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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+#10 in our series by The Earl of Chesterfield
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+Title: Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: August, 2002  [Etext #3360]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 03/09/01]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
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+
+Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+
+
+
+                           LETTERS TO HIS SON
+                      By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+                     on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                            MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                                 and a
+
+                               GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXIV
+
+LONDON, February 11, 1766
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received two days ago your letter of the 25th past;
+and your former, which you mention in it, but ten days ago; this may
+easily be accounted for from the badness of the weather, and consequently
+of the roads.  I hardly remember so severe a win ter; it has occasioned
+many illnesses here.  I am sure it pinched my crazy carcass so much that,
+about three weeks ago, I was obliged to be let blood twice in four days,
+which I found afterward was very necessary, by the relief it gave to my
+head and to the rheumatic pains in my limbs; and from the execrable kind
+of blood which I lost.
+
+Perhaps you expect from me a particular account of the present state of
+affairs here; but if you do you will be disappointed; for no man living
+(and I still less than anyone) knows what it is; it varies, not only
+daily, but hourly.
+
+Most people think, and I among the rest, that the date of the present
+Ministers is pretty near out; but how soon we are to have a new style,
+God knows.  This, however, is certain, that the Ministers had a contested
+election in the House of Commons, and got it but by eleven votes; too
+small a majority to carry anything; the next day they lost a question in
+the House of Lords, by three.  The question in the House of Lords was, to
+enforce the execution of the Stamp-act in the colonies 'vi et armis'.
+What conclusions you will draw from these premises, I do not know; but I
+protest I draw none; but only stare at the present undecipherable state
+of affairs, which, in fifty years' experience, I have never seen anything
+like.  The Stamp-act has proved a most pernicious measure; for, whether
+it is repealed or not, which is still very doubtful, it has given such
+terror to the Americans, that our trade with them will not be, for some
+years, what it used to be; and great numbers of our manufacturers at home
+will be turned a starving for want of that employment which our very
+profitable trade to America found them: and hunger is always the cause of
+tumults and sedition.
+
+As you have escaped a fit of the gout in this severe cold weather, it is
+to be hoped you may be entirely free from it, till next winter at least.
+
+P. S.  Lord having parted with his wife, now, keeps another w---e, at a
+great expense.  I fear he is totally undone.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXV
+
+LONDON, March 17, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  You wrong me in thinking me in your debt; for I never
+receive a letter of yours, but I answer it by the next post, or the next
+but one, at furthest: but I can easily conceive that my two last letters
+to you may have been drowned or frozen in their way; for portents and
+prodigies of frost, snow, and inundations, have been so frequent this
+winter, that they have almost lost their names.
+
+You tell me that you are going to the baths of BADEN; but that puzzles me
+a little, so I recommend this letter to the care of Mr. Larpent, to
+forward to you; for Baden I take to be the general German word for baths,
+and the particular ones are distinguished by some epithet, as Weissbaden,
+Carlsbaden, etc.  I hope they are not cold baths, which I have a very ill
+opinion of, in all arthritic or rheumatic cases; and your case I take to
+be a compound of both, but rather more of the latter.
+
+You will probably wonder that I tell you nothing of public matters; upon
+which I shall be as secret as Hotspur's gentle Kate, who would not tell
+what she did not know; but what is singular, nobody seems to know any
+more of them than I do.  People gape, stare, conjecture, and refine.
+Changes of the Ministry, or in the Ministry at least, are daily reported
+and foretold, but of what kind, God only knows.  It is also very doubtful
+whether Mr. Pitt will come into the Administration or not; the two
+present Secretaries are extremely desirous that he should; but the others
+think of the horse that called the man to its assistance.  I will say
+nothing to you about American affairs, because I have not pens, ink, or
+paper enough to give you an intelligible account of them.  They have been
+the subjects of warm and acrimonious debates, both in the Lords and
+Commons, and in all companies.
+
+The repeal of the Stamp-act is at last carried through.  I am glad of it,
+and gave my proxy for it, because I saw many more inconveniences from the
+enforcing than from the repealing it.
+
+Colonel Browne was with me the other day, and assured me that he left you
+very well.  He said he saw you at Spa, but I did not remember him; though
+I remember his two brothers, the Colonel and the ravisher, very well.
+Your Saxon colonel has the brogue exceedingly.  Present my respects to
+Count Flemming; I am very sorry for the Countess's illness; she was a
+most well-bred woman.
+
+You would hardly think that I gave a dinner to the Prince of Brunswick,
+your old acquaintance.  I glad it is over; but I could not avoid it.
+'Il m'avait tabli de politesses'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 13, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past.
+I waited with impatience for it, not having received one from you in six
+weeks; nor your mother neither, who began to be very sure that you were
+dead, if not buried.  You should write to her once a week, or at least
+once a-fortnight; for women make no allowance either for business or
+laziness; whereas I can, by experience, make allowances for both:
+however, I wish you would generally write to me once a fortnight.
+
+Last week I paid my midsummer offering, of five hundred pounds, to Mr.
+Larpent, for your use, as I suppose he has informed you.  I am punctual,
+you must allow.
+
+What account shall I give you of ministerial affairs here?  I protest I
+do not know: your own description of them is as exact a one as any I,
+who am upon the place, can give you.  It is a total dislocation and
+'derangement'; consequently a total inefficiency.  When the Duke of
+Grafton quitted the seals, he gave that very reason for it, in a speech
+in the House of Lords: he declared, "that he had no objection to the
+persons or the measures of the present Ministers; but that he thought
+they wanted strength and efficiency to carry on proper measures with
+success; and that he knew but one man MEANING, AS YOU WILL EASILY
+SUPPOSE, MR. PITT who could give them strength and solidity; that, under
+this person, he should be willing to serve in any capacity, not only as a
+General Officer, but as a pioneer; and would take up a spade and a
+mattock."  When he quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord
+Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke; who both declined them, probably for the
+same reasons that made the Duke of Grafton resign them; but after their
+going a-begging for some time, the Duke of ------- begged them, and has
+them 'faute de mieux'.  Lord Mountstuart was never thought of for Vienna,
+where Lord Stormont returns in three months; the former is going to be
+married to one of the Miss Windsors, a great fortune.  To tell you the
+speculations, the reasonings, and the conjectures, either of the
+uninformed, or even of the best-informed public, upon the present
+wonderful situation of affairs, would take up much more time and paper
+than either you or I can afford, though we have neither of us a great
+deal of business at present.
+
+I am in as good health as I could reasonably expect, at my age, and with
+my shattered carcass; that is, from the waist upward; but downward it is
+not the same: for my limbs retain that stiffness and debility of my long
+rheumatism; I cannot walk half an hour at a time.  As the autumn, and
+still more as the winter approaches, take care to keep yourself very
+warm, especially your legs and feet.
+
+Lady Chesterfield sends you her compliments, and triumphs in the success
+of her plaster.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 11, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a happy mortal, to have your time thus employed
+between the great and the fair; I hope you do the honors of your country
+to the latter.  The Emperor, by your account, seems to be very well for
+an emperor; who, by being above the other monarchs in Europe, may justly
+be supposed to have had a proportionably worse education.  I find, by
+your account of him, that he has been trained up to homicide, the only
+science in which princes are ever instructed; and with good reason, as
+their greatness and glory singly depend upon the numbers of their fellow-
+creatures which their ambition exterminates.  If a sovereign should, by
+great accident, deviate into moderation, justice, and clemency, what a
+contemptible figure would he make in the catalogue of princes! I have
+always owned a great regard for King Log.  From the interview at Torgaw,
+between the two monarchs, they will be either a great deal better or
+worse together; but I think rather the latter; for our namesake, Philip
+de Co mines, observes, that he never knew any good come from
+l'abouchement des Rois.  The King of Prussia will exert all his
+perspicacity to analyze his Imperial Majesty; and I would bet upon the
+one head of his black eagle, against the two heads of the Austrian eagle;
+though two heads are said, proverbially, to be better than one.  I wish I
+had the direction of both the monarchs, and they should, together with
+some of their allies, take Lorraine and Alsace from France.  You will
+call me 'l'Abbe de St. Pierre'; but I only say what I wish; whereas he
+thought everything that he wished practicable.
+
+Now to come home.  Here are great bustles at Court, and a great change of
+persons is certainly very near.  You will ask me, perhaps, who is to be
+out, and who is to be in?  To which I answer, I do not know.  My
+conjecture is that, be the new settlement what it will, Mr. Pitt will be
+at the head of it.  If he is, I presume, 'qu'il aura mis de l'eau dans
+son vin par rapport a Mylord B-----; when that shall come to be known,
+as known it certainly will soon be, he may bid adieu to his popularity.
+A minister, as minister, is very apt to be the object of public dislike;
+and a favorite, as favorite, still more so.  If any event of this kind
+happens, which (if it happens at all) I conjecture will be some time next
+week, you shall hear further from me.
+
+I will follow your advice, and be as well as I can next winter, though I
+know I shall never be free from my flying rheumatic pains, as long as I
+live; but whether that will be more or less, is extremely indifferent to
+me; in either case,
+God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 1, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The curtain was at last drawn up, the day before
+yesterday, and discovered the new actors, together with some of the old
+ones.  I do not name them to you, because to-morrow's Gazette will do it
+full as well as I could.  Mr. Pitt, who had carte blanche given him,
+named everyone of them: but what would you think he named himself for?
+Lord Privy Seal; and (what will astonish you, as it does every mortal
+here) Earl of Chatham.  The joke here is, that he has had A FALL UP
+STAIRS, and has done himself so much hurt, that he will never be able to
+stand upon his leg's again.  Everybody is puzzled how to account for this
+step ; though it would not be the first time that great abilities have
+been duped by low cunning.  But be it what it will, he is now certainly
+only Earl of Chatham; and no longer Mr. Pitt, in any respect whatever.
+Such an event, I believe, was never read nor heard of.  To withdraw,
+in the fullness of his power and in the utmost gratification of his
+ambition, from the House of Commons (which procured him his power, and
+which could alone insure it to him), and to go into that hospital of
+incurables, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable, that
+nothing but proof positive could have made me believe it: but true it is.
+Hans Stanley is to go Ambassador to Russia; and my nephew, Ellis, to
+Spain, decorated with the red riband.  Lord Shelburne is your Secretary
+of State, which I suppose he has notified to you this post, by a circular
+letter.  Charles Townshend has now the sole management of the House of
+Commons; but how long he will be content to be only Lord Chatham's
+vicegerent there, is a question which I will not pretend to decide.
+There is one very bad sign for Lord Chatham, in his new dignity; which
+is, that all his enemies, without exception, rejoice at it; and all his
+friends are stupefied and dumbfounded.  If I mistake not much, he will,
+in the course of a year, enjoy perfect 'otium cum dignitate'.  Enough of
+politics.
+
+Is the fair, or at least the fat, Miss C---- with you still ?  It must be
+confessed that she knows the arts of courts, to be so received at
+Dresden, and so connived at in Leicester-fields.
+
+There never was so wet a summer as this has been, in the memory of man;
+we have not had one single day, since March, without some rain; but most
+days a great deal.  I hope that does not affect your health, as great
+cold does; for, with all these inundations, it has not been cold.  God
+bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 14, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past, and I
+find by it that it crossed mine upon the road, where they had no time to
+take notice of one another.
+
+The newspapers have informed you, before now, of the changes actually
+made; more will probably follow, but what, I am sure, I cannot tell you;
+and I believe nobody can, not even those who are to make them: they will,
+I suppose, be occasional, as people behave themselves.  The causes and
+consequences of Mr. Pitt's quarrel now appear in print, in a pamphlet
+published by Lord T------; and in a refutation of it, not by Mr. Pitt
+himself, I believe, but by some friend of his, and under his sanction.
+The former is very scurrilous and scandalous, and betrays private
+conversation. My Lord says, that in his last conference, he thought he
+had as good a right to nominate the new Ministry as Mr. Pitt, and
+consequently named Lord G-----, Lord L------, etc., for Cabinet Council
+employments; which Mr. Pitt not consenting to, Lord T----- broke up the
+conference, and in his wrath went to Stowe; where I presume he may remain
+undisturbed a great while, since Mr. Pitt will neither be willing nor
+able to send for him again.  The pamphlet, on the part of Mr. Pitt, gives
+an account of his whole political life ; and, in that respect, is tedious
+to those who were acquainted with it before; but, at the latter end,
+there is an article that expresses such supreme contempt of Lord T-----,
+and in so pretty a manner, that I suspect it to be Mr. Pitt's own: you
+shall judge yourself, for I here transcribe the article: "But this I will
+be bold to say, that had he (Lord T-----) not fastened himself into
+Mr. Pitt's train, and acquired thereby such an interest in that great
+man, he might have crept out of life with as little notice as he crept
+in; and gone off with no other degree of credit, than that of adding a
+single unit to the bills of mortality"  I wish I could send you all the
+pamphlets and half-sheets that swarm here upon this occasion; but that is
+impossible; for every week would make a ship's cargo.  It is certain,
+that Mr. Pitt has, by his dignity of Earl, lost the greatest part of his
+popularity, especially in the city; and I believe the Opposition will be
+very strong, and perhaps prevail, next session, in the House of Commons;
+there being now nobody there who can have the authority and ascendant
+over them that Pitt had.
+
+People tell me here, as young Harvey told you at Dresden, that I look
+very well; but those are words of course, which everyone says to
+everybody.  So far is true, that I am better than at my age, and with my
+broken constitution, I could have expected to be.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXC
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 12, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 27th past.
