy, and, as he says,
+profit.  As a gardener, I shall probably have as much joy, though not
+quite so much profit, by thirty or forty shillings; for there is the
+greatest promise of fruit this year at 'Blackheath, that ever I saw in my
+life.  Vertumnus and Pomona have been very propitious to me: as for
+Priapus, that tremendous garden god, as I no longer invoke him, I cannot
+expect his protection from the birds and the thieves.
+
+Adieu!  I will conclude like a pedant, 'Levius fit patientia quicquid
+corrigere est nefas.'
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLII
+
+LONDON, April 16, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: With humble submission to you, I still say that if Prince
+Ferdinand can make a defensive campaign this year, he will have done a
+great deal, considering the great inequality of numbers.  The little
+advantages of taking a regiment or two prisoners, or cutting another to
+pieces, are but trifling articles in the great account; they are only the
+pence, the pounds are yet to come; and I take it for granted, that
+neither the French, nor the Court of Vienna, will have 'le dementi' of
+their main object, which is unquestionably Hanover; for that is the
+'summa summarum'; and they will certainly take care to draw a force
+together for this purpose, too great for any that Prince Ferdinand has,
+or can have, to oppose them.  In short, mark the end on't, 'j'en augure
+mal'.  If France, Austria, the Empire, Russia, and Sweden, are not, at
+long run, too hard for the two Electors of Hanover and Brandenburg, there
+must be some invisible power, some tutelar deities, that miraculously
+interpose in favor of the latter.
+
+You encourage me to accept all the powers that goats, asses, and bulls,
+can give me, by engaging for my not making an ill use of them; but I own,
+I cannot help distrusting myself a little, or rather human nature; for it
+is an old and very true observation, that there are misers of money, but
+none of power; and the non-use of the one, and the abuse of the other,
+increase in proportion to their quantity.
+
+I am very sorry to tell you that Harte's "Gustavus Adolphus" does not
+take at all, and consequently sells very little: it is certainly
+informing, and full of good matter; but it is as certain too, that the
+style is execrable: where the devil he picked it up, I cannot conceive,
+for it is a bad style, of a new and singular kind; it is full of
+Latinisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, and all isms but Anglicisms; in some
+places pompous, in others vulgar and low.  Surely, before the end of the
+world, people, and you in particular, will discover that the MANNER, in
+everything, is at least as important as the matter; and that the latter
+never can please, without a good degree of elegance in the former.  This
+holds true in everything in life: in writing, conversing, business, the
+help of the Graces is absolutely necessary; and whoever vainly thinks
+himself above them, will find he is mistaken when it will be too late to
+court them, for they will not come to strangers of an advanced age.
+There is an history lately come out, of the "Reign of Mary Queen of
+Scots" and her son (no matter by whom) King James, written by one
+Robertson, a Scotchman, which for clearness, purity, and dignity of
+style, I will not scruple to compare with the best historians extant,
+not excepting Davila, Guicciardini, and perhaps Livy.  Its success has
+consequently been great, and a second edition is already published and
+bought up.  I take it for granted, that it is to be had, or at least
+borrowed, at Hamburg, or I would send it to you.
+
+I hope you drink the Pyrmont waters every morning.  The health of the
+mind depends so much upon the health of the body, that the latter
+deserves the utmost attention, independently of the senses.  God send you
+a very great share of both!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLIII
+
+LONDON, April 27, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your two letters of the 10th and 13th,
+by the last mail; and I will begin my answer to them, by observing to you
+that a wise man, without being a Stoic, considers, in all misfortunes
+that befall him, their best as well as their worst side; and everything
+has a better and a worse side.  I have strictly observed that rule for
+many years, and have found by experience that some comfort is to be
+extracted, under most moral ills, by considering them in every light,
+instead of dwelling, as people are too apt to do, upon the gloomy side of
+the object.  Thank God, the disappointment that you so pathetically groan
+under, is not a calamity which admits of no consolation.  Let us simplify
+it, and see what it amounts to.  You are pleased with the expectation of
+coming here next month, to see those who would have been pleased with
+seeing you.  That, from very natural causes, cannot be, and you must pass
+this summer at Hamburg, and next winter in England, instead of passing
+this summer in England, and next winter at Hamburg.  Now, estimating
+things fairly, is not the change rather to your advantage?  Is not the
+summer more eligible, both for health and pleasure, than the winter, in
+that northern frozen zone?  And will not the winter in England supply you
+with more pleasures than the summer, in an empty capital, could have
+done?  So far then it appears, that you are rather a gainer by your
+misfortune.
+
+The TOUR too, which you propose making to Lubeck, Altena, etc., will both
+amuse and inform you; for, at your age, one cannot see too many different
+places and people; since at the age you are now of, I take it for granted
+that you will not see them superficially, as you did when you first went
+abroad.
+
+This whole matter then, summed up, amounts to no more than this--that you
+will be here next winter, instead of this summer.  Do not think that all
+I have said is the consolation only of an old philosophical fellow,
+almost insensible of pleasure or pain, offered to a young fellow who has
+quick sensations of both.  No, it is the rational philosophy taught me by
+experience and knowledge of the world, and which I have practiced above
+thirty years.
+
+I always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse by fretting;
+this enabled me to go through the various scenes of life in which I have
+been an actor, with more pleasure and less pain than most people.  You
+will say, perhaps, one cannot change one's nature; and that if a person
+is born of a very sensible, gloomy temper, and apt to see things in the
+worst light, they cannot help it, nor new-make themselves.  I will admit
+it, to a certain degree; and but to a certain degree; for though we
+cannot totally change our nature, we may in a great measure correct it,
+by reflection and philosophy; and some philosophy is a very necessary
+companion in this world, where, even to the most fortunate, the chances
+are greatly against happiness.
+
+I am not old enough, nor tenacious enough, to pretend not to understand
+the main purport of your last letter; and to show you that I do, you may
+draw upon me for two hundred pounds, which, I hope, will more than clear
+you.
+
+Good-night: 'aquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem': Be neither
+transported nor depressed by the accidents of life.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLIV
+
+BLACKHEATH, May 16, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your secretary's last letter of the 4th, which I received
+yesterday, has quieted my fears a good deal, but has not entirely
+dissipated them. YOUR FEVER STILL CONTINUES, he says, THOUGH IN A LESS
+DEGREE.  Is it a continued fever, or an intermitting one?  If the former,
+no wonder that you are weak, and that your head aches.  If the latter,
+why has not the bark, in substance and large doses, been administered?
+for if it had, it must have stopped it by this time.  Next post, I hope,
+will set me quite at ease.  Surely you have not been so regular as you
+ought, either in your medicines or in your general regimen, otherwise
+this fever would not have returned; for the Doctor calls it, YOUR FEVER
+RETURNED, as if you had an exclusive patent for it.  You have now had
+illnesses enough, to know the value of health, and to make you implicitly
+follow the prescriptions of your physician in medicines, and the rules of
+your own common sense in diet; in which, I can assure you, from my own
+experience, that quantity is often worse than quality; and I would rather
+eat half a pound of bacon at a meal, than two pounds of any the most
+wholesome food.
+
+I have been settled here near a week, to my great satisfaction; 'c'est ma
+place', and I know it, which is not given to everybody.  Cut off from
+social life by my deafness, as well as other physical ills, and being at
+best but the ghost of my former self, I walk here in silence and solitude
+as becomes a ghost: with this only difference, that I walk by day,
+whereas, you know, to be sure, that other ghosts only appear by night.
+My health, however, is better than it was last year, thanks to my almost
+total milk diet.  This enables me to vary my solitary amusements, and
+alternately to scribble as well as read, which I could not do last year.
+Thus I saunter away the remainder, be it more or less, of an agitated and
+active life, now reduced (and I am not sure that I am a loser by the
+change) to so quiet and serene a one, that it may properly be called
+still life.
+
+The French whisper in confidence, in order that it may be the more known
+and the more credited, that they intend to invade us this year, in no
+less than three places; that is England, Scotland, and Ireland.  Some of
+our great men, like the devils, believe and tremble; others, and one
+little one whom I know, laugh at it; and, in general, it seems to be but
+a poor, instead of a formidable scarecrow.  While somebody was at the
+head of a moderate army, and wanted (I know why) to be at the head of a
+great one, intended invasions were made an article of political faith;
+and the belief of them was required, as in the Church the belief of some
+absurdities, and even impossibilities, is required upon pain of heresy,
+excommunication, and consequently damnation, if they tend to the power
+and interest of the heads of the Church.  But now that there is a general
+toleration, and that the best subjects, as well as the best Christians,
+may believe what their reasons find their consciences suggest, it is
+generally and rationally supposed the French will threaten and not
+strike, since we are so well prepared, both by armies and fleets, to
+receive and, I may add, to destroy them.  Adieu!  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLV
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 15, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter of the 5th, which I received yesterday, gave
+me great satisfaction, being all in your own hand; though it contains
+great, and I fear just complaints of your ill state of health.  You do
+very well to change the air; and I hope that change will do well by you.
