_Reply to an old friend_
Clapham, 7 _Aug._ 1700.
I have no herds to mind, nor will my Doctor allow me any books here.
What then, will you say, too, are you doing? Why, truly, nothing that
will bear naming, and yet I am not, I think, idle; for who can, that
has so much of past and to come to think on, as I have? And thinking,
I take it, is working, though many forms beneath what my Lady and you
are doing. But pray remember what o'clock it is with you and me; and
be not now, by overstirring, too bold with your present complaint, any
more than I dare be with mine, which, too, has been no less kind in
giving me my warning, than the other to you, and to neither of us,
I hope, and, through God's mercy, dare say, either unlooked for or
unwelcome. I wish, nevertheless, that I were able to administer any
thing towards the lengthening that precious rest of life which God has
thus long blessed you, and, in you, mankind, with; but I have always
been too little regardful of my own health, to be a prescriber to
others. I cannot give myself the scope I otherwise should in talking
now to you at this distance, on account of the care extraordinary I am
now under from Mrs. Skinner's being suddenly fallen very ill; but ere
long I may possibly venture at entertaining you with something from
my young man in exchange--I don't say in payment, for the pleasure you
gratify me with from yours, whom I pray God to bless with continuing
but what he is! and I'll ask no more for him.