+I was in hopes that your course of waters this year at Baden would have
+given you a longer reprieve from your painful complaint.  If I do not
+mistake, you carried over with you some of Dr. Monsey's powders.  Have
+you taken any of them, and have they done you any good ?  I know they did
+me a great deal.  I, who pretend to some skill in physic, advise a cool
+regimen, and cooling medicines.
+
+I do not wonder, that you do wonder, at Lord C-----'s conduct.  If he was
+not outwitted into his peerage by Lord B----, his accepting it is utterly
+inexplicable.  The instruments he has chosen for the great office,
+I believe, will never fit the same case.  It was cruel to put such a boy
+as Lord G--- over the head of old Ligonier; and if I had been the former,
+I would have refused that commission, during the life of that honest and
+brave old general.  All this to quiet the Duke of R---- to a resignation,
+and to make Lord B---- Lieutenant of Ireland, where, I will venture to
+prophesy, that he will not do.  Ligonier was much pressed to give up his
+regiment of guards, but would by no means do it; and declared that the
+King might break him if he pleased, but that he would certainly not break
+himself.
+
+I have no political events to inform you of; they will not be ripe till
+the meeting of the parliament.  Immediately upon the receipt of this
+letter, write me one, to acquaint me how you are.
+
+God bless you; and, particularly, may He send you health, for that is the
+greatest blessing!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCI
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 30, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, yesterday, with great pleasure, your letter
+of the 18th, by which I consider this last ugly bout as over; and, to
+prevent its return, I greatly approve of your plan for the south of
+France, where I recommend for your principal residence, Pezenas Toulouse,
+or Bordeaux; but do not be persuaded to go to Aix en Provence, which, by
+experience, I know to be at once the hottest and the coldest place in the
+world, from the ardor of the Provencal sun, and the sharpness of the
+Alpine winds.  I also earnestly recommend to you, for your complaint upon
+your breast, to take, twice a-day, asses' or (what is better mares' milk,
+and that for these six months at least.  Mingle turnips, as much as you
+can, with your diet.
+
+I have written, as you desired, to Mr. Secretary Conway; but I will
+answer for it that there will be no difficulty to obtain the leave you
+ask.
+
+There is no new event in the political world since my last; so God bless
+you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCII
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCIII
+
+BATH, November 15, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 5th
+instant from Basle.  I am very glad to find that your breast is relieved,
+though perhaps at the expense of your legs: for, if the humor be either
+gouty or rheumatic, it had better be in your legs than anywhere else.
+I have consulted Moisy, the great physician of this place, upon it; who
+says, that at this distance he dares not prescribe anything, as there may
+be such different causes for your complaint, which must be well weighed
+by a physician upon the spot; that is, in short, that he knows nothing of
+the matter.  I will therefore tell you my own case, in 1732, which may be
+something parallel to yours.  I had that year been dangerously ill of a
+fever in Holland; and when I was recovered of it, the febrific humor fell
+into my legs, and swelled them to that degree, and chiefly in the
+evening, that it was as painful to me as it was shocking to others.
+I came to England with them in this condition; and consulted Mead,
+Broxholme, and Arbuthnot, who none of them did me the least good; but,
+on the contrary, increased the swelling, by applying poultices and
+emollients.  In this condition I remained near six months, till finding
+that the doctors could do me no good, I resolved to consult Palmer, the
+most eminent surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital.  He immediately told me
+that the physicians had pursued a very wrong method, as the swelling of
+my legs proceeded only from a relaxation and weakness of the cutaneous
+vessels; and he must apply strengtheners instead of emollients.
+Accordingly, he ordered me to put my legs up to the knees every morning
+in brine from the salters, as hot as I could bear it; the brine must have
+had meat salted in it.  I did so; and after having thus pickled my legs
+for about three weeks, the complaint absolutely ceased, and I have never
+had the least swelling in them since.  After what I have said, I must
+caution you not to use the same remedy rashly, and without the most
+skillful advice you can find, where you are; for if your swelling
+proceeds from a gouty, or rheumatic humor, there may be great danger in
+applying so powerful an astringent, and perhaps REPELLANT as brine.  So
+go piano, and not without the best advice, upon a view of the parts.
+
+I shall direct all my letters to you 'Chez Monsieur Sarraxin', who by his
+trade is, I suppose, 'sedentaire' at Basle, while it is not sure that you
+will be at any one place in the south of France.  Do you know that he is
+a descendant of the French poet Sarrazin?
+
+Poor Harte, whom I frequently go to see here, out of compassion, is in a
+most miserable way; he has had a stroke of the palsy, which has deprived
+him of the use of his right leg, affected his speech a good deal, and
+perhaps his head a little.  Such are the intermediate tributes that we
+are forced to pay, in some shape or other, to our wretched nature, till
+we pay the last great one of all.  May you pay this very late, and as few
+intermediate tributes as possible; and so 'jubeo te bene valere'.  God
+bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCIV
+
+BATH, December 9, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, two days ago, your letter of the 26th past.
+I am very glad that you begin to feel the good effects of the climate
+where you are; I know it saved my life, in 1741, when both the skillful
+and the unskillful gave me over.  In that ramble I stayed three or four
+days at Nimes, where there are more remains of antiquity, I believe, than
+in any town in Europe, Italy excepted.  What is falsely called 'la maison
+quarree', is, in my mind, the finest piece of architecture that I ever
+saw; and the amphitheater the clumsiest and the ugliest: if it were in
+England, everybody would swear it had been built by Sir John Vanbrugh.
+
+This place is now, just what you have seen it formerly; here is a great
+crowd of trifling and unknown people, whom I seldom frequent, in the
+public rooms; so that I may pass my time 'tres uniment', in taking the
+air in my post-chaise every morning, and in reading of evenings.
+And 'a propos' of the latter, I shall point out a book, which I believe
+will give you some pleasure; at least it gave me a great deal.  I never
+read it before.  It is 'Reflexions sur la Poesie et la Peinture, par
+l'Abbee de Bos', in two octavo volumes; and is, I suppose, to be had at
+every great town in France.  The criticisms and the reflections are just
+and lively.
+
+It may be you expect some political news from me: but I can tell you that
+you will have none, for no mortal can comprehend the present state of
+affairs.  Eight or nine people of some consequence have resigned their
+employments; upon which Lord C----- made overtures to the Duke of B-----
+and his people; but they could by no means agree, and his Grace went,
+the next day, full of wrath, to Woburn, so that negotiation is entirely
+at an end.  People wait to see who Lord C----- will take in, for some he
+must have; even HE cannot be alone, 'contra mundum'.  Such a state of
+affairs, to be sure, was never seen before, in this or in any other
+country.  When this Ministry shall be settled, it will be the sixth
+Ministry in six years' time.
+
+Poor Harte is here, and in a most miserable condition; those who wish him
+the best, as I do, must wish him dead.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCV
+
+LONDON, February 13, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have had a letter from you, that I
+am alarmed about your health; and fear that the southern parts of France
+have not done so well by you as they did by me in the year 1741, when
+they snatched me from the jaws of death.  Let me know, upon the receipt
+of this letter, how you are, and where you are.
+
+I have no news to send you from hence; for everything seems suspended,
+both in the court and in the parliament, till Lord Chatham's return from
+the Bath, where he has been laid up this month, by a severe fit of the
+gout; and, at present, he has the sole apparent power.  In what little
+business has hitherto been done in the House of Commons, Charles
+Townshend has given himself more ministerial airs than Lord Chatham will,
+I believe, approve of.  However, since Lord Chatham has thought fit to
+withdraw himself from that House, he cannot well do without Charles'
+abilities to manage it as his deputy.
+
+I do not send you an account of weddings, births, and burials, as I take
+it for granted that you know them all from the English printed papers;
+some of which, I presume, are sent after you.  Your old acquaintance,
+Lord Essex, is to be married this week to Harriet Bladen, who has L20,000
+down, besides the reasonable expectation of as much at the death of her
+father.  My kinsman, Lord Strathmore, is to be married in a fortnight,
+to Miss Bowes, the greatest heiress perhaps in Europe.  In short, the
+matrimonial frenzy seems to rage at present, and is epidemical.  The men
+marry for money, and I believe you guess what the women marry for.  God
+bless you, and send you health!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCVI
+
+LONDON, March 3, 1767
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received two letters at once from you, both
+dated Montpellier; one of the 29th of last December, and the other the
+12th of February: but I cannot conceive what became of my letters to you;
+for, I assure you, that I answered all yours the next post after I
+received them; and, about ten days ago, I wrote you a volunteer, because
+you had been so long silent, and I was afraid that you were not well;
+but your letter of the 12th of February has removed all my fears upon
+that score.  The same climate that has restored your health so far will
+probably, in a little more time, restore your strength too; though you
+must not expect it to be quite what it was before your late painful
+complaints.  At least I find that, since my late great rheumatism,
+I cannot walk above half an hour at a time, which I do not place singly
+to the account of my years, but chiefly to the great shock given then to
+my limbs. 'D'ailleurs' I am pretty well for my age and shattered
+constitution.
+
+As I told you in my last, I must tell you again in this, that I have no
+news to send.  Lord Chatham, at last, came to town yesterday, full of
+gout, and is not able to stir hand or foot.  During his absence, Charles
+Townshend has talked of him, and at him, in such a manner, that
+henceforward they must be either much worse or much better together than
+ever they were in their lives.  On Friday last, Mr. Dowdeswell and Mr.
+Grenville moved to have one shilling in the pound of the land tax taken
+off; which was opposed by the Court; but the Court lost it by eighteen.
+The Opposition triumph much upon this victory; though, I think, without
+reason; for it is plain that all the landed gentlemen bribed themselves
+with this shilling in the pound.
+
+The Duke of Buccleugh is very soon to be married to Lady Betty Montague.
+Lord Essex was married yesterday, to Harriet Bladen ; and Lord
+Strathmore, last week, to Miss Bowes; both couples went directly from the
+church to consummation in the country, from an unnecessary fear that they
+should not be tired of each other if they stayed in town.  And now
+'dixi'; God bless you!
+
+You are in the right to go to see the assembly of the states of,
+Languedoc, though they are but the shadow of the original Etats, while
+there was some liberty subsisting in France.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCVII
+
+LONDON, April 6, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Nimes, by which I
+find that several of our letters have reciprocally miscarried.  This may
+probably have the same fate; however, if it reaches Monsieur Sarrazin, I
+presume he will know where to take his aim at you; for I find you are in
+motion, and with a polarity to Dresden.  I am very glad to find by it,
+that your meridional journey has perfectly recovered you, as to your
+general state of health; for as to your legs and thighs, you must never
+expect that they will be restored to their original strength and
+activity, after so many rheumatic attacks as you have had.  I know that
+my limbs, besides the natural debility of old age, have never recovered
+the severe attack of rheumatism that plagued me five or six years ago.
+I cannot now walk above half an hour at a time and even that in a
+hobbling kind of way.
+
+I can give you no account of our political world, which is in a situation
+that I never saw in my whole life.  Lord Chatham has been so ill, these
+last two months, that he has not been able (some say not willing) to do
+or hear of any business, and for his 'sous Ministres', they either
+cannot, or dare not, do any, without his directions; so everything is now
+at a stand.  This situation, I think, cannot last much longer, and if
+Lord Chatham should either quit his post, or the world, neither of which
+is very improbable, I conjecture, that which is called the Rockingham
+Connection stands the fairest for the Ministry.  But this is merely my
+conjecture, for I have neither 'data' nor 'postulata' enough to reason
+upon.
+
+When you get to Dresden, which I hope you will not do till next month,
+our correspondence will be more regular.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCVIII
+
+LONDON, May 5, 1767,
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: By your letter of the 25th past, from Basle, I presume
+this will find you at Dresden, and accordingly I direct to you there.
+When you write me word that you are at Dresden, I will return you an
+answer, with something better than the answer itself.
+
+If you complain of the weather, north of Besancon, what would you say to
+the weather that we have had here for these last two months,
+uninterruptedly?  Snow often, northeast wind constantly, and extreme
+cold.  I write this by the side of a good fire; and at this moment it
+snows very hard.  All my promised fruit at Blackheath is quite destroyed;
+and, what is worse, many of my trees.
+
+I cannot help thinking that the King of Poland, the Empress of Russia,
+and the King of Prussia, 's'entendent comme larrons en foire', though the
+former must not appear in it upon account of the stupidity, ignorance,
+and bigotry of his Poles.  I have a great opinion of the cogency of the
+controversial arguments of the Russian troops, in favor of the
+Dissidents: I am sure I wish them success; for I would have all
+intoleration intolerated in its turn.  We shall soon see more clearly
+into this matter; for I do not think that the Autocratrice of all the
+Russias will be trifled with by the Sarmatians.
+
+What do you think of the late extraordinary event in Spain?  Could you
+have ever imagined that those ignorant Goths would have dared to banish
+the Jesuits?  There must have been some very grave and important reasons
+for so extraordinary a measure: but what they were I do not pretend to
+guess; and perhaps I shall never know, though all the coffeehouses here
+do.
+
+Things are here in exactly the same situation, in which they were when I
+wrote to you last.  Lord Chatham is still ill, and only goes abroad for
+an hour in a day, to take the air, in his coach.  The King has, to my
+certain knowledge, sent him repeated messages, desiring him not to be
+concerned at his confinement, for that he is resolved to support him,
+'pour et contre tous'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCIX
+
+LONDON, June 1, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I received yesterday your letter of the 20th past, from
+Dresden, where I am glad to find that you are arrived safe and sound.