+I would therefore have you write after the 20th of August, to Lord
+Holderness, to beg of him to obtain his Majesty's leave for you to return
+to England for two or three months, upon account of your health.  Two or
+three months is an indefinite time, which may afterward insensibly
+stretched to what length one pleases; leave that to me.  In the meantime,
+you may be taking your measures with the best economy.
+
+The day before yesterday, an express arrived from Guadaloupe which
+brought an account of our being in possession of the whole island.  And I
+make no manner of doubt but that, in about two months, we shall have as
+good news from Crown-point, Quebec, etc.  Our affairs in Germany, I fear,
+will not be equally prosperous; for I have very little hopes for the King
+of Prussia or Prince Ferdinand.  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 25, 1759
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The two last mails have brought me no letter from you or
+your secretary.  I will take this as a sign that you are better; but,
+however, if you thought that I cared to know, you should have cared to
+have written.  Here the weather has been very fine for a fortnight
+together, a longer term than in this climate we are used to hold fine
+weather by.  I hope it is so, too, at Hamburg, or at least at the villa
+to which you are gone; but pray do not let it be your 'villa viciosa', as
+those retirements are often called, and too often prove; though, by the
+way, the original name was 'villa vezzosa'; and by wags miscalled
+'viciosa'.
+
+I have a most gloomy prospect of affairs in Germany; the French are
+already in possession of Cassel, and of the learned part of Hanover, that
+is Gottingen; where I presume they will not stop 'pour l'amour des belles
+lettres', but rather go on to the capital, and study them upon the coin.
+My old acquaintance, Monsieur Richelieu, made a great progress there in
+metallic learning and inscriptions.  If Prince Ferdinand ventures a
+battle to prevent it, I dread the consequences; the odds are too great
+against him.  The King of Prussia is still in a worse situation; for he
+has the Hydra to encounter; and though he may cut off a head or two,
+there will still be enough left to devour him at last.  I have, as you
+know, long foretold the now approaching catastrophe; but I was Cassandra.
+Our affairs in the new world have a much more pleasing aspect; Guadaloupe
+is a great acquisition, and Quebec, which I make no doubt of, will still
+be greater.  But must all these advantages, purchased at the price of so
+much English blood and treasure, be at last sacrificed as a peace-
+offering?  God knows what consequences such a measure may produce; the
+germ of discontent is already great, upon the bare supposition of the
+case; but should it be realized, it will grow to a harvest of
+disaffection.
+
+You are now, to be sure, taking the previous necessary measures for your
+return here in the autumn and I think you may disband your whole family,
+excepting your secretary, your butler, who takes care of your plate,
+wine, etc., one or at most two, maid servants, and your valet de chambre
+and one footman, whom you will bring over with you.  But give no mortal,
+either there or here, reason to think that you are not to return to
+Hamburg again.  If you are asked about it, say, like Lockhart, that you
+are 'le serviteur des Evenemens'; for your present appointments will do
+you no hurt here, till you have some better destination.  At that season
+of the year, I believe it will be better for you to come by sea than by
+land, but that you will be best able to judge of from the then
+circumstances of your part in the world.
+
+Your old friend Stevens is dead of the consumption that has long been
+undermining him.  God bless you, and send you health.
+
+
+
+[Another two year lapse in the letters.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLVII
+
+BATH, February 26, 1761.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I am very glad to hear that your election is finally
+settled, and to say the truth, not sorry that Mr. ---- has been compelled
+to do, 'de mauvaise grace', that which he might have done at first in a
+friendly and handsome manner.  However, take no notice of what is passed,
+and live with him as you used to do before; for, in the intercourse of
+the world, it is often necessary to seem ignorant of what one knows, and
+to have forgotten what one remembers.
+
+I have just now finished Coleman's play, and like it very well; it is
+well conducted, and the characters are well preserved.  I own, I expected
+from the author more dialogue wit; but, as I know that he is a most
+scrupulous classic, I believe he did not dare to put in half so much wit
+as he could have done, because Terence had not a single grain; and it
+would have been 'crimen laesae antiquitatis'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLVIII
+
+BATH, November 21, 1761.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 19th.  If
+I find any alterations by drinking these waters, now six days, it is
+rather for the better; but, in six days more, I think I shall find with
+more certainty what humor they are in with me; if kind, I will profit of,
+but not abuse their kindness; all things have their bounds, 'quos ultra
+citrave nequit consistere rectum'; and I will endeavor to nick that
+point.
+
+The Queen's jointure is larger than, from SOME REASONS, I expected it
+would be, though not greater than the very last precedent authorized.
+The case of the late Lord Wilmington was, I fancy, remembered.
+
+I have now good reason to believe that Spain will declare war to us, that
+is, that it will very soon, if it has not already, avowedly assist
+France, in case the war continues.  This will be a great triumph to Mr.
+Pitt, and fully justify his plan of beginning with Spain first, and
+having the first blow, which is often half the battle.
+
+Here is a great deal of company, and what is commonly called good
+company, that is, great quality.  I trouble them very little, except at
+the pump, where my business calls me; for what is company to a deaf man,
+or a deaf man to company?
+
+Lady Brown, whom I have seen, and who, by the way, has got the gout in
+her eye, inquired very tenderly after you.  And so I elegantly rest,
+Yours, till death.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXLIX
+
+BATH, December 6, 1761.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I have been in your debt some time, which, you know,
+I am not very apt to be: but it was really for want of specie to pay.
+The present state of my invention does not enable me to coin; and you
+would have had as little pleasure in reading, as I should have in writing
+'le coglionerie' of this place; besides, that I am very little mingled in
+them.  I do not know whether I shall be able to follow, your advice, and
+cut a winner; for, at present, I have neither won nor lost a single
+shilling.  I will play on this week only; and if I have a good run, I
+will carry it off with me; if a bad one, the loss can hardly amount to
+anything considerable in seven days, for I hope to see you in town to-
+morrow sevennight.
+
+I had a dismal letter from Harte, last week; he tells me that he is at
+nurse with a sister in Berkshire; that he has got a confirmed jaundice,
+besides twenty other distempers.  The true cause of these complaints I
+take to be the same that so greatly disordered, and had nearly destroyed
+the most august House of Austria, about one hundred and thirty years ago;
+I mean Gustavus Adolphus; who neither answered his expectations in point
+of profit nor reputation, and that merely by his own fault, in not
+writing it in the vulgar tongue; for as to facts I will maintain that it
+is one of the best histories extant.
+
+'Au revoir', as Sir Fopling says, and God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCL
+
+BATH, November 2, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I arrived here, as I proposed, last Sunday; but as ill
+as I feared I should be when I saw you.  Head, stomach, and limbs, all
+out of order.
+
+I have yet seen nobody but Villettes, who is settled here for good, as it
+is called.  What consequences has the Duke of Devonshire's resignation
+had?  He has considerable connections and relations; but whether any of
+them are resigned enough to resign with him, is another matter.  There
+will be, to be sure, as many, and as absurd reports, as there are in the
+law books; I do not desire to know either; but inform me of what facts
+come to your knowledge, and of such reports only as you believe are
+grounded.  And so God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLI
+
+BATH, November 13, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter, and believe that your
+preliminaries are very near the mark; and, upon that supposition, I think
+we have made a tolerable good bargain with Spain; at least full as good
+as I expected, and almost as good as I wished, though I do not believe
+that we have got ALL Florida; but if we have St. Augustin, I suppose
+that, by the figure of 'pars pro toto', will be called all Florida.  We
+have by no means made so good a bargain with France; for, in truth, what
+do we get by it, except Canada, with a very proper boundary of the river
+Mississippi!  and that is all.  As for the restrictions upon the French
+fishery in Newfoundland, they are very well 'per la predica', and for the
+Commissary whom we shall employ: for he will have a good salary from
+hence, to see that those restrictions are complied with; and the French
+will double that salary, that he may allow them all to be broken through.
+It is plain to me, that the French fishery will be exactly what it was
+before the war.
+
+The three Leeward islands, which the French yield to us, are not, all
+together, worth half so much as that of St. Lucia, which we give up to
+them.  Senegal is not worth one quarter of Goree.  The restrictions of
+the French in the East Indies are as absurd and impracticable as those of
+Newfoundland; and you will live to see the French trade to the East
+Indies, just as they did before the war.  But after all I have said, the
+articles are as good as I expected with France, when I considered that no
+one single person who carried on this negotiation on our parts was ever
+concerned or consulted in any negotiation before.  Upon the whole, then,
+the acquisition of Canada has cost us fourscore millions sterling.  I am
+convinced we might have kept Guadaloupe, if our negotiators had known how
+to have gone about it.
+
+His most faithful Majesty of Portugal is the best off of anybody in this,
+transaction, for he saves his kingdom by it, and has not laid out one
+moidore in defense of it.  Spain, thank God, in some measure, 'paye les
+pots cassis'; for, besides St. Augustin, logwood, etc., it has lost at
+least four millions sterling, in money, ships, etc.
