MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, with great pleasure, your letter of the 22d
August; for, by not having a line from you in your secretary’s two
letters, I suspect that you were worse than he cared to tell me; and so
far I was in the right, that your fever was more malignant than
intermitting ones generally are, which seldom confines people to their
bed, or at most, only the days of the paroxysms. Now that, thank God, you
are well again, though weak, do not be in too much haste to be better and
stronger: leave that to nature, which, at your age, will restore both
your health and strength as soon as she should. Live cool for a time, and
rather low, instead of taking what they call heartening things: Your
manner of making presents is noble, ‘et sent la grandeur d’ame d’un preux
Chevalier’. You depreciate their value to prevent any returns; for it is
impossible that a wine which has counted so many Syndicks, that can only
be delivered by a ‘senatus consultum’, and is the PANACEA Of the North,
should be sold for a ducat a bottle. The ‘sylphium’ of the Romans, which
was stored up in the public magazines, and only distributed by order of
the magistrate, I dare say, cost more; so that I am convinced, your
present is much more valuable than you would make it.
Here I am interrupted, by receiving your letter of the 25th past. I am
glad that you are able to undertake your journey to Bremen: the motion,
the air, the new scene, the everything, will do you good, provided you
manage yourself discreetly.
Your bill for fifty pounds shall certainly be accepted and paid; but, as
in conscience I think fifty pounds is too little, for seeing a live
Landgrave, and especially at Bremen, which this whole nation knows to be
a very dear place, I shall, with your leave, add fifty more to it. By the
way, when you see the Princess Royal of Cassel, be sure to tell her how
sensible you are of the favorable and too partial testimony, which you
know she wrote of you to Princess Amelia.
The King of Prussia has had the victory, which you in some measure
foretold; and as he has taken ‘la caisse militaire’, I presume ‘Messieurs
les Russes sont hors de combat pour cette campagne’; for ‘point d’argent,
point de Suisse’, is not truer of the laudable Helvetic body, than ‘point
d’argent, point de Russe’, is of the savages of the Two Russias, not even
excepting the Autocratrice of them both. Serbelloni, I believe, stands
next in his Prussian Majesty’s list to be beaten; that is, if he will
stand; as the Prince de Soubize does in Prince Ferdinand’s, upon the same
condition. If both these things happen, which is by no means improbable,
we may hope for a tolerable peace this winter; for, ‘au bout du compte’,
the King of Prussia cannot hold out another year; and therefore he should
make the best of these favorable events, by way negotiation.
I think I have written a great deal, with an actual giddiness of head
upon me. So adieu.