'The kind attention which you have so long shewn to my health and
happiness, makes it as much a debt of gratitude as a call of interest,
to give you an account of what befals me, when accident recovers[1092]
me from your immediate care. The journey of the first day was performed
with very little sense of fatigue; the second day brought me to
Lichfield, without much lassitude; but I am afraid that I could not have
borne such violent agitation for many days together. Tell Dr. Heberden,
that in the coach I read _Ciceronianus_ which I concluded as I entered
Lichfield. My affection and understanding went along with Erasmus,
except that once or twice he somewhat unskilfully entangles Cicero's
civil or moral, with his rhetorical, character. I staid five days at
Lichfield, but, being unable to walk, had no great pleasure, and
yesterday (19th) I came hither, where I am to try what air and attention
can perform. Of any improvement in my health I cannot yet please myself
with the perception.--The asthma has no abatement. Opiates stop the fit,
so as that I can sit and sometimes lie easy, but they do not now procure
me the power of motion; and I am afraid that my general strength of body
does not encrease. The weather indeed is not benign; but how low is he
sunk whose strength depends upon the weather[1093]! I am now looking
into Floyer[1094] who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth
year. His book by want of order is obscure, and his asthma, I think, not
of the same kind with mine. Something however I may perhaps learn. My
appetite still continues keen enough; and what I consider as a symptom
of radical health, I have a voracious delight in raw summer fruit, of
which I was less eager a few years ago[1095]. You will be pleased to
communicate this account to Dr. Heberden, and if any thing is to be
done, let me have your joint opinion. Now--_abite curoe_;--let me
enquire after the Club[1096].'
July 31. 'Not recollecting that Dr. Heberden might be at Windsor, I
thought your letter long in coming. But, you know, _nocitura
petuntur_[1097], the letter which I so much desired, tells me that I
have lost one of my best and tenderest friends[1098]. My comfort is,
that he appeared to live like a man that had always before his eyes the
fragility of our present existence, and was therefore, I hope, not
unprepared to meet his judge. Your attention, dear Sir, and that of Dr.
Heberden, to my health, is extremely kind. I am loth to think that I
grow worse; and cannot fairly prove even to my own partiality, that I
grow much better.'
August 5. 'I return you thanks, dear Sir, for your unwearied attention,
both medicinal and friendly, and hope to prove the effect of your care
by living to acknowledge it.'
August 12[1099]. 'Pray be so kind as to have me in your thoughts, and
mention my case to others as you have opportunity. I seem to myself
neither to gain nor lose strength. I have lately tried milk, but have
yet found no advantage, and am afraid of it merely as a liquid. My
appetite is still good, which I know is dear Dr. Heberden's criterion of
the _vis vitoe_. As we cannot now see each other, do not omit to write,
for you cannot think with what warmth of expectation I reckon the hours
of a post-day.'
August 14. 'I have hitherto sent you only melancholy letters, you will
be glad to hear some better account. Yesterday the asthma remitted,
perceptibly remitted, and I moved with more ease than I have enjoyed for
many weeks. May GOD continue his mercy. This account I would not delay,
because I am not a lover of complaints, or complainers, and yet I have
since we parted uttered nothing till now but terrour and sorrow. Write
to me, dear Sir.'
August 16. 'Better I hope, and better. My respiration gets more and more
ease and liberty. I went to church yesterday, after a very liberal
dinner, without any inconvenience; it is indeed no long walk, but I
never walked it without difficulty, since I came, before.--the intention
was only to overpower the seeming _vis inertioe_ of the pectoral and
pulmonary muscles. I am favoured with a degree of ease that very much
delights me, and do not despair of another race upon the stairs of the
Academy[1100]. If I were, however, of a humour to see, or to shew the
state of my body, on the dark side, I might say,
_"Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una[1101]?"_
The nights are still sleepless, and the water rises, though it does not
rise very fast. Let us, however, rejoice in all the good that we have.
The remission of one disease will enable nature to combat the rest. The
squills I have not neglected; for I have taken more than a hundred drops
a day, and one day took two hundred and fifty, which, according to the
popular equivalence of a drop to a grain, is more than half an ounce. I
thank you, dear Sir, for your attention in ordering the medicines; your
attention to me has never failed. If the virtue of medicines could be
enforced by the benevolence of the prescriber, how soon should I
be well.'
August 19. 'The relaxation of the asthma still continues, yet I do not
trust it wholly to itself, but soothe it now and then with an opiate. I
not only perform the perpetual act of respiration with less labour, but
I can walk with fewer intervals of rest, and with greater freedom of
motion. I never thought well of Dr. James's compounded medicines[1102];
his ingredients appeared to me sometimes inefficacious and trifling, and
sometimes heterogeneous and destructive of each other. This prescription
exhibits a composition of about three hundred and thirty grains, in
which there are four grains of emetick tartar, and six drops [of]
thebaick tincture. He that writes thus, surely writes for show. The
basis of his medicine is the gum ammoniacum, which dear Dr. Lawrence
used to give, but of which I never saw any effect. We will, if you
please, let this medicine alone. The squills have every suffrage, and in
the squills we will rest for the present.'