+
+Harte is here, who tells me he has been at this place these three years,
+excepting some few excursions to his sister; he looks ill, and laments
+that he has frequent fits of the yellow jaundice.  He complains of his
+not having heard from you these four years; you should write to him.
+These waters have done me a great deal of good, though I drink but two-
+thirds of a pint in the whole day, which is less than the soberest of my
+countrymen drink of claret at every meal.
+
+I should naturally think, as you do, that this session will be a stormy
+one, that is, if Mr. Pitt takes an active part; but if he is pleased, as
+the Ministers say, there is no other AEolus to blow a storm.  The Dukes
+of Cumberland, Newcastle, and Devonshire, have no better troops to attack
+with than the militia; but Pitt alone is ipse agmen.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLII
+
+BATH, November 27, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, and return you the
+ball 'a la volee'.  The King's speech is a very prudent one; and as I
+suppose that the addresses in answer to it were, as usual, in almost the
+same words, my Lord Mayor might very well call them innocent.  As his
+Majesty expatiates so much upon the great ACHIEVEMENTS of the war, I
+cannot help hoping that, when the preliminaries shall be laid before
+Parliament IN DUE TIME, which, I suppose, means after the respective
+ratifications of all the contracting parties, that some untalked of and
+unexpected advantage will break out in our treaty with France; St. Lucia,
+at least.  I see in the newspapers an article which I by no means like,
+in our treaty with Spain; which is, that we shall be at liberty to cut
+logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, BUT BY PAYING FOR IT.  Who does not see
+that this condition may, and probably will, amount to a prohibition, by
+the price which the Spaniards may set it at?  It was our undoubted right,
+and confirmed to us by former treaties, before the war, to cut logwood
+gratis; but this new stipulation (if true) gives us a privilege something
+like a reprieve to a criminal, with a 'non obstante' to be hanged.
+
+I now drink so little water, that it can neither do me good nor hurt; but
+as I bathe but twice a-week, that operation, which does my rheumatic
+carcass good, will keep me here some time longer than you had allowed.
+
+Harte is going to publish a new edition of his "Gustavus," in octavo;
+which, he tells me, he has altered, and which, I could tell him, he
+should translate into English, or it will not sell better than the
+former; for, while the world endures, style and manner will be regarded,
+at least as much as matter.  And so, 'Diem vous aye dans sa sainte
+garde'!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLIII
+
+BATH, December 13, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, with the inclosed
+preliminaries, which we have had here these three days; and I return
+them, since you intend to keep them, which is more than I believe the
+French will.  I am very glad to find that the French are to restore all
+the conquests they made upon us in the East Indies during this war; and I
+cannot doubt but they will likewise restore to us all the cod that they
+shall take within less than three leagues of our coasts in North America
+(a distance easily measured, especially at sea), according to the spirit,
+though not the letter of the treaty.  I am informed that the strong
+opposition to the peace will be in the House of Lords, though I cannot
+well conceive it; nor can I make out above six or seven, who will be
+against it upon a division, unless (which I cannot suppose) some of the
+Bishops should vote on the side of their maker.  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLIV
+
+BATH, December 13, 1762.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter, which gave me a very
+clear account of the debate in your House.  It is impossible for a human
+creature to speak well for three hours and a half; I question  even if
+Belial, who, according to Milton, was the orator of the fallen angels,
+ever spoke so long at a time.
+
+There must have been, a trick in Charles Townshend's speaking for the
+Preliminaries; for he is infinitely above having an opinion.  Lord
+Egremont must be ill, or have thoughts of going into some other place;
+perhaps into Lord Granville's, who they say is dying: when he dies, the
+ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all.
+
+I shall be in town, barring accidents, this day sevennight, by
+dinnertime; when I have ordered a haricot, to which you will be very
+welcome, about four o'clock.  'En attendant Dieu vous aye dans sa sainte
+garde'!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLV
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 14, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I received, by the last mail, your letter of the 4th,
+from The Hague; so far so good.
+
+You arrived 'sonica' at The Hague, for our Ambassador's entertainment; I
+find he has been very civil to you.  You are in the right to stop for two
+or three days at Hanau, and make your court to the lady of that place.
+--[Her Royal Highness Princess Mary of England, Landgravine of Hesse.]--
+Your Excellency makes a figure already in the newspapers; and let them,
+and others, excellency you as much as they please, but pray suffer not
+your own servants to do it.
+
+Nothing new of any kind has happened here since you went; so I will wish
+you a good-night, and hope God will bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 14, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Ratisbon, where I
+am glad that you are arrived safe.  You are, I find, over head and ears
+engaged in ceremony and etiquette.  You must not yield in anything
+essential, where your public character may suffer; but I advise you, at
+the same time, to distinguish carefully what may, and what may not affect
+it, and to despise some German 'minutiae'; such as one step lower or
+higher upon the stairs, a bow more or less, and such sort of trifles.
+
+By what I see in Cressener's letter to you, the cheapness of wine
+compensates the quantity, as the cheapness of servants compensates the
+number that you must make use of.
+
+Write to your mother often, if it be but three words, to prove your
+existence; for, when she does not hear from you, she knows to a
+demonstration that you are dead, if not buried.
+
+The inclosed is a letter of the utmost consequence, which I was desired
+to forward, with care and speed, to the most Serene LOUIS.
+
+My head is not well to-day.  So God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 1, 1763.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope that by this time you are pretty well settled at
+Ratisbon, at least as to the important points of the ceremonial; so that
+you may know, to precision, to whom you must give, and from whom you must
+require the 'seine Excellentz'.  Those formalities are, no doubt,
+ridiculous enough in themselves; but yet they are necessary for manners,
+and sometimes for business; and both would suffer by laying them quite
+aside.
+
+I have lately had an attack of a new complaint, which I have long
+suspected that I had in my body, 'in actu primo', as the pedants call it,
+but which I never felt in 'actu secundo' till last week, and that is a
+fit of the stone or gravel.  It was, thank God, but a slight one; but it
+was 'dans toutes les formes'; for it was preceded by a pain in my loins,
+which I at first took for some remains of my rheumatism; but was soon
+convinced of my mistake, by making water much blacker than coffee, with a
+prodigious sediment of gravel.  I am now perfectly easy again, and have
+no more indications of this complaint.
+
+God keep you from that and deafness!  Other complaints are the common,
+and almost the inevitable lot of human nature, but admit of some
+mitigation.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 22, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You will, by this post, hear from others that Lord
+Egremont died two days ago of an apoplexy; which, from his figure, and
+the constant plethora he lived in, was reasonably to be expected.  You
+will ask me, who is to be Secretary in his room: To which I answer, that
+I do not know.  I should guess Lord Sandwich, to be succeeded in the
+Admiralty by Charles Townshend; unless the Duke of Bedford, who seems to
+have taken to himself the department of Europe, should have a mind to it.
+This event may perhaps produce others; but, till this happened,
+everything was in a state of inaction, and absolutely nothing was done.
+Before the next session, this chaos must necessarily take some form,
+either by a new jumble of its own atoms, or by mixing them with the more
+efficient ones of the opposition.
+
+I see by the newspapers, as well as by your letter, that the difficulties
+still exist about your ceremonial at Ratisbon; should they, from pride
+and folly, prove insuperable, and obstruct your real business, there is
+one expedient which may perhaps remove difficulties, and which I have
+often known practiced; but which I believe our people know here nothing
+of; it is, to have the character of MINISTER only in your ostensible
+title, and that of envoy extraordinary in your pocket, to produce
+occasionally, especially if you should be sent to any of the Electors in
+your neighborhood; or else, in any transactions that you may have, in
+which your title of envoy extraordinary may create great difficulties, to
+have a reversal given you, declaring that the temporary suspension of
+that character, 'ne donnera pas la moindre atteinte ni a vos droits,
+ni a vos pretensions'.  As for the rest, divert yourself as well as you
+can, and eat and drink as little as you can.  And so God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 1, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Great news!  The King sent for Mr. Pitt last Saturday,
+and the conference lasted a full hour; on the Monday following another
+conference, which lasted much longer; and yesterday a third, longer
+than either.  You take for granted, that the treaty was concluded and
+ratified; no such matter, for this last conference broke it entirely off;
+and Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple went yesterday evening to their respective
+country houses.  Would you know what it broke off upon, you must ask the
+newsmongers, and the coffee-houses; who, I dare say, know it all very
+minutely; but I, who am not apt to know anything that I do not know,
+honestly and humbly confess, that I cannot tell you; probably one party
+asked too much, and the other would grant too little.  However, the
+King's dignity was not, in my mind, much consulted by their making him
+sole plenipotentiary of a treaty, which they were not in all events
+determined to conclude.  It ought surely to have been begun by some
+inferior agent, and his Majesty should only have appeared in rejecting or
+ratifying it.  Louis XIV. never sat down before a town in person, that
+was not sure to be taken.