+This has been everywhere an 'annus mirabilis' for bad weather, and it
+continues here still.  Everybody has fires, and their winter clothes,
+as at Christmas.  The town is extremely sickly; and sudden deaths have
+been very frequent.
+
+I do not know what to say to you upon public matters; things remain in
+'statu quo', and nothing is done.  Great changes are talked of, and,
+I believe, will happen soon, perhaps next week; but who is to be changed,
+for whom, I do not know, though everybody else does.  I am apt to think
+that it will be a mosaic Ministry, made up 'de pieces rapportees' from
+different connections.
+
+Last Friday I sent your subsidy to Mr. Larpent, who, I suppose, has given
+you notice of it.  I believe it will come very seasonably, as all places,
+both foreign and domestic, are so far in arrears.  They talk of paying
+you all up to Christmas.  The King's inferior servants are almost
+starving.
+
+I suppose you have already heard, at Dresden, that Count Bruhl is either
+actually married, or very soon to be so, to Lady Egremont.  She has,
+together with her salary as Lady of the Bed-chamber, L2,500 a year,
+besides ten thousand pounds in money left her, at her own disposal, by
+Lord Egremont.  All this will sound great 'en ecus d'Allemagne'.  I am
+glad of it, for he is a very pretty man.  God bless you!
+
+I easily conceive why Orloff influences the Empress of all the Russias;
+but I cannot see why the King of Prussia should be influenced by that
+motive.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCC
+
+BLACKHEATH, JULY 2, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Though I have had no letter from you since my last, and
+though I have no political news to inform you of, I write this to
+acquaint you with a piece of Greenwich news, which I believe you will be
+very glad of; I am sure I am.  Know then that your friend Miss ----- was
+happily married, three days ago, to Mr. -------, an Irish gentleman,
+and a member of that parliament, with an estate of above L2,000 a-year.
+He settles upon her L600 jointure, and in case they have no children,
+L1,500.  He happened to be by chance in her company one day here, and was
+at once shot dead by her charms; but as dead men sometimes walk, he
+walked to her the next morning, and tendered her his person and his
+fortune; both which, taking the one with the other, she very prudently
+accepted, for his person is sixty years old.
+
+Ministerial affairs are still in the same ridiculous and doubtful
+situation as when I wrote to you last.  Lord Chatham will neither hear
+of, nor do any business, but lives at Hampstead, and rides about the
+heath.  His gout is said to be fallen upon his nerves.  Your provincial
+secretary, Conway, quits this week, and returns to the army, for which he
+languished.  Two Lords are talked of to succeed him; Lord Egmont and Lord
+Hillsborough: I rather hope the latter.  Lord Northington certainly quits
+this week; but nobody guesses who is to succeed him as President.  A
+thousand other changes are talked of, which I neither believe nor reject.
+
+Poor Harte is in a most miserable condition: He has lost one side of
+himself, and in a great measure his speech; notwithstanding which, he is
+going to publish his DIVINE POEMS, as he calls them.  I am sorry for it,
+as he had not time to correct them before this stroke, nor abilities to
+do it since.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCI
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 9, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received yours of the 21st past, with the inclosed
+proposal from the French 'refugies, for a subscription toward building
+them 'un temple'.  I have shown it to the very few people I see, but
+without the least success.  They told me (and with too much truth) that
+while such numbers of poor were literally starving here from the dearness
+of all provisions, they could not think of sending their money into
+another country, for a building which they reckoned useless.  In truth,
+I never knew such misery as is here now; and it affects both the hearts
+and the purses of those who have either; for my own part, I never gave to
+a building in my life; which I reckon is only giving to masons and
+carpenters, and the treasurer of the undertaking.
+
+Contrary to the expectations of all mankind here, everything still
+continues in 'statu quo'.  General Conway has been desired by the King
+to keep the seals till he has found a successor for him, and the Lord
+President the same.  Lord Chatham is relapsed, and worse than ever: he
+sees nobody, and nobody sees him: it is said that a bungling physician
+has checked his gout, and thrown it upon his nerves; which is the worst
+distemper that a minister or a lover can have, as it debilitates the mind
+of the former and the body of the latter.  Here is at present an
+interregnum.  We must soon see what order will be produced from this
+chaos.
+
+The Electorate, I believe, will find the want of Comte Flemming; for he
+certainly had abilities, and was as sturdy and inexorable as a Minister
+at the head of the finances ought always to be.  When you see Comtesse
+Flemming, which I suppose cannot be for some time, pray make her Lady
+Chesterfield's and my compliments of condolence.
+
+You say that Dresden is very sickly; I am sure London is at least as
+sickly now, for there reigns an epidemical distemper, called by the
+genteel name of 'l'influenza'.  It is a little fever, of which scarcely
+anybody dies; and it generally goes off with a little looseness.  I have
+escaped it, I believe, by being here.  God keep you from all distempers,
+and bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCII
+
+LONDON, October 30, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now left Blackheath, till the next summer, if I
+live till then; and am just able to write, which is all I can say, for I
+am extremely weak, and have in a great measure lost the use of my legs;
+I hope they will recover both flesh and strength, for at present they
+have neither.  I go to the Bath next week, in hopes of half repairs at
+most; for those waters, I am sure, will not prove Medea's kettle, nor
+'les eaux de Jouvence' to me; however, I shall do as good courtiers do,
+and get what I can, if I cannot get what I will.  I send you no politics,
+for here are neither politics nor ministers; Lord Chatham is quiet at
+Pynsent, in Somersetshire, and his former subalterns do nothing, so that
+nothing is done.  Whatever places or preferments are disposed of, come
+evidently from Lord -------, who affects to be invisible; and who, like a
+woodcock, thinks that if his head is but hid, he is not seen at all.
+
+General Pulteney is at last dead, last week, worth above thirteen hundred
+thousand pounds.  He has left all his landed estate, which is eight and
+twenty thousand pounds a-year, including the Bradford estate, which his
+brother had from that ancient family, to a cousin-german.  He has left
+two hundred thousand pounds, in the funds, to Lord Darlington, who was
+his next nearest relation; and at least twenty thousand pounds in various
+legacies.  If riches alone could make people happy, the last two
+proprietors of this immense wealth ought to have been so, but they never
+were.
+
+God bless you, and send you good health, which is better than all the
+riches of the world!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCIII
+
+LONDON, November 3, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Your last letter brought me but a scurvy account of your
+health.  For the headaches you complain of, I will venture to prescribe a
+remedy, which, by experience, I found a specific, when I was extremely
+plagued with them.  It is either to chew ten grains of rhubarb every
+night going to bed: or, what I think rather better, to take, immediately
+before dinner, a couple of rhubarb pills, of five grains each; by which
+means it mixes with the aliments, and will, by degrees, keep your body
+gently open.  I do it to this day, and find great good by it.  As you
+seem to dread the approach of a German winter, I would advise you to
+write to General Conway, for leave of absence for the three rigorous
+winter months, which I dare say will not be refused.  If you choose a
+worse climate, you may come to London; but if you choose a better and a
+warmer, you may go to Nice en Provence, where Sir William Stanhope is
+gone to pass his winter, who, I am sure, will be extremely glad of your
+company there.
+
+I go to the Bath next Saturday.  'Utinam de frustra'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCIV
+
+BATH, September 19, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 29th past, and am
+very glad to find that you are well enough to think that you may perhaps
+stand the winter at Dresden; but if you do, pray take care to keep both
+your body and your limbs exceedingly warm.
+
+As to my own health, it is, in general, as good as I could expect it, at
+my age; I have a good stomach, a good digestion, and sleep well; but find
+that I shall never recover the free use of my legs, which are now full as
+weak as when I first came hither.
+
+You ask me questions concerning Lord C------, which neither I, nor,
+I believe, anybody but himself can answer; however, I will tell you all
+that I do know, and all that I guess, concerning him.  This time
+twelvemonth he was here, and in good health and spirits, except now and
+then some little twinges of the gout.  We saw one another four or five
+times, at our respective houses; but for these last eight months, he has
+been absolutely invisible to his most intimate friends, 'les sous
+Ministres': he would receive no letters, nor so much as open any packet
+about business.
+
+His physician, Dr. ----- , as I am told, had, very ignorantly, checked
+a coming fit of the gout, and scattered it about his body; and it fell
+particularly upon his nerves, so that he continues exceedingly vaporish;
+and would neither see nor speak to anybody while he was here.  I sent him
+my compliments, and asked leave to wait upon him; but he sent me word
+that he was too ill to see anybody whatsoever.  I met him frequently
+taking the air in his post-chaise, and he looked very well.  He set out
+from hence for London last Tuesday; but what to do, whether to resume, or
+finally to resign the Administration, God knows; conjectures are various.
+In one of our conversations here, this time twelvemonth, I desired him to
+secure you a seat in the new parliament; he assured me that he would,
+and, I am convinced, very sincerely; he said even that he would make it
+his own affair; and desired that I would give myself no more trouble
+about it.  Since that, I have heard no more of it; which made me look out
+for some venal borough and I spoke to a borough-jobber, and offered five-
+and-twenty hundred pounds for a secure seat in parliament; but he laughed
+at my offer, and said that there was no such thing as a borough to be had
+now, for that the rich East and West Indians had secured them all, at the
+rate of three thousand pounds at least; but many at four thousand, and
+two or three that he knew, at five thousand.  This, I confess, has vexed
+me a good deal; and made me the more impatient to know whether Lord C----
+had done anything in it; which I shall know when I go to town, as I
+propose to do in about a fortnight; and as soon as I know it you shall.
+To tell you truly what I think--I doubt, from all this NERVOUS DISORDER
+that Lord C----- is hors de combat, as a Minister; but do not ever hint
+this to anybody.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CC
+
+BATH, December 27, 1767.  'En nova progenies'!
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The outlines of a new Ministry are now declared, but they
+are not yet quite filled up; it was formed by the Duke of Bedford.  Lord
+Gower is made President of the Council, Lord Sandwich, Postmaster, Lord
+Hillsborough, Secretary of State for America only, Mr. Rigby, Vice-
+treasurer of Ireland.  General Canway is to keep the seals a fortnight
+longer, and then to surrender them to Lord Weymouth.  It is very
+uncertain whether the Duke of Grafton is to continue at the head of the
+Treasury or not; but, in my private opinion, George Grenville will very
+soon be there.  Lord Chatham seems to be out of the question, and is at
+his repurchased house at Hayes, where he will not see a mortal.  It is
+yet uncertain whether Lord Shelburne is to keep his place; if not, Lord
+Sandwich they say is to succeed him.  All the Rockingham people are
+absolutely excluded.  Many more changes must necessarily be, but no more
+are yet declared.  It seems to be a resolution taken by somebody that
+Ministers are to be annual.
+
+Sir George Macartney is next week to be married to Lady Jane Stuart, Lord
+Bute's second daughter.
+
+I never knew it so cold in my life as it is now, and with a very deep
+snow; by which, if it continues, I may be snow-bound here for God knows
+how long, though I proposed leaving this place the latter end of the
+week.
+
+Poor Harte is very ill here; he mentions you often, and with ,great
+affection.  God bless you!
+
+When I know more you shall.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCVI
+
+LONDON, January 29, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND : Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th.  I wish
+you had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have
+escaped the excessive cold of the most severe winter that I believe  was
+ever known.  It congealed both my body and my mind, and scarcely left me
+the power of thinking.  A great many here, both in town and country, have
+perished by the frost, and been lost in the snow.
+
+You have heard, no doubt, of the changes at Court, by which you have got
+a new provincial, Lord Weymouth; who has certainly good parts, and, as I
+am informed, speaks very well in the House of Lords; but I believe he has
+no application.  Lord Chatham is at his house at Hayes; but sees no
+mortal.  Some say that he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do
+him good; but many think that his worst complaint is in his head, which I
+am afraid is too true.  Were he well, I am sure he would realize the
+promise he made me concerning you; but, however, in that uncertainty,
+I am looking out for any chance borough; and if I can find one, I promise
+you I will bid like a chapman for it, as I should be very sorry that you
+were not in the next parliament.  I do not see any probability of any
+vacancy in a foreign commission in a better climate; Mr. Hamilton at
+Naples, Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and George Pitt at Turin, do not
+seem likely to make one.  And as for changing your foreign department for
+a domestic one, it would not be in my power to procure you one; and you
+would become 'd'eveque munier', and gain nothing in point of climate, by
+changing a bad one for another full as bad, if not worse; and a worse I
+believe is not than ours.  I have always had better health abroad than at
+home; and if the tattered remnant of my wretched life were worth my care,
+I would have been in the south of France long ago.  I continue very lame
+and weak, and despair of ever recovering any strength in my legs.  I care
+very little about it.  At my age every man must have his share of
+physical ills of one kind or another; and mine, thank God, are not very
+painful.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCVII
+
+LONDON, March 12, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  The day after I received your letter of the 21st past,
+I wrote to Lord Weymouth, as you desired; and I send you his answer
+inclosed, from which (though I have not heard from him since) I take it
+for granted, and so may you, that his silence signifies his Majesty's
+consent to your request.  Your complicated complaints give me great
+uneasiness, and the more, as I am convinced that the Montpellier
+physicians have mistaken a material part of your case; as indeed all the
+physicians here did, except Dr. Maty.  In my opinion, you have no gout,
+but a very scorbutic and rheumatic habit of body, which should be treated
+in a very different manner from the gout; and, as I pretend to be a very
+good quack at least, I would prescribe to you a strict milk diet, with
+the seeds, such as rice, sago, barley, millet, etc., for the three summer
+months at least, and without ever tasting wine.  If climate signifies
+anything (in which, by the way, I have very little faith), you are, in my
+mind, in the finest climate in the world; neither too hot nor too cold,
+and always clear; you are with the gayest people living; be gay with
+them, and do not wear out your eyes with reading at home.  'L'ennui' is
+the English distemper: and a very bad one it is, as I find by every day's
+experience; for my deafness deprives me of the only rational pleasure
+that I can have at my age, which is society; so that I read my eyes out
+every day, that I may not hang myself.