August 21. 'The kindness which you shew by having me in your thoughts
upon all occasions, will, I hope, always fill my heart with gratitude.
Be pleased to return my thanks to Sir George Baker[1103], for the
consideration which he has bestowed upon me. Is this the balloon that
has been so long expected, this balloon to which I subscribed, but
without payment[1104]? It is pity that philosophers have been
disappointed, and shame that they have been cheated; but I know not well
how to prevent either. Of this experiment I have read nothing; where was
it exhibited? and who was the man that ran away with so much money?
Continue, dear Sir, to write often and more at a time; for none of your
prescriptions operate to their proper uses more certainly than your
letters operate as cordials.'
August 26. 'I suffered you to escape last post without a letter, but you
are not to expect such indulgence very often; for I write not so much
because I have any thing to say, as because I hope for an answer; and
the vacancy of my life here makes a letter of great value. I have here
little company and little amusement, and thus abandoned to the
contemplation of my own miseries, I am sometimes gloomy and depressed;
this too I resist as I can, and find opium, I think, useful, but I
seldom take more than one grain. Is not this strange weather? Winter
absorbed the spring, and now autumn is come before we have had summer.
But let not our kindness for each other imitate the inconstancy of
the seasons.'
Sept. 2. 'Mr. Windham has been here to see me; he came, I think, forty
miles out of his way, and staid about a day and a half, perhaps I make
the time shorter than it was. Such conversation I shall not have again
till I come back to the regions of literature; and there Windham is,
_inter stellas_[1105] _Luna minores_[1106].' He then mentions the
effects of certain medicines, as taken; that 'Nature is recovering its
original powers, and the functions returning to their proper state. God
continue his mercies, and grant me to use them rightly.'
Sept. 9. 'Do you know the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? And have you
ever seen Chatsworth? I was at Chatsworth on Monday: I had indeed seen
it before[1107], but never when its owners were at home; I was very
kindly received, and honestly pressed to stay: but I told them that a
sick man is not a fit inmate of a great house. But I hope to go again
some time.'
Sept. 11. 'I think nothing grows worse, but all rather better, except
sleep, and that of late has been at its old pranks. Last evening, I felt
what I had not known for a long time, an inclination to walk for
amusement; I took a short walk, and came back again neither breathless
nor fatigued. This has been a gloomy, frigid, ungenial summer, but of
late it seems to mend; I hear the heat sometimes mentioned, but I do
not feel it:
"Praterea minimus gelido jam in corpore sanguis
Febre calet solá[1108].----"
I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a winter at
home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, and what ought to
be doing in the world. I have no company here, and shall naturally come
home hungry for conversation. To wish you, dear Sir, more leisure, would
not be kind; but what leisure you have, you must bestow upon me.'
Sept. 16. 'I have now let you alone for a long time, having indeed
little to say. You charge me somewhat unjustly with luxury. At
Chatsworth, you should remember, that I have eaten but once; and the
Doctor, with whom I live, follows a milk diet. I grow no fatter, though
my stomach, if it be not disturbed by physick, never fails me. I now
grow weary of solitude, and think of removing next week to Lichfield, a
place of more society, but otherwise of less convenience. When I am
settled, I shall write again. Of the hot weather that you mention, we
have [not] had in Derbyshire very much, and for myself I seldom feel
heat, and suppose that my frigidity is the effect of my distemper; a
supposition which naturally leads me to hope that a hotter climate may
be useful. But I hope to stand another English winter.'
Lichfield, Sept. 29. 'On one day I had three letters about the
air-balloon[1109]: yours was far the best, and has enabled me to impart
to my friends in the country an idea of this species of amusement. In
amusement, mere amusement, I am afraid it must end, for I do not find
that its course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes
of communication; and it can give no new intelligence of the state of
the air at different heights, till they have ascended above the height
of mountains, which they seem never likely to do. I came hither on the
27th. How long I shall stay I have not determined. My dropsy is gone,
and my asthma much remitted, but I have felt myself a little declining
these two days, or at least to-day; but such vicissitudes must be
expected. One day may be worse than another; but this last month is far
better than the former; if the next should be as much better than this,
I shall run about the town on my own legs.'
October 6. 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament[1110]: to make
new balloons, is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of
mounting into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The
vehicles can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify
no curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can
reach without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains,
which we have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its
regions, to the top of Teneriffe, and therefore, learn nothing from
those who navigate a balloon below the clouds. The first experiment,
however, was bold, and deserved applause and reward. But since it has
been performed, and its event is known, I had rather now find a medicine
that can ease an asthma.'
October 25. 'You write to me with a zeal that animates, and a tenderness
that melts me. I am not afraid either of a journey to London, or a
residence in it. I came down with little fatigue, and am now not weaker.
In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered from the dropsy, which I
consider as the original and radical disease. The town is my
element[1111]; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I
have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir Joshua told
me long ago that my vocation was to publick life, and I hope still to
keep my station, till GOD shall bid me _Go in peace_[1112].'