+
+However, 'ce qui est differe n'est pas perdu'; for this matter must be
+taken up again, and concluded before the meeting of the parliament,
+and probably upon more disadvantageous terms to the present Ministers,
+who have tacitly admitted, by this negotiation, what their enemies have
+loudly proclaimed, that they are not able to carry on affairs.  So much
+'de re politica'.
+
+I have at last done the best office that can be done to most married
+people; that is, I have fixed the separation between my brother and his
+wife; and the definitive treaty of peace will be proclaimed in about a
+fortnight; for the only solid and lasting peace, between a man and his
+wife, is, doubtless, a separation.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 30, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  You will have known, long before this, from the office,
+that the departments are not cast as you wished; for Lord Halifax, as
+senior, had of course his choice, and chose the southern, upon account of
+the colonies.  The Ministry, such as it is, is now settled 'en attendant
+mieux'; but, in, my opinion cannot, as they are, meet the parliament.
+
+The only, and all the efficient people they have, are in the House of
+Lords: for since Mr. Pitt has firmly engaged Charles Townshend to him,
+there is not a man of the court side, in the House of Commons, who has
+either abilities or words enough to call a coach.  Lord B---- is
+certainly playing 'un dessous de cartes', and I suspect that it is with
+Mr. Pitt; but what that 'dessous' is, I do not know, though all the
+coffeehouses do most exactly.
+
+The present inaction, I believe, gives you leisure enough for 'ennui',
+but it gives you time enough too for better things; I mean reading useful
+books; and, what is still more useful, conversing with yourself some part
+of every day.  Lord Shaftesbury recommends self-conversation to all
+authors; and I would recommend it to all men; they would be the better
+for it.  Some people have not time, and fewer have inclination, to enter
+into that conversation; nay, very many dread it, and fly to the most
+trifling dissipations, in order to avoid it; but, if a man would allot
+half an hour every night for this self-conversation, and recapitulate
+with himself whatever he has done, right or wrong, in the course of the
+day, he would be both the better and the wiser for it.  My deafness gives
+me more than a sufficient time for self-conversation; and I have found
+great advantages from it.  My brother and Lady Stanhope are at last
+finally parted.  I was the negotiator between them; and had so much
+trouble in it, that I would much rather negotiate the most difficult
+point of the 'jus publicum Sacri Romani Imperii' with the whole Diet of
+Ratisbon, than negotiate any point with any woman.  If my brother had had
+some of those self-conversations, which I recommend, he would not, I
+believe, at past sixty, with a crazy, battered constitution, and deaf
+into the bargain, have married a young girl, just turned of twenty, full
+of health, and consequently of desires.  But who takes warning by the
+fate of others?  This, perhaps, proceeds from a negligence of
+selfconversation.  God bless you.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXI
+
+BLACKHEATH, October 17, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The last mail brought me your letter of the 2d instant,
+as the former had brought me that of the 25th past.  I did suppose that
+you would be sent over, for the first day of the session; as I never knew
+a stricter muster, and no furloughs allowed.  I am very sorry for it, for
+the reasons you hint at; but, however, you did very prudently, in doing,
+'de bonne grace', what you could not help doing; and let that be your
+rule in every thing for the rest of your life.  Avoid disagreeable things
+as much as by dexterity you can; but when they are unavoidable, do them
+with seeming willingness and alacrity.  Though this journey is ill-timed
+for you in many respects, yet, in point of FINANCES, you will be a gainer
+by it upon the whole; for, depend upon it, they will keep you here till
+the very last day of the session: and I suppose you have sold your
+horses, and dismissed some of your servants.  Though they seem to
+apprehend the first day of the session so much, in my opinion their
+danger will be much greater in the course of it.
+
+When you are at Paris, you will of course wait upon Lord Hertford, and
+desire him to present you to the King; at the same time make my
+compliments to him, and thank him for the very obliging message he left
+at my house in town; and tell him, that, had I received it in time from
+thence, I would have come to town on purpose to have returned it in
+person.  If there are any new little books at Paris, pray bring them me.
+I have already Voltaire's 'Zelis dans le Bain', his 'Droit du Seigneur',
+and 'Olympie'.  Do not forget to call once at Madame Monconseil's, and as
+often as you please at Madame du Pin's.  Au revoir.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXII
+
+BATH, November 24, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I arrived here, as you suppose in your letter, last
+Sunday; but after the worst day's journey I ever had in my life: it
+snowed and froze that whole morning, and in the evening it rained and
+thawed, which made the roads so slippery, that I was six hours coming
+post from the Devizes, which is but eighteen miles from hence; so that,
+but for the name of coming post, I might as well have walked on foot.  I
+have not yet quite got over my last violent attack, and am weak and
+flimsy.
+
+I have now drank the waters but three days; so that, without a miracle,
+I cannot yet expect much alteration, and I do not in the least expect a
+miracle.  If they proved 'les eaux de Jouvence' to me, that would be a
+miracle indeed; but, as the late Pope Lambertini said, 'Fra noi, gli
+miracoli sono passati girt un pezzo'.
+
+I have seen Harte, who inquired much after you: he is dejected and
+dispirited, and thinks himself much worse than he is, though he has
+really a tendency to the jaundice.  I have yet seen nobody else, nor do I
+know who here is to be seen; for I have not yet exhibited myself to
+public view, except at the pump, which, at the time I go to it, is the
+most private place in Bath.
+
+After all the fears and hopes, occasioned severally by the meeting of the
+parliament, in my opinion, it will prove a very easy session.  Mr. Wilkes
+is universally given up; and if the ministers themselves do not wantonly
+raise difficulties, I think they will meet with none.  A majority of two
+hundred is a great anodyne.  Adieu!  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXIII
+
+BATH, December 3, 1763.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Last post brought me your letter of the 29th past.  I
+suppose C----- T----- let off his speech upon the Princess's portion,
+chiefly to show that he was of the opposition; for otherwise, the point
+was not debatable, unless as to the quantum, against which something
+might be said; for the late Princess of Orange (who was the eldest
+daughter of a king) had no more, and her two sisters but half, if I am
+not mistaken.
+
+It is a great mercy that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of our rights
+and liberties, is out of danger, and may live to fight and write again in
+support of them; and it is no less a mercy, that God hath raised up the
+Earl of S------ to vindicate and promote true religion and morality.
+These two blessings will justly make an epoch in the annals of this
+country.
+
+I have delivered your message to Harte, who waits with impatience for
+your letter.  He is very happy now in having free access to all Lord
+Craven's papers, which, he says, give him great lights into the 'bellum
+tricenale'; the old Lord Craven having been the professed and valorous
+knight-errant, and perhaps something more, to the Queen of Bohemia; at
+least, like Sir Peter Pride, he had the honor of spending great part of
+his estate in her royal cause:
+
+I am by no means right yet; I am very weak and flimsy still; but the
+doctor assures me that strength and spirits will return; if they do,
+'lucro apponam', I will make the best of them; if they do not, I will not
+make their want still worse by grieving and regretting them.  I have
+lived long enough, and observed enough, to estimate most things at their
+intrinsic, and not their imaginary value; and, at seventy, I find nothing
+much worth either desiring or fearing.  But these reflections, which suit
+with seventy, would be greatly premature at two-and-thirty.  So make the
+best of your time; enjoy the present hour, but 'memor ultimae'.  God
+bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXIV
+
+BATH, December 18, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter this morning, in which you
+reproach me with not having written to you this week.  The reason was,
+that I did not know what to write.  There is that sameness in my life
+here, that EVERY DAY IS STILL BUT AS THE FIRST.  I see very few people;
+and, in the literal sense of the word, I hear nothing.
+
+Mr. L------ and Mr. C----- I hold to be two very ingenious men; and your
+image of the two men ruined, one by losing his law-suit, and the other by
+carrying it, is a very just one.  To be sure, they felt in themselves
+uncommon talents for business and speaking, which were to reimburse them.
+
+Harte has a great poetical work to publish, before it be long; he has
+shown me some parts of it.  He had entitled it "Emblems," but I persuaded
+him to alter that name for two reasons; the first was, because they were
+not emblems, but fables; the second was, that if they had been emblems,
+Quarles had degraded and vilified that name to such a degree, that it is
+impossible to make use of it after him; so they are to be called fables,
+though moral tales would, in my mind, be the properest name.  If you ask
+me what I think of those I have seen, I must say, that 'sunt plura bona,
+quaedam mediocria, et quaedam----'
+
+Your report of future changes, I cannot think is wholly groundless; for
+it still runs strongly in my head, that the mine we talked of will be
+sprung, at or before the end of the session.
+
+I have got a little more strength, but not quite the strength of
+Hercules; so that I will not undertake, like him, fifty deflorations in
+one night; for I really believe that I could not compass them.  So good-
+night, and God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXV
+
+BATH, December 24, 1763.