+
+You will not be in this parliament, at least not at the beginning of it.
+I relied too much upon Lord C-----'s promise above a year ago at Bath.
+He desired that I would leave it to him; that he would make it his own
+affair, and give it in charge to the Duke of G----, whose province it was
+to make the parliamentary arrangement.  This I depended upon, and I think
+with reason; but, since that, Lord C has neither seen nor spoken to
+anybody, and has been in the oddest way in the world.  I have sent to the
+D----- of G------, to know if L----- C---- had either spoken or sent to
+him about it; but he assured me that he had done neither; that all was
+full, or rather running over, at present; but that, if he could crowd you
+in upon a vacancy, he would do it with great pleasure.  I am extremely
+sorry for this accident; for I am of a very different opinion from you,
+about being in parliament, as no man can be of consequence in this
+country, who is not in it; and, though one may not speak like a Lord
+Mansfield or a Lord Chatham, one may make a very good figure in a second
+rank.  'Locus est et pluribus umbris'.  I do not pretend to give you any
+account of the present state of this country, or Ministry, not knowing
+nor guessing it myself.
+
+God bless you, and send you health, which is the first and greatest of
+all blessings!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCVIII
+
+LONDON, March 15, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  This letter is supplemental to my, last.  This morning
+Lord Weymouth very civilly sent Mr. Wood, his first 'commis', to tell me
+that the King very willingly gave you leave of absence from your post for
+a year, for the recovery of your health; but then added, that as the
+Court of Vienna was tampering with that of Saxony, which it seems our
+Court is desirous to 'contrequarrer', it might be necessary to have in
+the interim a 'Charge d'Affaires' at Dresden, with a defalcation out of
+your appointments of forty shillings a-day, till your return, if I would
+agree to it.  I told him that I consented to both the proposals, upon
+condition that at your return you should have the character and the pay
+of Plenipotentiary added to your present character and pay; and that I
+would completely make up to you the defalcation of the forty shillings
+a-day.  He positively engaged for it: and added, that he knew that it
+would be willingly agreed to.  Thus I think I have made a good bargain
+for you, though but an indifferent one for myself: but that is what I
+never minded in my life.  You may, therefore, depend upon receiving from
+me the full of this defalcation, when and how you please, independently
+of your usual annual refreshment, which I will pay to Monsieur Larpent,
+whenever you desire it.  In the meantime, 'Cura ut valeas'.
+
+The person whom Mr. Wood intimated to me would be the 'Charge d'Affaires'
+during your absence, is one Mr. Keith, the son of that Mr. Keith who was
+formerly Minister in Russia.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCIX
+
+LONDON, April 12, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I received, yesterday, your letter of the 1st; in which
+you do not mention the state of your health, which I desire you will do
+for the future.
+
+I believe you have guessed the true reason of Mr. Keith's mission; but by
+a whisper that I have since heard, Keith is rather inclined to go to
+Turin, as 'Charge d'Affaires'.  I forgot to tell you, in my last, that I
+was almost positively assured that the instant you return to Dresden,
+Keith should decamp.  I am persuaded that they will keep their words with
+me, as there is no one reason in the world why they should not.  I will
+send your annual to Mr. Larpent, in a fortnight, and pay the forty
+shillings a-day quarterly, if there should be occasion; for, in my own
+private opinion, there will be no 'Charge d'Affaires' sent.  I agree with
+you, that 'point d'argent, point d'Allemand', as was used to be said, and
+not without more reason, of the Swiss; but, as we have neither the
+inclination nor I fear the power to give subsidies, the Court of Vienna
+can give good things that cost them nothing, as archbishoprics,
+bishoprics, besides corrupting their ministers and favorite with places.
+
+Elections here have been carried to a degree of frenzy hitherto unheard
+of; that for the town of Northampton has cost the contending parties at
+least thirty thousand pounds a side, and ----- -------- has sold his
+borough of ---------, to two members, for nine thousand pounds.  As soon
+as Wilkes had lost his election for the city, he set up for the county of
+Middlesex, and carried it hollow, as the jockeys say.  Here were great
+mobs and riots upon that occasion, and most of the windows in town broke,
+that had no lights for WILKES AND LIBERTY, who were thought to be
+inseparable.  He will appear, the l0th of this month, in the Court of
+King's Bench, to receive his sentence; and then great riots are again
+expected, and probably will happen. God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCX
+
+BATH, October 17, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND.  Your last two letters, to myself and Grevenkop, have
+alarmed me extremely; but I comfort myself a little, by hoping that you,
+like all people who suffer, think yourself worse than you are.  A dropsy
+never comes so suddenly; and I flatter myself, that it is only that gouty
+or rheumatic humor, which has plagued you so long, that has occasioned
+the temporary swelling of your legs.  Above forty years ago, after a
+violent fever, my legs swelled as much as you describe yours to be; I
+immediately thought that I had a dropsy; but the Faculty assured me, that
+my complaint was only the effect of my fever, and would soon be cured;
+and they said true.  Pray let your amanuensis, whoever he may be, write
+an account regularly once a-week, either to Grevenkop or myself, for that
+is the same thing, of the state of your health.
+
+I sent you, in four successive letters, as much of the Duchess of
+Somerset's snuff as a letter could well convey to you.  Have you received
+all or any of them? and have they done you any good?  Though, in your
+present condition, you cannot go into company, I hope that you have some
+acquaintances that come and sit with you; for if originally it was not
+good for man to be alone, it is much worse for a sick man to be so; he
+thinks too much of his distemper, and magnifies it.  Some men of learning
+among the ecclesiastics, I dare say, would be glad to sit with you; and
+you could give them as good as they brought.
+
+Poor Harte, who is here still, is in a most miserable condition: he has
+entirely lost the use of his left side, and can hardly speak
+intelligibly.  I was with him yesterday.  He inquired after you with
+great affection, and was in the utmost concern when I showed him your
+letter.
+
+My own health is as it has been ever since I was here last year.  I am
+neither well nor ill, but UNWELL.  I have in a manner lost the use of my
+legs; for though I can make a shift to crawl upon even ground for a
+quarter of an hour, I cannot go up or down stairs, unless supported by a
+servant.  God bless you and grant you a speedy recovery!
+
+
+     NOTE.--This is the last of the letters of Lord Chesterfield to his
+     son, Mr. Philip Stanhope, who died in November, 1768.  The
+     unexpected and distressing intelligence was announced by the lady to
+     whom Mr. Stanhope had been married for several years, unknown to his
+     father.  On learning that the widow had two sons, the issue of this
+     marriage, Lord Chesterfield took upon himself the maintenance of his
+     grandchildren.  The letters which follow show how happily the writer
+     adapted himself to the trying situation.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXI
+
+TO MRS. STANHOPE, THEN AT PARIS
+
+LONDON, March 16, 1769.
+
+MADAM:  A troublesome and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to
+use another hand than my own to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
+from Avignon, of the 27th past.
+
+I am extremely surprised that Mrs. du Bouchet should have any objection
+to the manner in which your late husband desired to be buried, and which
+you, very properly, complied with.  All I desire for my own burial is not
+to be buried alive; but how or where, I think must be entirely
+indifferent to every rational creature.
+
+I have no commission to trouble you with, during your stay at Paris; from
+whence, I wish you and the boys a good journey home, where I shall be
+very glad to see you all; and assure you of my being, with great truth,
+your faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXII
+
+TO THE SAME, AT LONDON
+
+MADAM:  The last time that I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was so
+taken up in playing with the boys that I forgot their more important
+affairs.  How soon would you have them placed at school?  When I know
+your pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny, to prepare
+everything for their reception.  In the meantime, I beg that you will
+equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain; and
+give me the account, which I will pay; for I do not intend that, from,
+this time forward the two boys should cost you one shilling.  I am, with
+great truth, Madam, your faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXIII
+
+MADAM: As some day must be fixed for sending the boys to school, do you
+approve of the 8th of next month?  By which time the weather will
+probably be warm and settled, and you will be able to equip them
+completely.
+
+I will upon that day send my coach to you, to carry you and the boys to
+Loughborough House, with all their immense baggage.  I must recommend to
+you, when you leave them there, to suppress, as well as you can, the
+overgrowings of maternal tenderness; which would grieve the poor boys the
+more, and give them a terror of their new establishment.  I am, with
+great truth, Madam, your faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXIV
+
+BATH, October 11, 1769.
+
+MADAM:  Nobody can be more willing and ready to obey orders than I am;
+but then I must like the orders and the orderer.  Your orders and
+yourself come under this description; and therefore I must give you an
+account of my arrival and existence, such as it is, here.  I got hither
+last Sunday, the day after I left London, less fatigued than I expected
+to have been; and now crawl about this place upon my three legs, but am
+kept in countenance by many of my fellow-crawlers; the last part of the
+Sphinx's riddle approaches, and I shall soon end, as I began, upon all
+fours.
+
+When you happen to see either Monsieur or Madame Perny, I beg you will
+give them this melancholic proof of my caducity, and tell them that the
+last time I went to see the boys, I carried the Michaelmas quarterage in
+my pocket; and when I was there I totally forgot it; but assure them,
+that I have not the least intention to bilk them, and will pay them
+faithfully the two quarters together, at Christmas.
+
+I hope our two boys are well, for then I am sure you are so.  I am, with
+great truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXV
+
+BATH, October 28, 1769.
+
+MADAM:  Your kind anxiety for my health and life is more than, in my
+opinion, they are both worth; without the former the latter is a burden;
+and, indeed, I am very weary of it.  I think I have got some benefit by
+drinking these waters, and by bathing, for my old stiff, rheumatic limbs;
+for, I believe, I could now outcrawl a snail, or perhaps even a tortoise.
+
+I hope the boys are well.  Phil, I dare say, has been in some scrapes;
+but he will get triumphantly out of them, by dint of strength and
+resolution.  I am, with great truth and esteem, your most faithful,
+humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXVI
+
+BATH, November 5, 1769.
+
+MADAM: I remember very well the paragraph which you quote from a letter
+of mine to Mrs. du Bouchet, and see no reason yet to retract that
+opinion, in general, which at least nineteen widows in twenty had
+authorized.  I had not then the pleasure of your acquaintance: I had seen
+you but twice or thrice; and I had no reason to think that you would
+deviate, as you have done, from other widows, so much as to put perpetual
+shackles upon yourself, for the sake of your children.  But (if I may use
+a vulgarism) one swallow makes no summer: five righteous were formerly
+necessary to save a city, and they could not be found; so, till I find
+four more such righteous widows as yourself, I shall entertain my former
+notions of widowhood in general.
+
+I can assure you that I drink here very soberly and cautiously, and at
+the same time keep so cool a diet that I do not find the least symptom of
+heat, much less of inflammation.  By the way, I never had that complaint,
+in consequence of having drank these waters; for I have had it but four
+times, and always in the middle of summer.  Mr. Hawkins is timorous, even
+to minutia, and my sister delights in them.
+
+Charles will be a scholar, if you please; but our little Philip, without
+being one, will be something or other as good, though I do not yet guess
+what.  I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country,
+that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many
+words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and
+which are of no use in the common intercourse of life.  Useful knowledge
+in my opinion consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some
+Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for
+closet amusement.
+
+You are, by this time, certainly tired with this long letter, which I
+could prove to you from Horace's own words (for I am a scholar) to be a
+bad one; he says, that water-drinkers can write nothing good: so I am,
+with real truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXVII
+
+BATH, October 9, 1770.
+
+MADAM: I am extremely obliged to you for the kind part which you take in
+my, health and life: as to the latter, I am as indifferent myself as any
+other body can be; but as to the former, I confess care and anxiety, for
+while I am to crawl upon this planet, I would willingly enjoy the health
+at least of an insect.  How far these waters will restore me to that,
+moderate degree of health, which alone I aspire at, I have not yet given
+them a fair trial, having drank them but one week ; the only difference I
+hitherto find is, that I sleep better than I did.
+
+I beg that you will neither give yourself, nor Mr. Fitzhugh, much trouble
+about the pine plants; for as it is three years before they fruit, I
+might as well, at my age, plant oaks, and hope to have the advantage of
+their timber: however, somebody or other, God knows who, will eat them,
+as somebody or other will fell and sell the oaks I planted five-and-forty
+years ago.
+
+I hope our boys are well ; my respects to them both.  I am, with the
+greatest truth, your faithful and humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXVIII
+
+BATH, November 4,1770
+
+MADAM:  The post has been more favorable to you than I intended it
+should, for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I
+had received it.  However you have got a loss, as we say sometimes in
+Ireland.
+
+My friends from time to time require bills of health from me in these
+suspicious times, when the plague is busy in some parts of Europe.
+All I can say, in answer to their kind inquiries, is, that I have not the
+distemper properly called the plague; but that I have all the plague of
+old age and of a shattered carcass.  These waters have done me what
+little good I expected from them; though by no means what I could have
+wished, for I wished them to be 'les eaux de Jouvence'.
