LONDON, October 29, 7766.
MY DEAR FRIEND: The last mail brought me your letter of the 17th. I am
glad to hear that your breast is so much better. You will find both
asses’ and mares’ milk enough in the south of France, where it was much
drank when I was there. Guy Patin recommends to a patient to have no
doctor but a horse, and no apothecary but an ass. As for your pains and
weakness in your limbs, ‘je vous en offre autant’; I have never been free
from them since my last rheumatism. I use my legs as much as I can, and
you should do so too, for disuse makes them worse. I cannot now use them
long at a time, because of the weakness of old age; but I contrive to
get, by different snatches, at least two hours’ walking every day, either
in my garden or within doors, as the weather permits. I set out to-morrow
for Bath, in hopes of half repairs, for Medea’s kettle could not give me
whole ones; the timbers of my wretched vessel are too much decayed to be
fitted out again for use. I shall see poor Harte there, who, I am told,
is in a miserable way, between some real and some imaginary distempers.
I send you no political news, for one reason, among others, which is that
I know none. Great expectations are raised of this session, which meets
the 11th of next month; but of what kind nobody knows, and consequently
everybody conjectures variously. Lord Chatham comes to town to-morrow
from Bath, where he has been to refit himself for the winter campaign; he
has hitherto but an indifferent set of aides-decamp; and where he will
find better, I do not know. Charles Townshend and he are already upon ill
terms. ‘Enfin je n’y vois goutte’; and so God bless you!