+
+DEAR FRIEND: I confess I was a good deal surprised at your pressing me so
+strongly to influence Parson Rosenhagen, when you well know the
+resolution I had made several years ago, and which I have scrupulously
+observed ever since, not to concern myself, directly or indirectly, in
+any party political contest whatsoever.  Let parties go to loggerheads as
+much and as long as they please; I will neither endeavor to part them,
+nor take the part of either; for I know them all too well.  But you say,
+that Lord Sandwich has been remarkably civil, and kind to you.  I am very
+glad of it, and he can by no means impute to you my obstinacy, folly, or
+philosophy, call it what you please: you may with great truth assure him,
+that you did all you could to obey his commands.
+
+I am sorry to find that you are out of order, but I hope it is only a
+cold; should it be anything more, pray consult Dr. Maty, who did you so
+much good in your last illness, when the great medicinal Mattadores did
+you rather harm.  I have found a Monsieur Diafoirus here, Dr. Moisy, who
+has really done me a great deal of good; and I am sure I wanted it a
+great deal when I came here first.  I have recovered some strength, and a
+little more will give me as much as I can make use of.
+
+Lady Brown, whom I saw yesterday, makes you many compliments; and I wish
+you a merry Christmas, and a good-night.  Adieu!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXVI
+
+BATH, December 31, 1763
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Gravenkop wrote me word, by the last post, that you were
+laid up with the gout: but I much question it, that is, whether it is the
+gout or not.  Your last illness, before you went abroad, was pronounced
+the gout, by the skillful, and proved at last a mere rheumatism.  Take
+care that the same mistake is not made this year; and that by giving you
+strong and hot medicines to throw out the gout, they do not inflame the
+rheumatism, if it be one.
+
+Mr. Wilkes has imitated some of the great men of antiquity, by going into
+voluntary exile: it was his only way of defeating both his creditors and
+his prosecutors.  Whatever his friends, if he has any, give out of his
+returning soon, I will answer for it, that it will be a long time before
+that soon comes.
+
+I have been much out of order these four days of a violent cold which I
+do not know how I got, and which obliged me to suspend drinking the
+waters: but it is now so much better, that I propose resuming them for
+this week, and paying my court to you in town on Monday or Tuesday seven-
+night: but this is 'sub spe rati' only.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 20, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I have this moment received your letter of the 3d from
+Prague, but I never received that which you mention from Ratisbon; this
+made me think you in such rapid motion, that I did not know where to take
+aim.  I now suppose that you are arrived, though not yet settled, at
+Dresden; your audiences and formalities are, to be sure, over, and that
+is great ease of mind to you.
+
+I have no political events to acquaint you with; the summer is not the
+season for them, they ripen only in winter; great ones are expected
+immediately before the meeting of parliament, but that, you know, is
+always the language of fears and hopes.  However, I rather believe that
+there will be something patched up between the INS and the OUTS.
+
+The whole subject of conversation, at present, is the death and will of
+Lord Bath: he has left above twelve hundred thousand pounds in land and
+money; four hundred thousand pounds in cash, stocks, and mortgages; his
+own estate, in land, was improved to fifteen thousand pounds a-year, and
+the Bradford estate, which he ----- is as much; both which, at only five-
+and twenty years' purchase, amount to eight hundred thousand pounds; and
+all this he has left to his brother, General Pulteney, and in his own
+disposal, though he never loved him.  The legacies he has left are
+trifling; for, in truth, he cared for nobody: the words GIVE and BEQUEATH
+were too shocking for him to repeat, and so he left all in one word to
+his brother.  The public, which was long the dupe of his simulation and
+dissimulation, begins to explain upon him; and draws such a picture of
+him as I gave you long ago.
+
+Your late secretary has been with me three or four times; he wants
+something or another, and it seems all one to him what, whether civil or
+military; in plain English, he wants bread.  He has knocked at the doors
+of some of the ministers, but to no purpose.  I wish with all my heart
+that I could help him: I told him fairly that I could not, but advised
+him to find some channel to Lord B-----, which, though a Scotchman, he
+told me he could not.  He brought a packet of letters from the office to
+you, which I made him seal up; and keep it for you, as I suppose it makes
+up the series of your Ratisbon letters.
+
+As for me, I am just what I was when you left me, that is, nobody.  Old
+age steals upon me insensibly.  I grow weak and decrepit, but do not
+suffer, and so I am content.
+
+Forbes brought me four books of yours, two of which were Bielefeldt's
+"Letters," in which, to my knowledge, there are many notorious lies.
+
+Make my compliments to Comte Einsiedel, whom I love and honor much; and
+so good-night to 'seine Excellentz'.
+
+Now our correspondence may be more regular, and I expect a letter from
+you every fortnight.  I will be regular on my part: but write oftener to
+your mother, if it be but three lines.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 27,1764
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, two days ago, your letter of the 11th from
+Dresden, where I am very glad that, you are safely arrived at last.  The
+prices of the necessaries of life are monstrous there; and I do not
+conceive how the poor natives subsist at all, after having been so long
+and so often plundered by their own as well as by other sovereigns.
+
+As for procuring you either the title or the appointments of
+Plenipotentiary, I could as soon procure them from the Turkish as from
+the English Ministry; and, in truth, I believe they have it not to give.
+
+Now to come to your civil list, if one may compare small things with
+great: I think I have found out a better refreshment for it than you
+propose; for to-morrow I shall send to your cashier, Mr. Larpent, five
+hundred pounds at once, for your use, which, I presume, is better than by
+quarterly payments; and I am very apt to think that next midsummer day,
+he will have the same sum, and for the same use, consigned to him.
+
+It is reported here, and I believe not without some foundation, that the
+queen of Hungary has acceded to the Family Compact between France and
+Spain: if so, I am sure it behooves us to form in time a counter
+alliance, of at least equal strength; which I could easily point out, but
+which, I fear, is not thought of here.
+
+The rage of marrying is very prevalent; so that there will be probably a
+great crop of cuckolds next winter, who are at present only 'cocus en
+herbs'.  It will contribute to population, and so far must be allowed to
+be a public benefit.  Lord G------, Mr. B-------, and Mr. D-------, are,
+in this respect, very meritorious; for they have all married handsome
+women, without one shilling fortune.  Lord must indeed take some pains to
+arrive at that dignity: but I dare say he will bring it about, by the
+help of some young Scotch or Irish officer.  Good-night, and God bless
+you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 3, 1764.
+
+DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter of the 13th past.  I see that
+your complete arrangement approaches, and you need not be in a hurry to
+give entertainments, since so few others do.
+
+Comte Flemming is the man in the world the best calculated to retrieve
+the Saxon finances, which have been all this century squandered and
+lavished with the most absurd profusion: he has certainly abilities,
+and I believe integrity; I dare answer for him, that the gentleness and
+flexibility of his temper will not prevail with him to yield to the
+importunities of craving and petulant applications.  I see in him another
+Sully; and therefore I wish he were at the head of our finances.
+
+France and Spain both insult us, and we take it too tamely; for this is,
+in my opinion, the time for us to talk high to them.  France, I am
+persuaded, will not quarrel with us till it has got a navy at least equal
+to ours, which cannot be these three or four years at soonest; and then,
+indeed, I believe we shall hear of something or other; therefore, this is
+the moment for us to speak loud; and we shall be feared, if we do not
+show that we fear.
+
+Here is no domestic news of changes and chances in the political world;
+which, like oysters, are only in season in the R months, when the
+parliament sits.  I think there will be some then, but of what kind, God
+knows.
+
+I have received a book for you, and one for myself, from Harte.  It is
+upon agriculture, and will surprise you, as I confess it did me.  This
+work is not only in English, but good and elegant English; he has even
+scattered graces upon his subject; and in prose, has come very near
+Virgil's "Georgics" in verse.  I have written to him, to congratulate his
+happy transformation.  As soon as I can find an opportunity, I will send
+you your copy.  You (though no Agricola) will read it with pleasure.
+
+I know Mackenzie, whom you mention.  'C'est une delie; sed cave'.
+
+Make mine and Lady Chesterfield's compliments to Comte et Comtesse
+Flemming; and so, 'Dieu vous aye en sa sainte garde'!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXX
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 14, 1764
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 30th past, by
+which I find that you had not then got mine, which I sent you the day
+after I had received your former; you have had no great loss of it; for,
+as I told you in my last, this inactive season of the year supplies no
+materials for a letter; the winter may, and probably will, produce an
+abundant crop, but of what grain I neither know, guess, nor care.  I take
+it for granted, that Lord B------ 'surnagera encore', but by the
+assistance of what bladders or cork-waistcoats God only knows.  The death
+of poor Mr. Legge, the epileptic fits of the Duke of Devonshire, for
+which he is gone to Aix-la-Chapelle, and the advanced age of the Duke of
+Newcastle, seem to facilitate an accommodation, if Mr. Pitt and Lord Bute
+are inclined to it.