+
+I had a letter, the other day, from our two boys; Charles' was very
+finely written, and Philip's very prettily: they are perfectly well,
+and say that they want nothing.  What grown-up people will or can say as
+much?  I am, with the truest esteem, Madam, your most faithful servant.
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXIX
+
+BATH, October 27,1771.
+
+MADAM: Upon my word, you interest yourself in the state of my existence
+more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us.  I
+ordered my valet de chambre, according to your orders, to inform you of
+my safe arrival here; to which I can add nothing, being neither better
+nor worse than I was then.
+
+I am very glad that our boys are well.  Pray give them the inclosed.
+
+I am not at all surprised at Mr. ------'s conversion, for he was,
+at seventeen, the idol of old women, for his gravity, devotion, and
+dullness.  I am, Madam, your most faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXX
+
+TO CHARLES AND PHILIP STANHOPE
+
+I RECEIVED a few days ago two the best written letters that ever I saw in
+my life; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope.
+As for you Charles, I did not wonder at it; for you will take pains,
+and are a lover of letters; but you, idle rogue, you Phil, how came you
+to write so well that one can almost say of you two, 'et cantare pores et
+respondre parati'!  Charles will explain this Latin to you.
+
+I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your
+intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master
+Strangeways; for to be rude, you are a strange boy.  Is this true?
+
+Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will
+bring it you, when I come to town.  In the meantime, God bless you both!
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITORS BOOKMARKS:
+
+All I desire for my own burial is not to be buried alive . . . . . . .
+Anxiety for my health and life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Borough-jobber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Get what I can, if I cannot get what I will. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Horace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+I shall never know, though all the coffeehouses here do. . . . . . . .
+L'influenza. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Neither well nor ill, but UNWELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Read my eyes out every day, that I may not hang myself . . . . . . . .
+Stamp-act has proved a most pernicious measure . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Those who wish him the best, as I do, must wish him dead . . . . . . .
+Water-drinkers can write nothing good. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+Would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn. . . . . . . . . .
+Would not tell what she did not know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+#10 in our series by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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+Title: Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+
+Author: The Earl of Chesterfield
+
+Release Date: August, 2002  [Etext #3360]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 03/09/01]
+[Last modified date = 11/24/01]
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+Edition: 11
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+Language: English
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+*********This file should be named lc10s11.txt or lc10s11.zip*********
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+
+
+
+
+
+                           LETTERS TO HIS SON
+                                1766-71
+
+                      By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
+
+                     on the Fine Art of becoming a
+
+                            MAN OF THE WORLD
+
+                                 and a
+
+                               GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXIV
+
+LONDON, February 11, 1766
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received two days ago your letter of the 25th past;
+and your former, which you mention in it, but ten days ago; this may
+easily be accounted for from the badness of the weather, and consequently
+of the roads.  I hardly remember so severe a win ter; it has occasioned
+many illnesses here.  I am sure it pinched my crazy carcass so much that,
+about three weeks ago, I was obliged to be let blood twice in four days,
+which I found afterward was very necessary, by the relief it gave to my
+head and to the rheumatic pains in my limbs; and from the execrable kind
+of blood which I lost.
+
+Perhaps you expect from me a particular account of the present state of
+affairs here; but if you do you will be disappointed; for no man living
+(and I still less than anyone) knows what it is; it varies, not only
+daily, but hourly.
+
+Most people think, and I among the rest, that the date of the present
+Ministers is pretty near out; but how soon we are to have a new style,
+God knows.  This, however, is certain, that the Ministers had a contested
+election in the House of Commons, and got it but by eleven votes; too
+small a majority to carry anything; the next day they lost a question in
+the House of Lords, by three.  The question in the House of Lords was, to
+enforce the execution of the Stamp-act in the colonies 'vi et armis'.
+What conclusions you will draw from these premises, I do not know; but I
+protest I draw none; but only stare at the present undecipherable state
+of affairs, which, in fifty years' experience, I have never seen anything
+like.  The Stamp-act has proved a most pernicious measure; for, whether
+it is repealed or not, which is still very doubtful, it has given such
+terror to the Americans, that our trade with them will not be, for some
+years, what it used to be; and great numbers of our manufacturers at home
+will be turned a starving for want of that employment which our very
+profitable trade to America found them: and hunger is always the cause of
+tumults and sedition.
+
+As you have escaped a fit of the gout in this severe cold weather, it is
+to be hoped you may be entirely free from it, till next winter at least.
+
+P. S.  Lord having parted with his wife, now, keeps another w---e, at a
+great expense.  I fear he is totally undone.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXV
+
+LONDON, March 17, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  You wrong me in thinking me in your debt; for I never
+receive a letter of yours, but I answer it by the next post, or the next
+but one, at furthest: but I can easily conceive that my two last letters
+to you may have been drowned or frozen in their way; for portents and
+prodigies of frost, snow, and inundations, have been so frequent this
+winter, that they have almost lost their names.
+
+You tell me that you are going to the baths of BADEN; but that puzzles me
+a little, so I recommend this letter to the care of Mr. Larpent, to
+forward to you; for Baden I take to be the general German word for baths,
+and the particular ones are distinguished by some epithet, as Weissbaden,
+Carlsbaden, etc.  I hope they are not cold baths, which I have a very ill
+opinion of, in all arthritic or rheumatic cases; and your case I take to
+be a compound of both, but rather more of the latter.
+
+You will probably wonder that I tell you nothing of public matters; upon
+which I shall be as secret as Hotspur's gentle Kate, who would not tell
+what she did not know; but what is singular, nobody seems to know any
+more of them than I do.  People gape, stare, conjecture, and refine.
+Changes of the Ministry, or in the Ministry at least, are daily reported
+and foretold, but of what kind, God only knows.  It is also very doubtful
+whether Mr. Pitt will come into the Administration or not; the two
+present Secretaries are extremely desirous that he should; but the others
+think of the horse that called the man to its assistance.  I will say
+nothing to you about American affairs, because I have not pens, ink, or
+paper enough to give you an intelligible account of them.  They have been
+the subjects of warm and acrimonious debates, both in the Lords and
+Commons, and in all companies.
+
+The repeal of the Stamp-act is at last carried through.  I am glad of it,
+and gave my proxy for it, because I saw many more inconveniences from the
+enforcing than from the repealing it.
+
+Colonel Browne was with me the other day, and assured me that he left you
+very well.  He said he saw you at Spa, but I did not remember him; though
+I remember his two brothers, the Colonel and the ravisher, very well.
+Your Saxon colonel has the brogue exceedingly.  Present my respects to
+Count Flemming; I am very sorry for the Countess's illness; she was a
+most well-bred woman.
+
+You would hardly think that I gave a dinner to the Prince of Brunswick,
+your old acquaintance.  I glad it is over; but I could not avoid it.
+'Il m'avait tabli de politesses'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXVI
+
+BLACKHEATH, June 13, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past.
+I waited with impatience for it, not having received one from you in six
+weeks; nor your mother neither, who began to be very sure that you were
+dead, if not buried.  You should write to her once a week, or at least
+once a-fortnight; for women make no allowance either for business or
+laziness; whereas I can, by experience, make allowances for both:
+however, I wish you would generally write to me once a fortnight.
+
+Last week I paid my midsummer offering, of five hundred pounds, to Mr.
+Larpent, for your use, as I suppose he has informed you.  I am punctual,
+you must allow.
+
+What account shall I give you of ministerial affairs here?  I protest I
+do not know: your own description of them is as exact a one as any I,
+who am upon the place, can give you.  It is a total dislocation and
+'derangement'; consequently a total inefficiency.  When the Duke of
+Grafton quitted the seals, he gave that very reason for it, in a speech
+in the House of Lords: he declared, "that he had no objection to the
+persons or the measures of the present Ministers; but that he thought
+they wanted strength and efficiency to carry on proper measures with
+success; and that he knew but one man MEANING, AS YOU WILL EASILY
+SUPPOSE, MR. PITT who could give them strength and solidity; that, under
+this person, he should be willing to serve in any capacity, not only as a
+General Officer, but as a pioneer; and would take up a spade and a
+mattock."  When he quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord
+Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke; who both declined them, probably for the
+same reasons that made the Duke of Grafton resign them; but after their
+going a-begging for some time, the Duke of ------- begged them, and has
+them 'faute de mieux'.  Lord Mountstuart was never thought of for Vienna,
+where Lord Stormont returns in three months; the former is going to be
+married to one of the Miss Windsors, a great fortune.  To tell you the
+speculations, the reasonings, and the conjectures, either of the
+uninformed, or even of the best-informed public, upon the present
+wonderful situation of affairs, would take up much more time and paper
+than either you or I can afford, though we have neither of us a great
+deal of business at present.
+
+I am in as good health as I could reasonably expect, at my age, and with
+my shattered carcass; that is, from the waist upward; but downward it is
+not the same: for my limbs retain that stiffness and debility of my long
+rheumatism; I cannot walk half an hour at a time.  As the autumn, and
+still more as the winter approaches, take care to keep yourself very
+warm, especially your legs and feet.
+
+Lady Chesterfield sends you her compliments, and triumphs in the success
+of her plaster.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXVII
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 11, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a happy mortal, to have your time thus employed
+between the great and the fair; I hope you do the honors of your country
+to the latter.  The Emperor, by your account, seems to be very well for
+an emperor; who, by being above the other monarchs in Europe, may justly
+be supposed to have had a proportionably worse education.  I find, by
+your account of him, that he has been trained up to homicide, the only
+science in which princes are ever instructed; and with good reason, as
+their greatness and glory singly depend upon the numbers of their fellow-
+creatures which their ambition exterminates.  If a sovereign should, by
+great accident, deviate into moderation, justice, and clemency, what a
+contemptible figure would he make in the catalogue of princes! I have
+always owned a great regard for King Log.  From the interview at Torgaw,
+between the two monarchs, they will be either a great deal better or
+worse together; but I think rather the latter; for our namesake, Philip
+de Co mines, observes, that he never knew any good come from
+l'abouchement des Rois.  The King of Prussia will exert all his
+perspicacity to analyze his Imperial Majesty; and I would bet upon the
+one head of his black eagle, against the two heads of the Austrian eagle;
+though two heads are said, proverbially, to be better than one.  I wish I
+had the direction of both the monarchs, and they should, together with
+some of their allies, take Lorraine and Alsace from France.  You will
+call me 'l'Abbe de St. Pierre'; but I only say what I wish; whereas he
+thought everything that he wished practicable.
+
+Now to come home.  Here are great bustles at Court, and a great change of
+persons is certainly very near.  You will ask me, perhaps, who is to be
+out, and who is to be in?  To which I answer, I do not know.  My
+conjecture is that, be the new settlement what it will, Mr. Pitt will be
+at the head of it.  If he is, I presume, 'qu'il aura mis de l'eau dans
+son vin par rapport a Mylord B-----; when that shall come to be known,
+as known it certainly will soon be, he may bid adieu to his popularity.
+A minister, as minister, is very apt to be the object of public dislike;
+and a favorite, as favorite, still more so.  If any event of this kind
+happens, which (if it happens at all) I conjecture will be some time next
+week, you shall hear further from me.
+
+I will follow your advice, and be as well as I can next winter, though I
+know I shall never be free from my flying rheumatic pains, as long as I
+live; but whether that will be more or less, is extremely indifferent to
+me; in either case,
+God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXVIII
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 1, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The curtain was at last drawn up, the day before
+yesterday, and discovered the new actors, together with some of the old
+ones.  I do not name them to you, because to-morrow's Gazette will do it
+full as well as I could.  Mr. Pitt, who had carte blanche given him,
+named everyone of them: but what would you think he named himself for?
+Lord Privy Seal; and (what will astonish you, as it does every mortal
+here) Earl of Chatham.  The joke here is, that he has had A FALL UP
+STAIRS, and has done himself so much hurt, that he will never be able to
+stand upon his leg's again.  Everybody is puzzled how to account for this
+step; though it would not be the first time that great abilities have
+been duped by low cunning.  But be it what it will, he is now certainly
+only Earl of Chatham; and no longer Mr. Pitt, in any respect whatever.
+Such an event, I believe, was never read nor heard of.  To withdraw,
+in the fullness of his power and in the utmost gratification of his
+ambition, from the House of Commons (which procured him his power, and
+which could alone insure it to him), and to go into that hospital of
+incurables, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable, that
+nothing but proof positive could have made me believe it: but true it is.
+Hans Stanley is to go Ambassador to Russia; and my nephew, Ellis, to
+Spain, decorated with the red riband.  Lord Shelburne is your Secretary
+of State, which I suppose he has notified to you this post, by a circular
+letter.  Charles Townshend has now the sole management of the House of
+Commons; but how long he will be content to be only Lord Chatham's
+vicegerent there, is a question which I will not pretend to decide.
+There is one very bad sign for Lord Chatham, in his new dignity; which
+is, that all his enemies, without exception, rejoice at it; and all his
+friends are stupefied and dumbfounded.  If I mistake not much, he will,
+in the course of a year, enjoy perfect 'otium cum dignitate'.  Enough of
+politics.
+
+Is the fair, or at least the fat, Miss C---- with you still?  It must be
+confessed that she knows the arts of courts, to be so received at
+Dresden, and so connived at in Leicester-fields.
+
+There never was so wet a summer as this has been, in the memory of man;
+we have not had one single day, since March, without some rain; but most
+days a great deal.  I hope that does not affect your health, as great
+cold does; for, with all these inundations, it has not been cold.  God
+bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCLXXXIX
+
+BLACKHEATH, August 14, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday your letter of the 30th past, and I
+find by it that it crossed mine upon the road, where they had no time to
+take notice of one another.
