I think the letters which I send to you single lose themselves by the way
for want of a guide, or faint for want of company. Now, that on your part
there be no excuse, after three single letters, I send three together,
that every one of them may have two witnesses of their delivery. They come
also to waite upon another letter from S{r} _E. Herbert_, of whose
recovery from a Fever, you may apprehend a perfecter contentment then we,
because you had none of the former sorrow. I am an Heretique if it be
sound Doctrine, that pleasure tasts best after sorrow. For my part, I can
love health well enough, though I be never sick; and I never needed my
Mistris frowns and disfavours, to make her favours acceptable to me. In
States, it is a weakness to stand upon a defensive war, and safer not to
be invaded, then to have overcome: so in our souls health, an innocence is
better then the heartiest repentance. And in the pleasures of this life,
it is better that the variety of the pleasures give us the taste and
appetite to it, then a sowre and sad interruption quicken our stomack; for
then we live by Physick. I wish therefore all your happinesses such as
this intire, and without flaw, or spot of discontentment; and such is the
love and service of
_Your humblest and affectionatest
servant_ J. D.
_Strand S._ Peters
_day at 4_.
[iii.]
_To the same._