+
+You ask me what I think of the death of poor Iwan, and of the person who
+ordered it.  You may remember that I often said, she would murder or
+marry him, or probably both; she has chosen the safest alternative; and
+has now completed her character of femme forte, above scruples and
+hesitation.  If Machiavel were alive, she would probably be his heroine,
+as Caesar Borgia was his hero.  Women are all so far Machiavelians, that
+they are never either good or bad by halves; their passions are too
+strong, and their reason too weak, to do anything with moderation.  She
+will, perhaps, meet, before it is long, with some Scythian as free from
+prejudices as herself.  If there is one Oliver Cromwell in the three
+regiments of guards, he will probably, for the sake of his dear country,
+depose and murder her; for that is one and the same thing in Russia.
+
+You seem now to have settled, and 'bien nippe' at Dresden.  Four
+sedentary footmen, and one running one, 'font equipage leste'.  The
+German ones will give you, 'seine Excellentz'; and the French ones, if
+you have any, Monseigneur.
+
+My own health varies, as usual, but never deviates into good.  God bless
+you, and send you better!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXI
+
+BLACKHEATH, October 4, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I have now your last letter, of the 16th past, lying
+before me, and I gave your inclosed to Grevenkop, which has put him into
+a violent bustle to execute your commissions, as well and as cheap as
+possible.  I refer him to his own letter.  He tells you true as to
+Comtesse Cosel's diamonds, which certainly nobody will buy here, unsight
+unseen, as they call it; so many minutiae concurring to increase or
+lessen the value of a diamond.  Your Cheshire cheese, your Burton ale and
+beer, I charge myself with, and they shall be sent you as soon as
+possible.  Upon this occasion I will give you a piece of advice, which by
+experience I know to be useful.  In all commissions, whether from men or
+women, 'point de galanterie', bring them in your account, and be paid to
+the uttermost farthing; but if you would show them 'une galanterie',
+let your present be of something that is not in your commission,
+otherwise you will be the 'Commissionaire banal' of all the women of
+Saxony.  'A propos', Who is your Comtesse de Cosel?  Is she daughter, or
+grand-daughter, of the famous Madame de Cosel, in King Augustus's time?
+Is she young or old, ugly or handsome?
+
+I do not wonder that people are wonderfully surprised at our tameness and
+forbearance, with regard to France and Spain.  Spain, indeed, has lately
+agreed to our cutting log wood, according to the treaty, and sent strict
+orders to their governor to allow it; but you will observe too, that
+there is not one word of reparation for the losses we lately sustained
+there.  But France is not even so tractable; it will pay but half the
+money due, upon a liquidated account, for the maintenance of their
+prisoners.  Our request, to have the Comte d'Estaing recalled and
+censured, they have absolutely rejected, though, by the laws of war, he
+might be hanged for having twice broke his parole.  This does not do
+France honor: however, I think we shall be quiet, and that at the only
+time, perhaps this century, when we might, with safety, be otherwise: but
+this is nothing new, nor the first time, by many, when national honor and
+interest have been sacrificed to private.  It has always been so: and one
+may say, upon this occasion, what Horace says upon another, 'Nam fuit
+ante Helenam'.
+
+I have seen 'les Contes de Guillaume Vade', and like most of them so
+little, that I can hardly think them Voltaire's, but rather the scraps
+that have fallen from his table, and been worked up by inferior workmen,
+under his name.  I have not seen the other book you mention, the
+'Dictionnaire Portatif'.  It is not yet come over.
+
+I shall next week go to take my winter quarters in London, the weather
+here being very cold and damp, and not proper for an old, shattered, and
+cold carcass, like mine.  In November I will go to the Bath, to careen
+myself for the winter, and to shift the scene.  Good-night.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXII
+
+LONDON, October 19, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday morning Mr. ----- came to me, from Lord
+Halifax, to ask me whether I thought you would approve of vacating your
+seat in parliament, during the remainder of it, upon a valuable
+consideration, meaning MONEY.  My answer was, that I really did not know
+your disposition upon that subject: but that I knew you would be very
+willing, in general, to accommodate them, so far as lay in your power:
+that your election, to my knowledge, had cost you two thousand pounds;
+that this parliament had not sat above half its time; and that, for my
+part, I approved of the measure well enough, provided you had an
+equitable equivalent.  I take it for granted that you will have a letter
+from ------, by this post, to that effect, so that you must consider what
+you will do.  What I advise is this: Give them a good deal of 'Galbanum'
+in the first part of your letter.  'Le Galbanum ne coute rien'; and then
+say that you are willing to do as they please; but that you hope an
+equitable consideration will be had to the two thousand pounds, which
+your seat cost you in the present parliament, of which not above half the
+term is expired.  Moreover, that you take the liberty to remind them,
+that your being sent from Ratisbon, last session, when you were just
+settled there, put you to the expense of three or four hundred pounds,
+for which you were allowed nothing; and that, therefore, you hope they
+will not think one thousand pounds too much, considering all these
+circumstances: but that, in all events, you will do whatever they desire.
+Upon the whole, I think this proposal advantageous to you, as you
+probably will not make use of your seat this parliament; and, further, as
+it will secure you from another unpaid journey from Dresden, in case they
+meet, or fear to meet, with difficulties in any ensuing session of the
+present parliament.  Whatever one must do, one should do 'de bonne
+grace'.  'Dixi'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXIII
+
+BATH, November 10, 1764.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I am much concerned at the account you gave me of
+yourself, in your last letter.  There is, to be sure, at such a town as
+Dresden, at least some one very skillful physician, whom I hope you have
+consulted; and I would have you acquaint him with all your several
+attacks of this nature, from your great one at Laubach, to your late one
+at Dresden: tell him, too, that in your last illness in England, the
+physicians mistook your case, and treated it as the gout, till Maty came,
+who treated it as a rheumatism, and cured you.  In my own opinion,
+you have never had the gout, but always the rheumatism; which, to my
+knowledge, is as painful as the gout can possibly be, and should be
+treated in a quite different way; that is, by cooling medicines and
+regimen, instead of those inflammatory cordials which they always
+administer where they suppose the gout, to keep it, as they say, out of
+the stomach.
+
+I have been here now just a week; but have hitherto drank so little of
+the water, that I can neither speak well nor ill of it.  The number of
+people in this place is infinite; but very few whom I know.  Harte seems
+settled here for life.  He is not well, that is certain; but not so ill
+neither as he thinks himself, or at least would be thought.
+
+I long for your answer to my last letter, containing a certain proposal,
+which, by this time, I suppose has been made you, and which, in the main,
+I approve of your accepting.
+
+God bless you, my dear friend!  and send you better health!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXIV
+
+LONDON, February 26, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Your last letter, of the 5th, gave me as much pleasure
+as your former had given me uneasiness; and Larpent's acknowledgment of
+his negligence frees you from those suspicions, which I own I did
+entertain, and which I believe every one would, in the same concurrence
+of circumstances, have entertained.  So much for that.
+
+You may depend upon what I promised you, before midsummer next, at
+farthest, and AT LEAST.
+
+All I can say of the affair between you, of the Corps Diplomatique, and
+the Saxon Ministers, is, 'que voila bien du bruit pour une omelette au
+lard'.  It will most certainly be soon made up; and in that negotiation
+show yourself as moderate and healing as your instructions from hence
+will allow, especially to Comte de Flemming.  The King of Prussia, I
+believe, has a mind to insult him personally, as an old enemy, or else to
+quarrel with Saxony, that dares not quarrel with him; but some of the
+Corps Diplomatique here assure me it is only a pretense to recall his
+envoy, and to send, when matters shall be made up, a little secretary
+there, 'a moins de fraix', as he does now to Paris and London.
+
+Comte Bruhl is much in fashion here; I like him mightily; he has very
+much 'le ton de la bonne campagnie'.  Poor Schrader died last Saturday,
+without the least pain or sickness.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXV
+
+LONDON, April 22, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  The day before yesterday I received your letter of the
+3d instant.  I find that your important affair of the ceremonial is
+adjusted at last, as I foresaw it would be.  Such minutiae are often laid
+hold on as a pretense, for powers who have a mind to quarrel; but are
+never tenaciously insisted upon where there is neither interest nor
+inclination to break.  Comte Flemming, though a hot, is a wise man; and I
+was sure would not break, both with England and Hanover, upon so trifling
+a point, especially during a minority.  'A propos' of a minority; the
+King is to come to the House to-morrow, to recommend a bill to settle a
+Regency, in case of his demise while his successor is a minor.  Upon the
+King's late illness, which was no trifling one, the whole nation cried
+out aloud for such a bill, for reasons which will readily occur to you,
+who know situations, persons, and characters here.  I do not know the
+particulars of this intended bill; but I wish it may be copied exactly
+from that which was passed in the late King's time, when the present King
+was a minor.  I am sure there cannot be a better.