+
+The newspapers have informed you, before now, of the changes actually
+made; more will probably follow, but what, I am sure, I cannot tell you;
+and I believe nobody can, not even those who are to make them: they will,
+I suppose, be occasional, as people behave themselves.  The causes and
+consequences of Mr. Pitt's quarrel now appear in print, in a pamphlet
+published by Lord T------; and in a refutation of it, not by Mr. Pitt
+himself, I believe, but by some friend of his, and under his sanction.
+The former is very scurrilous and scandalous, and betrays private
+conversation. My Lord says, that in his last conference, he thought he
+had as good a right to nominate the new Ministry as Mr. Pitt, and
+consequently named Lord G-----, Lord L------, etc., for Cabinet Council
+employments; which Mr. Pitt not consenting to, Lord T----- broke up the
+conference, and in his wrath went to Stowe; where I presume he may remain
+undisturbed a great while, since Mr. Pitt will neither be willing nor
+able to send for him again.  The pamphlet, on the part of Mr. Pitt, gives
+an account of his whole political life; and, in that respect, is tedious
+to those who were acquainted with it before; but, at the latter end,
+there is an article that expresses such supreme contempt of Lord T-----,
+and in so pretty a manner, that I suspect it to be Mr. Pitt's own: you
+shall judge yourself, for I here transcribe the article: "But this I will
+be bold to say, that had he (Lord T-----) not fastened himself into
+Mr. Pitt's train, and acquired thereby such an interest in that great
+man, he might have crept out of life with as little notice as he crept
+in; and gone off with no other degree of credit, than that of adding a
+single unit to the bills of mortality"  I wish I could send you all the
+pamphlets and half-sheets that swarm here upon this occasion; but that is
+impossible; for every week would make a ship's cargo.  It is certain,
+that Mr. Pitt has, by his dignity of Earl, lost the greatest part of his
+popularity, especially in the city; and I believe the Opposition will be
+very strong, and perhaps prevail, next session, in the House of Commons;
+there being now nobody there who can have the authority and ascendant
+over them that Pitt had.
+
+People tell me here, as young Harvey told you at Dresden, that I look
+very well; but those are words of course, which everyone says to
+everybody.  So far is true, that I am better than at my age, and with my
+broken constitution, I could have expected to be.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXC
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 12, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 27th past.
+I was in hopes that your course of waters this year at Baden would have
+given you a longer reprieve from your painful complaint.  If I do not
+mistake, you carried over with you some of Dr. Monsey's powders.  Have
+you taken any of them, and have they done you any good?  I know they did
+me a great deal.  I, who pretend to some skill in physic, advise a cool
+regimen, and cooling medicines.
+
+I do not wonder, that you do wonder, at Lord C-----'s conduct.  If he was
+not outwitted into his peerage by Lord B----, his accepting it is utterly
+inexplicable.  The instruments he has chosen for the great office,
+I believe, will never fit the same case.  It was cruel to put such a boy
+as Lord G--- over the head of old Ligonier; and if I had been the former,
+I would have refused that commission, during the life of that honest and
+brave old general.  All this to quiet the Duke of R---- to a resignation,
+and to make Lord B---- Lieutenant of Ireland, where, I will venture to
+prophesy, that he will not do.  Ligonier was much pressed to give up his
+regiment of guards, but would by no means do it; and declared that the
+King might break him if he pleased, but that he would certainly not break
+himself.
+
+I have no political events to inform you of; they will not be ripe till
+the meeting of the parliament.  Immediately upon the receipt of this
+letter, write me one, to acquaint me how you are.
+
+God bless you; and, particularly, may He send you health, for that is the
+greatest blessing!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCI
+
+BLACKHEATH, September 30, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, yesterday, with great pleasure, your letter
+of the 18th, by which I consider this last ugly bout as over; and, to
+prevent its return, I greatly approve of your plan for the south of
+France, where I recommend for your principal residence, Pezenas Toulouse,
+or Bordeaux; but do not be persuaded to go to Aix en Provence, which, by
+experience, I know to be at once the hottest and the coldest place in the
+world, from the ardor of the Provencal sun, and the sharpness of the
+Alpine winds.  I also earnestly recommend to you, for your complaint upon
+your breast, to take, twice a-day, asses' or (what is better mares' milk),
+and that for these six months at least.  Mingle turnips, as much as you
+can, with your diet.
+
+I have written, as you desired, to Mr. Secretary Conway; but I will
+answer for it that there will be no difficulty to obtain the leave you
+ask.
+
+There is no new event in the political world since my last; so God bless
+you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCII
+
+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!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCIII
+
+BATH, November 15, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 5th
+instant from Basle.  I am very glad to find that your breast is relieved,
+though perhaps at the expense of your legs: for, if the humor be either
+gouty or rheumatic, it had better be in your legs than anywhere else.
+I have consulted Moisy, the great physician of this place, upon it; who
+says, that at this distance he dares not prescribe anything, as there may
+be such different causes for your complaint, which must be well weighed
+by a physician upon the spot; that is, in short, that he knows nothing of
+the matter.  I will therefore tell you my own case, in 1732, which may be
+something parallel to yours.  I had that year been dangerously ill of a
+fever in Holland; and when I was recovered of it, the febrific humor fell
+into my legs, and swelled them to that degree, and chiefly in the
+evening, that it was as painful to me as it was shocking to others.
+I came to England with them in this condition; and consulted Mead,
+Broxholme, and Arbuthnot, who none of them did me the least good; but,
+on the contrary, increased the swelling, by applying poultices and
+emollients.  In this condition I remained near six months, till finding
+that the doctors could do me no good, I resolved to consult Palmer, the
+most eminent surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital.  He immediately told me
+that the physicians had pursued a very wrong method, as the swelling of
+my legs proceeded only from a relaxation and weakness of the cutaneous
+vessels; and he must apply strengtheners instead of emollients.
+Accordingly, he ordered me to put my legs up to the knees every morning
+in brine from the salters, as hot as I could bear it; the brine must have
+had meat salted in it.  I did so; and after having thus pickled my legs
+for about three weeks, the complaint absolutely ceased, and I have never
+had the least swelling in them since.  After what I have said, I must
+caution you not to use the same remedy rashly, and without the most
+skillful advice you can find, where you are; for if your swelling
+proceeds from a gouty, or rheumatic humor, there may be great danger in
+applying so powerful an astringent, and perhaps REPELLANT as brine.  So
+go piano, and not without the best advice, upon a view of the parts.
+
+I shall direct all my letters to you 'Chez Monsieur Sarraxin', who by his
+trade is, I suppose, 'sedentaire' at Basle, while it is not sure that you
+will be at any one place in the south of France.  Do you know that he is
+a descendant of the French poet Sarrazin?
+
+Poor Harte, whom I frequently go to see here, out of compassion, is in a
+most miserable way; he has had a stroke of the palsy, which has deprived
+him of the use of his right leg, affected his speech a good deal, and
+perhaps his head a little.  Such are the intermediate tributes that we
+are forced to pay, in some shape or other, to our wretched nature, till
+we pay the last great one of all.  May you pay this very late, and as few
+intermediate tributes as possible; and so 'jubeo te bene valere'.  God
+bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCIV
+
+BATH, December 9, 1766.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, two days ago, your letter of the 26th past.
+I am very glad that you begin to feel the good effects of the climate
+where you are; I know it saved my life, in 1741, when both the skillful
+and the unskillful gave me over.  In that ramble I stayed three or four
+days at Nimes, where there are more remains of antiquity, I believe, than
+in any town in Europe, Italy excepted.  What is falsely called 'la maison
+quarree', is, in my mind, the finest piece of architecture that I ever
+saw; and the amphitheater the clumsiest and the ugliest: if it were in
+England, everybody would swear it had been built by Sir John Vanbrugh.
+
+This place is now, just what you have seen it formerly; here is a great
+crowd of trifling and unknown people, whom I seldom frequent, in the
+public rooms; so that I may pass my time 'tres uniment', in taking the
+air in my post-chaise every morning, and in reading of evenings.
+And 'a propos' of the latter, I shall point out a book, which I believe
+will give you some pleasure; at least it gave me a great deal.  I never
+read it before.  It is 'Reflexions sur la Poesie et la Peinture, par
+l'Abbee de Bos', in two octavo volumes; and is, I suppose, to be had at
+every great town in France.  The criticisms and the reflections are just
+and lively.
+
+It may be you expect some political news from me: but I can tell you that
+you will have none, for no mortal can comprehend the present state of
+affairs.  Eight or nine people of some consequence have resigned their
+employments; upon which Lord C----- made overtures to the Duke of B-----
+and his people; but they could by no means agree, and his Grace went,
+the next day, full of wrath, to Woburn, so that negotiation is entirely
+at an end.  People wait to see who Lord C----- will take in, for some he
+must have; even HE cannot be alone, 'contra mundum'.  Such a state of
+affairs, to be sure, was never seen before, in this or in any other
+country.  When this Ministry shall be settled, it will be the sixth
+Ministry in six years' time.
+
+Poor Harte is here, and in a most miserable condition; those who wish him
+the best, as I do, must wish him dead.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCV
+
+LONDON, February 13, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: It is so long since I have had a letter from you, that I
+am alarmed about your health; and fear that the southern parts of France
+have not done so well by you as they did by me in the year 1741, when
+they snatched me from the jaws of death.  Let me know, upon the receipt
+of this letter, how you are, and where you are.
+
+I have no news to send you from hence; for everything seems suspended,
+both in the court and in the parliament, till Lord Chatham's return from
+the Bath, where he has been laid up this month, by a severe fit of the
+gout; and, at present, he has the sole apparent power.  In what little
+business has hitherto been done in the House of Commons, Charles
+Townshend has given himself more ministerial airs than Lord Chatham will,
+I believe, approve of.  However, since Lord Chatham has thought fit to
+withdraw himself from that House, he cannot well do without Charles'
+abilities to manage it as his deputy.
+
+I do not send you an account of weddings, births, and burials, as I take
+it for granted that you know them all from the English printed papers;
+some of which, I presume, are sent after you.  Your old acquaintance,
+Lord Essex, is to be married this week to Harriet Bladen, who has L20,000
+down, besides the reasonable expectation of as much at the death of her
+father.  My kinsman, Lord Strathmore, is to be married in a fortnight,
+to Miss Bowes, the greatest heiress perhaps in Europe.  In short, the
+matrimonial frenzy seems to rage at present, and is epidemical.  The men
+marry for money, and I believe you guess what the women marry for.  God
+bless you, and send you health!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCVI
+
+LONDON, March 3, 1767
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received two letters at once from you, both
+dated Montpellier; one of the 29th of last December, and the other the
+12th of February: but I cannot conceive what became of my letters to you;
+for, I assure you, that I answered all yours the next post after I
+received them; and, about ten days ago, I wrote you a volunteer, because
+you had been so long silent, and I was afraid that you were not well;
+but your letter of the 12th of February has removed all my fears upon
+that score.  The same climate that has restored your health so far will
+probably, in a little more time, restore your strength too; though you
+must not expect it to be quite what it was before your late painful
+complaints.  At least I find that, since my late great rheumatism,
+I cannot walk above half an hour at a time, which I do not place singly
+to the account of my years, but chiefly to the great shock given then to
+my limbs. 'D'ailleurs' I am pretty well for my age and shattered
+constitution.
+
+As I told you in my last, I must tell you again in this, that I have no
+news to send.  Lord Chatham, at last, came to town yesterday, full of
+gout, and is not able to stir hand or foot.  During his absence, Charles
+Townshend has talked of him, and at him, in such a manner, that
+henceforward they must be either much worse or much better together than
+ever they were in their lives.  On Friday last, Mr. Dowdeswell and Mr.
+Grenville moved to have one shilling in the pound of the land tax taken
+off; which was opposed by the Court; but the Court lost it by eighteen.
+The Opposition triumph much upon this victory; though, I think, without
+reason; for it is plain that all the landed gentlemen bribed themselves
+with this shilling in the pound.
+
+The Duke of Buccleugh is very soon to be married to Lady Betty Montague.
+Lord Essex was married yesterday, to Harriet Bladen; and Lord
+Strathmore, last week, to Miss Bowes; both couples went directly from the
+church to consummation in the country, from an unnecessary fear that they
+should not be tired of each other if they stayed in town.  And now
+'dixi'; God bless you!
+
+You are in the right to go to see the assembly of the states of,
+Languedoc, though they are but the shadow of the original Etats, while
+there was some liberty subsisting in France.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCVII
+
+LONDON, April 6, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter from Nimes, by which I
+find that several of our letters have reciprocally miscarried.  This may
+probably have the same fate; however, if it reaches Monsieur Sarrazin, I
+presume he will know where to take his aim at you; for I find you are in
+motion, and with a polarity to Dresden.  I am very glad to find by it,
+that your meridional journey has perfectly recovered you, as to your
+general state of health; for as to your legs and thighs, you must never
+expect that they will be restored to their original strength and
+activity, after so many rheumatic attacks as you have had.  I know that
+my limbs, besides the natural debility of old age, have never recovered
+the severe attack of rheumatism that plagued me five or six years ago.
+I cannot now walk above half an hour at a time and even that in a
+hobbling kind of way.
+
+I can give you no account of our political world, which is in a situation
+that I never saw in my whole life.  Lord Chatham has been so ill, these
+last two months, that he has not been able (some say not willing) to do
+or hear of any business, and for his 'sous Ministres', they either
+cannot, or dare not, do any, without his directions; so everything is now
+at a stand.  This situation, I think, cannot last much longer, and if
+Lord Chatham should either quit his post, or the world, neither of which
+is very improbable, I conjecture, that which is called the Rockingham
+Connection stands the fairest for the Ministry.  But this is merely my
+conjecture, for I have neither 'data' nor 'postulata' enough to reason
+upon.
+
+When you get to Dresden, which I hope you will not do till next month,
+our correspondence will be more regular.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCVIII
+
+LONDON, May 5, 1767,
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: By your letter of the 25th past, from Basle, I presume
+this will find you at Dresden, and accordingly I direct to you there.
+When you write me word that you are at Dresden, I will return you an
+answer, with something better than the answer itself.
+
+If you complain of the weather, north of Besancon, what would you say to
+the weather that we have had here for these last two months,
+uninterruptedly?  Snow often, northeast wind constantly, and extreme
+cold.  I write this by the side of a good fire; and at this moment it
+snows very hard.  All my promised fruit at Blackheath is quite destroyed;
+and, what is worse, many of my trees.
+
+I cannot help thinking that the King of Poland, the Empress of Russia,
+and the King of Prussia, 's'entendent comme larrons en foire', though the
+former must not appear in it upon account of the stupidity, ignorance,
+and bigotry of his Poles.  I have a great opinion of the cogency of the
+controversial arguments of the Russian troops, in favor of the
+Dissidents: I am sure I wish them success; for I would have all
+intoleration intolerated in its turn.  We shall soon see more clearly
+into this matter; for I do not think that the Autocratrice of all the
+Russias will be trifled with by the Sarmatians.
+
+What do you think of the late extraordinary event in Spain?  Could you
+have ever imagined that those ignorant Goths would have dared to banish
+the Jesuits?  There must have been some very grave and important reasons
+for so extraordinary a measure: but what they were I do not pretend to
+guess; and perhaps I shall never know, though all the coffeehouses here
+do.
+
+Things are here in exactly the same situation, in which they were when I
+wrote to you last.  Lord Chatham is still ill, and only goes abroad for
+an hour in a day, to take the air, in his coach.  The King has, to my
+certain knowledge, sent him repeated messages, desiring him not to be
+concerned at his confinement, for that he is resolved to support him,
+'pour et contre tous'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCXCIX
+
+LONDON, June 1, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I received yesterday your letter of the 20th past, from
+Dresden, where I am glad to find that you are arrived safe and sound.
+This has been everywhere an 'annus mirabilis' for bad weather, and it
+continues here still.  Everybody has fires, and their winter clothes,
+as at Christmas.  The town is extremely sickly; and sudden deaths have
+been very frequent.
+
+I do not know what to say to you upon public matters; things remain in
+'statu quo', and nothing is done.  Great changes are talked of, and,
+I believe, will happen soon, perhaps next week; but who is to be changed,
+for whom, I do not know, though everybody else does.  I am apt to think
+that it will be a mosaic Ministry, made up 'de pieces rapportees' from
+different connections.
+
+Last Friday I sent your subsidy to Mr. Larpent, who, I suppose, has given
+you notice of it.  I believe it will come very seasonably, as all places,
+both foreign and domestic, are so far in arrears.  They talk of paying
+you all up to Christmas.  The King's inferior servants are almost
+starving.
+
+I suppose you have already heard, at Dresden, that Count Bruhl is either
+actually married, or very soon to be so, to Lady Egremont.  She has,
+together with her salary as Lady of the Bed-chamber, L2,500 a year,
+besides ten thousand pounds in money left her, at her own disposal, by
+Lord Egremont.  All this will sound great 'en ecus d'Allemagne'.  I am
+glad of it, for he is a very pretty man.  God bless you!
+
+I easily conceive why Orloff influences the Empress of all the Russias;
+but I cannot see why the King of Prussia should be influenced by that
+motive.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCC
+
+BLACKHEATH, JULY 2, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Though I have had no letter from you since my last, and
+though I have no political news to inform you of, I write this to
+acquaint you with a piece of Greenwich news, which I believe you will be
+very glad of; I am sure I am.  Know then that your friend Miss ----- was
+happily married, three days ago, to Mr. -------, an Irish gentleman,
+and a member of that parliament, with an estate of above L2,000 a-year.
+He settles upon her L600 jointure, and in case they have no children,
+L1,500.  He happened to be by chance in her company one day here, and was
+at once shot dead by her charms; but as dead men sometimes walk, he
+walked to her the next morning, and tendered her his person and his
+fortune; both which, taking the one with the other, she very prudently
+accepted, for his person is sixty years old.
+
+Ministerial affairs are still in the same ridiculous and doubtful
+situation as when I wrote to you last.  Lord Chatham will neither hear
+of, nor do any business, but lives at Hampstead, and rides about the
+heath.  His gout is said to be fallen upon his nerves.  Your provincial
+secretary, Conway, quits this week, and returns to the army, for which he
+languished.  Two Lords are talked of to succeed him; Lord Egmont and Lord
+Hillsborough: I rather hope the latter.  Lord Northington certainly quits
+this week; but nobody guesses who is to succeed him as President.  A
+thousand other changes are talked of, which I neither believe nor reject.
+
+Poor Harte is in a most miserable condition: He has lost one side of
+himself, and in a great measure his speech; notwithstanding which, he is
+going to publish his DIVINE POEMS, as he calls them.  I am sorry for it,
+as he had not time to correct them before this stroke, nor abilities to
+do it since.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCI
+
+BLACKHEATH, July 9, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have received yours of the 21st past, with the inclosed
+proposal from the French 'refugies, for a subscription toward building
+them 'un temple'.  I have shown it to the very few people I see, but
+without the least success.  They told me (and with too much truth) that
+while such numbers of poor were literally starving here from the dearness
+of all provisions, they could not think of sending their money into
+another country, for a building which they reckoned useless.  In truth,
+I never knew such misery as is here now; and it affects both the hearts
+and the purses of those who have either; for my own part, I never gave to
+a building in my life; which I reckon is only giving to masons and
+carpenters, and the treasurer of the undertaking.
+
+Contrary to the expectations of all mankind here, everything still
+continues in 'statu quo'.  General Conway has been desired by the King
+to keep the seals till he has found a successor for him, and the Lord
+President the same.  Lord Chatham is relapsed, and worse than ever: he
+sees nobody, and nobody sees him: it is said that a bungling physician
+has checked his gout, and thrown it upon his nerves; which is the worst
+distemper that a minister or a lover can have, as it debilitates the mind
+of the former and the body of the latter.  Here is at present an
+interregnum.  We must soon see what order will be produced from this
+chaos.
+
+The Electorate, I believe, will find the want of Comte Flemming; for he
+certainly had abilities, and was as sturdy and inexorable as a Minister
+at the head of the finances ought always to be.  When you see Comtesse
+Flemming, which I suppose cannot be for some time, pray make her Lady
+Chesterfield's and my compliments of condolence.
+
+You say that Dresden is very sickly; I am sure London is at least as
+sickly now, for there reigns an epidemical distemper, called by the
+genteel name of 'l'influenza'.  It is a little fever, of which scarcely
+anybody dies; and it generally goes off with a little looseness.  I have
+escaped it, I believe, by being here.  God keep you from all distempers,
+and bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCII
+
+LONDON, October 30, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: I have now left Blackheath, till the next summer, if I
+live till then; and am just able to write, which is all I can say, for I
+am extremely weak, and have in a great measure lost the use of my legs;
+I hope they will recover both flesh and strength, for at present they
+have neither.  I go to the Bath next week, in hopes of half repairs at
+most; for those waters, I am sure, will not prove Medea's kettle, nor
+'les eaux de Jouvence' to me; however, I shall do as good courtiers do,
+and get what I can, if I cannot get what I will.  I send you no politics,
+for here are neither politics nor ministers; Lord Chatham is quiet at
+Pynsent, in Somersetshire, and his former subalterns do nothing, so that
+nothing is done.  Whatever places or preferments are disposed of, come
+evidently from Lord -------, who affects to be invisible; and who, like a
+woodcock, thinks that if his head is but hid, he is not seen at all.
+
+General Pulteney is at last dead, last week, worth above thirteen hundred
+thousand pounds.  He has left all his landed estate, which is eight and
+twenty thousand pounds a-year, including the Bradford estate, which his
+brother had from that ancient family, to a cousin-german.  He has left
+two hundred thousand pounds, in the funds, to Lord Darlington, who was
+his next nearest relation; and at least twenty thousand pounds in various
+legacies.  If riches alone could make people happy, the last two
+proprietors of this immense wealth ought to have been so, but they never
+were.
+
+God bless you, and send you good health, which is better than all the
+riches of the world!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCIII
+
+LONDON, November 3, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  Your last letter brought me but a scurvy account of your
+health.  For the headaches you complain of, I will venture to prescribe a
+remedy, which, by experience, I found a specific, when I was extremely
+plagued with them.  It is either to chew ten grains of rhubarb every
+night going to bed: or, what I think rather better, to take, immediately
+before dinner, a couple of rhubarb pills, of five grains each; by which
+means it mixes with the aliments, and will, by degrees, keep your body
+gently open.  I do it to this day, and find great good by it.  As you
+seem to dread the approach of a German winter, I would advise you to
+write to General Conway, for leave of absence for the three rigorous
+winter months, which I dare say will not be refused.  If you choose a
+worse climate, you may come to London; but if you choose a better and a
+warmer, you may go to Nice en Provence, where Sir William Stanhope is
+gone to pass his winter, who, I am sure, will be extremely glad of your
+company there.
+
+I go to the Bath next Saturday.  'Utinam de frustra'.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCIV
+
+BATH, September 19, 1767.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Yesterday I received your letter of the 29th past, and am
+very glad to find that you are well enough to think that you may perhaps
+stand the winter at Dresden; but if you do, pray take care to keep both
+your body and your limbs exceedingly warm.
+
+As to my own health, it is, in general, as good as I could expect it, at
+my age; I have a good stomach, a good digestion, and sleep well; but find
+that I shall never recover the free use of my legs, which are now full as
+weak as when I first came hither.
+
+You ask me questions concerning Lord C------, which neither I, nor,
+I believe, anybody but himself can answer; however, I will tell you all
+that I do know, and all that I guess, concerning him.  This time
+twelvemonth he was here, and in good health and spirits, except now and
+then some little twinges of the gout.  We saw one another four or five
+times, at our respective houses; but for these last eight months, he has
+been absolutely invisible to his most intimate friends, 'les sous
+Ministres': he would receive no letters, nor so much as open any packet
+about business.
+
+His physician, Dr. -----, as I am told, had, very ignorantly, checked
+a coming fit of the gout, and scattered it about his body; and it fell
+particularly upon his nerves, so that he continues exceedingly vaporish;
+and would neither see nor speak to anybody while he was here.  I sent him
+my compliments, and asked leave to wait upon him; but he sent me word
+that he was too ill to see anybody whatsoever.  I met him frequently
+taking the air in his post-chaise, and he looked very well.  He set out
+from hence for London last Tuesday; but what to do, whether to resume, or
+finally to resign the Administration, God knows; conjectures are various.
+In one of our conversations here, this time twelvemonth, I desired him to
+secure you a seat in the new parliament; he assured me that he would,
+and, I am convinced, very sincerely; he said even that he would make it
+his own affair; and desired that I would give myself no more trouble
+about it.  Since that, I have heard no more of it; which made me look out
+for some venal borough and I spoke to a borough-jobber, and offered five-
+and-twenty hundred pounds for a secure seat in parliament; but he laughed
+at my offer, and said that there was no such thing as a borough to be had
+now, for that the rich East and West Indians had secured them all, at the
+rate of three thousand pounds at least; but many at four thousand, and
+two or three that he knew, at five thousand.  This, I confess, has vexed
+me a good deal; and made me the more impatient to know whether Lord C----
+had done anything in it; which I shall know when I go to town, as I
+propose to do in about a fortnight; and as soon as I know it you shall.
+To tell you truly what I think--I doubt, from all this NERVOUS DISORDER
+that Lord C----- is hors de combat, as a Minister; but do not ever hint
+this to anybody.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CC
+
+BATH, December 27, 1767.  'En nova progenies'!
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: The outlines of a new Ministry are now declared, but they
+are not yet quite filled up; it was formed by the Duke of Bedford.  Lord
+Gower is made President of the Council, Lord Sandwich, Postmaster, Lord
+Hillsborough, Secretary of State for America only, Mr. Rigby, Vice-
+treasurer of Ireland.  General Canway is to keep the seals a fortnight
+longer, and then to surrender them to Lord Weymouth.  It is very
+uncertain whether the Duke of Grafton is to continue at the head of the
+Treasury or not; but, in my private opinion, George Grenville will very
+soon be there.  Lord Chatham seems to be out of the question, and is at
+his repurchased house at Hayes, where he will not see a mortal.  It is
+yet uncertain whether Lord Shelburne is to keep his place; if not, Lord
+Sandwich they say is to succeed him.  All the Rockingham people are
+absolutely excluded.  Many more changes must necessarily be, but no more
+are yet declared.  It seems to be a resolution taken by somebody that
+Ministers are to be annual.
+
+Sir George Macartney is next week to be married to Lady Jane Stuart, Lord
+Bute's second daughter.
+
+I never knew it so cold in my life as it is now, and with a very deep
+snow; by which, if it continues, I may be snow-bound here for God knows
+how long, though I proposed leaving this place the latter end of the
+week.