+
+You inquire about Monsieur de Guerchy's affair; and I will give you as
+succinct an account as I can of so extraordinary and perplexed a
+transaction: but without giving you my own opinion of it by the common
+post.  You know what passed at first between Mr. de Guerchy and Monsieur
+d'Eon, in which both our Ministers and Monsieur de Guerchy, from utter
+inexperience in business, puzzled themselves into disagreeable
+difficulties.  About three or four months ago, Monsieur du Vergy
+published in a brochure, a parcel of letters, from himself to the Duc de
+Choiseul; in which he positively asserts that Monsieur de Guerchy
+prevailed with him (Vergy) to come over into England to assassinate
+d'Eon; the words are, as well as I remember, 'que ce n'etoit pas pour se
+servir de sa plume, mais de son epee, qu'on le demandoit en Angleterre'.
+This accusation of assassination, you may imagine, shocked Monsieur de
+Guerchy, who complained bitterly to our Ministers; and they both puzzled
+on for some time, without doing anything, because they did not know what
+to do.  At last du Vergy, about two months ago, applied himself to the
+Grand Jury of Middlesex, and made oath that Mr. de Guerchy had hired him
+(du Vergy) to assassinate d'Eon.  Upon this deposition, the Grand jury
+found a bill of intended murder against Monsieur de Guerchy; which bill,
+however, never came to the Petty Jury.  The King granted a 'noli
+prosequi' in favor of Monsieur de Guerchy; and the Attorney-General is
+actually prosecuting du Vergy.  Whether the King can grant a 'noli
+prosequi' in a criminal case, and whether 'le droit des gens' extends to
+criminal cases, are two points which employ our domestic politicians, and
+the whole Corps Diplomatique.  'Enfin', to use a very coarse and vulgar
+saying, 'il y a de la merde au bout du baton, quelque part'.
+
+I see and hear these storms from shore, 'suave mari magno', etc.  I enjoy
+my own security and tranquillity, together with better health than I had
+reason to expect at my age, and with my constitution: however, I feel a
+gradual decay, though a gentle one; and I think that I shall not tumble,
+but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life.  When that will be,
+I neither know nor care, for I am very weary.  God bless you!
+
+Mallet died two days ago, of a diarrhoea, which he had carried with him
+to France, and brought back again hither.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 2, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 22d past;
+and I delayed answering your former in daily, or rather hourly
+expectation of informing you of the birth of a new Ministry; but in vain;
+for, after a thousand conferences, all things remain still in the state
+which I described to you in my last.  Lord S.  has, I believe, given you
+a pretty true account of the present state of things; but my Lord is much
+mistaken, I am persuaded, when he says that THE KING HAS THOUGHT PROPER
+TO RE-ESTABLISH HIS OLD SERVANTS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF HIS AFFAIRS; for
+he
+shows them all the public dislike possible; and, at his levee, hardly
+speaks to any of them; but speaks by the hour to anybody else.
+Conferences, in the meantime, go on, of which it is easy to guess the
+main subject, but impossible, for me at least, to know the particulars;
+but this I will venture to prophesy, that the whole will soon centre in
+Mr. Pitt.
+
+You seem not to know the character of the Queen: here it is.  She is a
+good woman, a good wife, a tender mother; and an unmeddling Queen.  The
+King loves her as a woman; but, I verily believe, has never yet spoke one
+word to her about business.  I have now told you all that I know of these
+affairs; which, I believe, is as much as anybody else knows, who is not
+in the secret.  In the meantime, you easily guess that surmises,
+conjectures, and reports are infinite; and if, as they say, truth is but
+one, one million at least of these reports must be false; for they differ
+exceedingly.
+
+You have lost an honest servant by the death of poor Louis; I would
+advise you to take a clever young Saxon in his room, of whose character
+you may get authentic testimonies, instead of sending for one to France,
+whose character you can only know from far.
+
+When I hear more, I will write more; till when, God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 15, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I told you in my last, that you should hear from me
+again, as soon as I had anything more to write; and now I have too much
+to write, therefore will refer you to the "Gazette," and the office
+letters, for all that has been done; and advise you to suspend your
+opinion, as I do, about all that is to be done.  Many more changes are
+talked of, but so idly, and variously, that I give credit to none of
+them.  There has been pretty clean sweeping already; and I do not
+remember, in my time, to have seen so much at once, as an entire new
+Board of Treasury, and two new Secretaries of State, 'cum multis aliis',
+etc.
+
+Here is a new political arch almost built, but of materials of so
+different a nature, and without a key-stone, that it does not, in my
+opinion, indicate either strength or duration.  It will certainly require
+repairs, and a key-stone next winter; and that key-stone will, and must
+necessarily be, Mr. Pitt.  It is true he might have been that keystone
+now; and would have accepted it, but not without Lord Temple's consent,
+and Lord Temple positively refused.  There was evidently some trick in
+this, but what is past my conjecturing.  'Davus sum, non OEdipus'.
+
+There is a manifest interregnum in the Treasury; for I do suppose that
+Lord Rockingham and Mr. Dowdeswell will not think proper to be very
+active.  General Conway, who is your Secretary, has certainly parts at
+least equal to his business, to which, I dare say, he will apply.  The
+same may be said, I believe, of the Duke of Grafton; and indeed there is
+no magic requisite for the executive part of those employments.  The
+ministerial part is another thing; they must scramble with their fellow-
+servants, for power and favor, as well as they can.  Foreign affairs are
+not so much as mentioned, and, I verily believe, not thought of.  But
+surely some counterbalance would be necessary to the Family compact; and,
+if not soon contracted, will be too late.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 17, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are now two letters in my debt; and I fear the gout
+has been the cause of your contracting that debt.  When you are not able
+to write yourself, let your Secretary send me two or three lines to
+acquaint me how you are.
+
+You have now seen by the London "Gazette," what changes have really been
+made at court; but, at the same time, I believe you have seen that there
+must be more, before a Ministry can be settled; what those will be, God
+knows.  Were I to conjecture, I should say that the whole will centre,
+before it is long, in Mr. Pitt and Co., the present being an
+heterogeneous jumble of youth and caducity, which cannot be efficient.
+
+Charles Townshend calls the present a Lutestring Ministry; fit only for
+the summer.  The next session will be not only a warm, but a violent one,
+as you will easily judge; if you look over the names of the INS and of
+the OUTS.
+
+I feel this beginning of the autumn, which is already very cold: the
+leaves are withered, fall apace, and seem to intimate that I must follow
+them; which I shall do without reluctance, being extremely weary of this
+silly world.  God bless you, both in it and after it!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 25, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received but four days ago your letter of the 2d
+instant.  I find by it that you are well, for you are in good spirits.
+Your notion of the new birth or regeneration of the Ministry is a very
+just one; and that they have not yet the true seal of the covenant is,
+I dare say, very true; at least it is not in the possession of either of
+the Secretaries of State, who have only the King's seal; nor do I believe
+(whatever his Grace may imagine) that it is even in the possession of the
+Lord Privy Seal.  I own I am lost, in considering the present situation
+of affairs; different conjectures present themselves to my mind, but none
+that it can rest upon.  The next session must necessarily clear up
+matters a good deal; for I believe it will be the warmest and most
+acrimonious one that has been known, since that of the Excise.  The late
+Ministry, THE PRESENT OPPOSITION, are determined to attack Lord B-----
+publicly in parliament, and reduce the late Opposition, THE PRESENT
+MINISTRY, to protect him publicly, in consequence of their supposed
+treaty with him.  'En attendant mieux', the paper war is carried on with
+much fury and scurrility on all sides, to the great entertainment of such
+lazy and impartial people as myself: I do not know whether you have the
+"Daily Advertiser," and the "Public Advertiser," in which all political
+letters are inserted, and some very well-written ones on both sides; but
+I know that they amuse me, 'tant bien que mal', for an hour or two every
+morning.  Lord T------ is the supposed author of the pamphlet you
+mention; but I think it is above him.  Perhaps his brother C---- T------,
+who is by no means satisfied with the present arrangement, may have
+assisted him privately.  As to this latter, there was a good ridiculous
+paragraph in the newspapers two or three days ago.  WE HEAR THAT THE
+RIGHT HONORABLE MR. C-----T------ IS INDISPOSED AT HIS HOUSE IN
+OXFORDSHIRE, OF A PAIN IN HIS SIDE; BUT IT IS NOT SAID IN WHICH SIDE.
+
+I do not find that the Duke of York has yet visited you; if he should, it
+may be expensive, 'mais on trouvera moyen'.  As for the lady, if you
+should be very sharp set for some English flesh, she has it amply in her
+power to supply you if she pleases.  Pray tell me in your next, what you
+think of, and how you like, Prince Henry of Prussia.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXX
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Your great character of Prince Henry, which I take to be
+a very just one, lowers the King of Prussia's a great deal; and probably
+that is the cause of their being so ill together.  But the King of
+Prussia, with his good parts, should reflect upon that trite and true
+maxim, 'Qui invidet minor', or Mr. de la Rouchefoucault's, 'Que l'envie
+est la plus basse de toutes les passions, puisqu'on avoue bien des
+crimes, mais que personae n'avoue l'envie'.  I thank God, I never was
+sensible of that dark and vile passion, except that formerly I have
+sometimes envied a successful rival with a fine woman.  But now that
+cause is ceased, and consequently the effects.
+
+What shall I, or rather what can I tell you of the political world here?
+The late Ministers accuse the present with having done nothing, the
+present accuse the late ones with having done much worse than nothing.
+Their writers abuse one another most scurrilously, but sometimes with
+wit.  I look upon this to be 'peloter en attendant partie', till battle
+begins in St., Stephen's Chapel.  How that will end, I protest I cannot
+conjecture; any farther than this, that if Mr. Pitt does not come into
+the assistance of the present ministers, they will have much to do to
+stand their ground.  C----- T------ will play booty; and who else have
+they?  Nobody but C-----, who has only good sense, but not the necessary
+talents nor experience, 'AEre ciere viros martemque accendere cantu'.
+I never remember, in all my time, to have seen so problematical a state
+of affairs, and a man would be much puzzled which side to bet on.
+
+Your guest, Miss C----- , is another problem which I cannot solve.  She
+no more wanted the waters of Carlsbadt than you did.  Is it to show the
+Duke of Kingston that he cannot live without her? a dangerous experiment!
+which may possibly convince him that he can.  There is a trick no doubt
+in it; but what, I neither know nor care; you did very well to show her
+civilities, 'cela ne gute jamais rien'.  I will go to my waters, that is,
+the Bath waters, in three weeks or a month, more for the sake of bathing
+than of drinking.  The hot bath always promotes my perspiration, which is
+sluggish, and supples my stiff rheumatic limbs.  'D'ailleurs', I am at
+present as well, and better than I could reasonably expect to be, 'annu
+septuagesimo primo'.  May you be so as long, 'y mas'!  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXI
+
+LONDON, October 25, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received your letter of the 10th 'sonica'; for I set
+out for Bath to-morrow morning.
+
+If the use of those waters does me no good, the shifting the scene for
+some time will at least amuse me a little; and at my age, and with my
+infirmities, 'il faut faire de tout bois feche'.  Some variety is as
+necessary for the mind as some medicines are for the body.
+
+Here is a total stagnation of politics, which, I suppose, will continue
+till the parliament sits to do business, and that will not be till about
+the middle of January; for the meeting on the 17th December is only for
+the sake of some new writs.  The late ministers threaten the present
+ones; but the latter do not seem in the least afraid of the former, and
+for a very good reason, which is, that they have the distribution of the
+loaves and fishes.  I believe it is very certain that Mr. Pitt will never
+come into this, or any other administration: he is absolutely a cripple
+all the year, and in violent pain at least half of it.  Such physical
+ills are great checks to two of the strongest passions to which human
+nature is liable, love and ambition.  Though I cannot persuade myself
+that the present ministry can be long lived, I can as little imagine who
+or what can succeed them, 'telle est la-disette de sujets papables'.
+The Duke of swears that he will have Lord personally attacked in both
+Houses; but I do not see how, without endangering himself at the same
+time.
+
+Miss C------ is safely arrived here, and her Duke is fonder of her than
+ever.  It was a dangerous experiment that she tried, in leaving him so
+long; but it seems she knew her man.
+
+I pity you for the inundation of your good countrymen, which overwhelms
+you; 'je sais ce qu'en vaut l'aune.  It is, besides, expensive, but, as I
+look upon the expense to be the least evil of the two, I will see if a
+New-Year's gift will not make it up.
+
+As I am now upon the wing, I will only add, God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXII
+
+BATH, November 28, 1765
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 10th.
+I have now been here a month, bathing and drinking the waters, for
+complaints much of the same kind as yours, I mean pains in my legs, hips,
+and arms: whether gouty or rheumatic, God knows; but, I believe, both,
+that fight without a decision in favor of either, and have absolutely
+reduced me to the miserable situation of the Sphinx's riddle, to walk
+upon three legs; that is, with the assistance of my stick, to walk, or
+rather hobble, very indifferently.  I wish it were a declared gout, which
+is the distemper of a gentleman; whereas the rheumatism is the distemper
+of a hackney-coachman or chairman, who is obliged to be out in all
+weathers and at all hours.
+
+I think you will do very right to ask leave, and I dare say you will
+easily get it, to go to the baths in Suabia; that is, supposing that you
+have consulted some skillful physician, if such a one there be, either at
+Dresden or at Leipsic, about the nature of your distemper, and the nature
+of those baths; but, 'suos quisque patimur manes'.  We have but a bad
+bargain, God knows, of this life, and patience is the only way not to
+make bad worse.  Mr. Pitt keeps his bed here, with a very real gout, and
+not a political one, as is often suspected.
+
+Here has been a congress of most of the 'ex Ministres'.  If they have
+raised a battery, as I suppose they have, it is a masked one, for nothing
+has transpired; only they confess that they intend a most vigorous
+attack.  'D'ailleurs', there seems to be a total suspension of all
+business, till the meeting of the parliament, and then 'Signa canant'.
+I am very glad that at this time you are out of it: and for reasons that
+I need not mention: you would certainly have been sent for over, and, as
+before, not paid for your journey.
+
+Poor Harte is very ill, and condemned to the Hot well at Bristol.  He is
+a better poet than philosopher: for all this illness and melancholy
+proceeds originally from the ill success of his "Gustavus Adolphus."
+He is grown extremely devout, which I am very glad of, because that is
+always a comfort to the afflicted.
+
+I cannot present Mr. Larpent with my New-Year's gift, till I come to
+town, which will be before Christmas at farthest; till when, God bless
+you!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXIII
+
+LONDON, December 27, 1765.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I arrived here from Bath last Monday, rather, but not
+much better, than when I went over there.  My rheumatic pains, in my legs
+and hips, plague me still, and I must never expect to be quite free from
+them.
+
+You have, to be sure, had from the office an account of what the
+parliament did, or rather did not do, the day of their meeting; and the
+same point will be the great object at their next meeting; I mean the
+affair of our American Colonies, relatively to the late imposed Stamp-
+duty, which our Colonists absolutely refuse to pay.  The Administration
+are for some indulgence and forbearance to those froward children of
+their mother country; the Opposition are for taking vigorous, as they
+call them, but I call them violent measures; not less than 'les
+dragonnades'; and to have the tax collected by the troops we have there.
+For my part, I never saw a froward child mended by whipping; and I would
+not have the mother country become a stepmother.  Our trade to America
+brings in, 'communibus annis', two millions a year; and the Stamp-duty is
+estimated at but one hundred thousand pounds a year; which I would by no
+means bring into the stock of the Exchequer, at the loss or even the risk
+of a million a year to the national stock.
+
+I do not tell you of the Garter given away yesterday, because the
+newspapers will; but, I must observe, that the Prince of Brunswick's
+riband is a mark of great distinction to that family; which I believe, is
+the first (except our own Royal Family) that has ever had two blue
+ribands at a time; but it must be owned they deserve them.
+
+One hears of nothing now in town, but the separation of men and their
+wives.  Will Finch, the Ex-vice Chamberlain, Lord Warwick, and your
+friend Lord Bolingbroke.  I wonder at none of them for parting; but I
+wonder at many for still living together; for in this country it is
+certain that marriage is not well understood.
+
+I have this day sent Mr. Larpent two hundred pounds for your Christmas-
+box, of which I suppose he will inform you by this post.  Make this
+Christmas as merry a one as you can; for 'pour le peu du bon tems qui
+nous reste, rien nest si funeste, qu'un noir chagrin'.  For the new years
+--God send you many, and happy ones!  Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Always made the best of the best, and never made bad worse
+American Colonies
+Be neither transported nor depressed by the accidents of life
+Doing, 'de bonne grace', what you could not help doing
+EVERY DAY IS STILL BUT AS THE FIRST
+Everything has a better and a worse side
+Extremely weary of this silly world
+Gainer by your misfortune
+I, who am not apt to know anything that I do not know
+If I cared to know, you should have cared to have written
+Intrinsic, and not their imaginary value
+My own health varies, as usual, but never deviates into good
+National honor and interest have been sacrificed to private
+Neither abilities or words enough to call a coach
+Neither know nor care, (when I die)  for I am very weary
+Never saw a froward child mended by whipping
+Never to trust implicitly to the informations of others
+Not make their want still worse by grieving and regretting them
+Not tumble, but slide gently to the bottom of the hill of life
+Nothing much worth either desiring or fearing
+Often necessary to seem ignorant of what one knows
+Only solid and lasting peace, between a man and his wife
+Oysters, are only in season in the R months
+Patience is the only way not to make bad worse
+Recommends self-conversation to all authors
+Return you the ball 'a la volee'
+Settled here for good, as it is called
+Stamp-duty, which our Colonists absolutely refuse to pay
+Thinks himself much worse than he is
+To seem to have forgotten what one remembers
+We shall be feared, if we do not show that we fear
+Whatever one must do, one should do 'de bonne grace'
+Who takes warning by the fate of others?
+Women are all so far Machiavelians
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1759-65
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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