+
+Poor Harte is very ill here; he mentions you often, and with great
+affection.  God bless you!
+
+When I know more you shall.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCVI
+
+LONDON, January 29, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND: Two days ago I received your letter of the 8th.  I wish
+you had gone a month or six weeks sooner to Basle, that you might have
+escaped the excessive cold of the most severe winter that I believe  was
+ever known.  It congealed both my body and my mind, and scarcely left me
+the power of thinking.  A great many here, both in town and country, have
+perished by the frost, and been lost in the snow.
+
+You have heard, no doubt, of the changes at Court, by which you have got
+a new provincial, Lord Weymouth; who has certainly good parts, and, as I
+am informed, speaks very well in the House of Lords; but I believe he has
+no application.  Lord Chatham is at his house at Hayes; but sees no
+mortal.  Some say that he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do
+him good; but many think that his worst complaint is in his head, which I
+am afraid is too true.  Were he well, I am sure he would realize the
+promise he made me concerning you; but, however, in that uncertainty,
+I am looking out for any chance borough; and if I can find one, I promise
+you I will bid like a chapman for it, as I should be very sorry that you
+were not in the next parliament.  I do not see any probability of any
+vacancy in a foreign commission in a better climate; Mr. Hamilton at
+Naples, Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and George Pitt at Turin, do not
+seem likely to make one.  And as for changing your foreign department for
+a domestic one, it would not be in my power to procure you one; and you
+would become 'd'eveque munier', and gain nothing in point of climate, by
+changing a bad one for another full as bad, if not worse; and a worse I
+believe is not than ours.  I have always had better health abroad than at
+home; and if the tattered remnant of my wretched life were worth my care,
+I would have been in the south of France long ago.  I continue very lame
+and weak, and despair of ever recovering any strength in my legs.  I care
+very little about it.  At my age every man must have his share of
+physical ills of one kind or another; and mine, thank God, are not very
+painful.  God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCVII
+
+LONDON, March 12, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  The day after I received your letter of the 21st past,
+I wrote to Lord Weymouth, as you desired; and I send you his answer
+inclosed, from which (though I have not heard from him since) I take it
+for granted, and so may you, that his silence signifies his Majesty's
+consent to your request.  Your complicated complaints give me great
+uneasiness, and the more, as I am convinced that the Montpellier
+physicians have mistaken a material part of your case; as indeed all the
+physicians here did, except Dr. Maty.  In my opinion, you have no gout,
+but a very scorbutic and rheumatic habit of body, which should be treated
+in a very different manner from the gout; and, as I pretend to be a very
+good quack at least, I would prescribe to you a strict milk diet, with
+the seeds, such as rice, sago, barley, millet, etc., for the three summer
+months at least, and without ever tasting wine.  If climate signifies
+anything (in which, by the way, I have very little faith), you are, in my
+mind, in the finest climate in the world; neither too hot nor too cold,
+and always clear; you are with the gayest people living; be gay with
+them, and do not wear out your eyes with reading at home.  'L'ennui' is
+the English distemper: and a very bad one it is, as I find by every day's
+experience; for my deafness deprives me of the only rational pleasure
+that I can have at my age, which is society; so that I read my eyes out
+every day, that I may not hang myself.
+
+You will not be in this parliament, at least not at the beginning of it.
+I relied too much upon Lord C-----'s promise above a year ago at Bath.
+He desired that I would leave it to him; that he would make it his own
+affair, and give it in charge to the Duke of G----, whose province it was
+to make the parliamentary arrangement.  This I depended upon, and I think
+with reason; but, since that, Lord C has neither seen nor spoken to
+anybody, and has been in the oddest way in the world.  I have sent to the
+D----- of G------, to know if L----- C---- had either spoken or sent to
+him about it; but he assured me that he had done neither; that all was
+full, or rather running over, at present; but that, if he could crowd you
+in upon a vacancy, he would do it with great pleasure.  I am extremely
+sorry for this accident; for I am of a very different opinion from you,
+about being in parliament, as no man can be of consequence in this
+country, who is not in it; and, though one may not speak like a Lord
+Mansfield or a Lord Chatham, one may make a very good figure in a second
+rank.  'Locus est et pluribus umbris'.  I do not pretend to give you any
+account of the present state of this country, or Ministry, not knowing
+nor guessing it myself.
+
+God bless you, and send you health, which is the first and greatest of
+all blessings!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCVIII
+
+LONDON, March 15, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  This letter is supplemental to my, last.  This morning
+Lord Weymouth very civilly sent Mr. Wood, his first 'commis', to tell me
+that the King very willingly gave you leave of absence from your post for
+a year, for the recovery of your health; but then added, that as the
+Court of Vienna was tampering with that of Saxony, which it seems our
+Court is desirous to 'contrequarrer', it might be necessary to have in
+the interim a 'Charge d'Affaires' at Dresden, with a defalcation out of
+your appointments of forty shillings a-day, till your return, if I would
+agree to it.  I told him that I consented to both the proposals, upon
+condition that at your return you should have the character and the pay
+of Plenipotentiary added to your present character and pay; and that I
+would completely make up to you the defalcation of the forty shillings
+a-day.  He positively engaged for it: and added, that he knew that it
+would be willingly agreed to.  Thus I think I have made a good bargain
+for you, though but an indifferent one for myself: but that is what I
+never minded in my life.  You may, therefore, depend upon receiving from
+me the full of this defalcation, when and how you please, independently
+of your usual annual refreshment, which I will pay to Monsieur Larpent,
+whenever you desire it.  In the meantime, 'Cura ut valeas'.
+
+The person whom Mr. Wood intimated to me would be the 'Charge d'Affaires'
+during your absence, is one Mr. Keith, the son of that Mr. Keith who was
+formerly Minister in Russia.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCIX
+
+LONDON, April 12, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:  I received, yesterday, your letter of the 1st; in which
+you do not mention the state of your health, which I desire you will do
+for the future.
+
+I believe you have guessed the true reason of Mr. Keith's mission; but by
+a whisper that I have since heard, Keith is rather inclined to go to
+Turin, as 'Charge d'Affaires'.  I forgot to tell you, in my last, that I
+was almost positively assured that the instant you return to Dresden,
+Keith should decamp.  I am persuaded that they will keep their words with
+me, as there is no one reason in the world why they should not.  I will
+send your annual to Mr. Larpent, in a fortnight, and pay the forty
+shillings a-day quarterly, if there should be occasion; for, in my own
+private opinion, there will be no 'Charge d'Affaires' sent.  I agree with
+you, that 'point d'argent, point d'Allemand', as was used to be said, and
+not without more reason, of the Swiss; but, as we have neither the
+inclination nor I fear the power to give subsidies, the Court of Vienna
+can give good things that cost them nothing, as archbishoprics,
+bishoprics, besides corrupting their ministers and favorite with places.
+
+Elections here have been carried to a degree of frenzy hitherto unheard
+of; that for the town of Northampton has cost the contending parties at
+least thirty thousand pounds a side, and ----- -------- has sold his
+borough of ---------, to two members, for nine thousand pounds.  As soon
+as Wilkes had lost his election for the city, he set up for the county of
+Middlesex, and carried it hollow, as the jockeys say.  Here were great
+mobs and riots upon that occasion, and most of the windows in town broke,
+that had no lights for WILKES AND LIBERTY, who were thought to be
+inseparable.  He will appear, the 10th of this month, in the Court of
+King's Bench, to receive his sentence; and then great riots are again
+expected, and probably will happen. God bless you!
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCX
+
+BATH, October 17, 1768.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND.  Your last two letters, to myself and Grevenkop, have
+alarmed me extremely; but I comfort myself a little, by hoping that you,
+like all people who suffer, think yourself worse than you are.  A dropsy
+never comes so suddenly; and I flatter myself, that it is only that gouty
+or rheumatic humor, which has plagued you so long, that has occasioned
+the temporary swelling of your legs.  Above forty years ago, after a
+violent fever, my legs swelled as much as you describe yours to be; I
+immediately thought that I had a dropsy; but the Faculty assured me, that
+my complaint was only the effect of my fever, and would soon be cured;
+and they said true.  Pray let your amanuensis, whoever he may be, write
+an account regularly once a-week, either to Grevenkop or myself, for that
+is the same thing, of the state of your health.
+
+I sent you, in four successive letters, as much of the Duchess of
+Somerset's snuff as a letter could well convey to you.  Have you received
+all or any of them? and have they done you any good?  Though, in your
+present condition, you cannot go into company, I hope that you have some
+acquaintances that come and sit with you; for if originally it was not
+good for man to be alone, it is much worse for a sick man to be so; he
+thinks too much of his distemper, and magnifies it.  Some men of learning
+among the ecclesiastics, I dare say, would be glad to sit with you; and
+you could give them as good as they brought.
+
+Poor Harte, who is here still, is in a most miserable condition: he has
+entirely lost the use of his left side, and can hardly speak
+intelligibly.  I was with him yesterday.  He inquired after you with
+great affection, and was in the utmost concern when I showed him your
+letter.
+
+My own health is as it has been ever since I was here last year.  I am
+neither well nor ill, but UNWELL.  I have in a manner lost the use of my
+legs; for though I can make a shift to crawl upon even ground for a
+quarter of an hour, I cannot go up or down stairs, unless supported by a
+servant.  God bless you and grant you a speedy recovery!
+
+
+     NOTE.--This is the last of the letters of Lord Chesterfield to his
+     son, Mr. Philip Stanhope, who died in November, 1768.  The
+     unexpected and distressing intelligence was announced by the lady to
+     whom Mr. Stanhope had been married for several years, unknown to his
+     father.  On learning that the widow had two sons, the issue of this
+     marriage, Lord Chesterfield took upon himself the maintenance of his
+     grandchildren.  The letters which follow show how happily the writer
+     adapted himself to the trying situation.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXI
+
+TO MRS. STANHOPE, THEN AT PARIS
+
+LONDON, March 16, 1769.
+
+MADAM:  A troublesome and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to
+use another hand than my own to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
+from Avignon, of the 27th past.
+
+I am extremely surprised that Mrs. du Bouchet should have any objection
+to the manner in which your late husband desired to be buried, and which
+you, very properly, complied with.  All I desire for my own burial is not
+to be buried alive; but how or where, I think must be entirely
+indifferent to every rational creature.
+
+I have no commission to trouble you with, during your stay at Paris; from
+whence, I wish you and the boys a good journey home, where I shall be
+very glad to see you all; and assure you of my being, with great truth,
+your faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXII
+
+TO THE SAME, AT LONDON
+
+MADAM:  The last time that I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was so
+taken up in playing with the boys that I forgot their more important
+affairs.  How soon would you have them placed at school?  When I know
+your pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny, to prepare
+everything for their reception.  In the meantime, I beg that you will
+equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain; and
+give me the account, which I will pay; for I do not intend that, from,
+this time forward the two boys should cost you one shilling.  I am, with
+great truth, Madam, your faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXIII
+
+MADAM: As some day must be fixed for sending the boys to school, do you
+approve of the 8th of next month?  By which time the weather will
+probably be warm and settled, and you will be able to equip them
+completely.
+
+I will upon that day send my coach to you, to carry you and the boys to
+Loughborough House, with all their immense baggage.  I must recommend to
+you, when you leave them there, to suppress, as well as you can, the
+overgrowings of maternal tenderness; which would grieve the poor boys the
+more, and give them a terror of their new establishment.  I am, with
+great truth, Madam, your faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXIV
+
+BATH, October 11, 1769.
+
+MADAM:  Nobody can be more willing and ready to obey orders than I am;
+but then I must like the orders and the orderer.  Your orders and
+yourself come under this description; and therefore I must give you an
+account of my arrival and existence, such as it is, here.  I got hither
+last Sunday, the day after I left London, less fatigued than I expected
+to have been; and now crawl about this place upon my three legs, but am
+kept in countenance by many of my fellow-crawlers; the last part of the
+Sphinx's riddle approaches, and I shall soon end, as I began, upon all
+fours.
+
+When you happen to see either Monsieur or Madame Perny, I beg you will
+give them this melancholic proof of my caducity, and tell them that the
+last time I went to see the boys, I carried the Michaelmas quarterage in
+my pocket; and when I was there I totally forgot it; but assure them,
+that I have not the least intention to bilk them, and will pay them
+faithfully the two quarters together, at Christmas.
+
+I hope our two boys are well, for then I am sure you are so.  I am, with
+great truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXV
+
+BATH, October 28, 1769.
+
+MADAM:  Your kind anxiety for my health and life is more than, in my
+opinion, they are both worth; without the former the latter is a burden;
+and, indeed, I am very weary of it.  I think I have got some benefit by
+drinking these waters, and by bathing, for my old stiff, rheumatic limbs;
+for, I believe, I could now outcrawl a snail, or perhaps even a tortoise.
+
+I hope the boys are well.  Phil, I dare say, has been in some scrapes;
+but he will get triumphantly out of them, by dint of strength and
+resolution.  I am, with great truth and esteem, your most faithful,
+humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXVI
+
+BATH, November 5, 1769.
+
+MADAM: I remember very well the paragraph which you quote from a letter
+of mine to Mrs. du Bouchet, and see no reason yet to retract that
+opinion, in general, which at least nineteen widows in twenty had
+authorized.  I had not then the pleasure of your acquaintance: I had seen
+you but twice or thrice; and I had no reason to think that you would
+deviate, as you have done, from other widows, so much as to put perpetual
+shackles upon yourself, for the sake of your children.  But (if I may use
+a vulgarism) one swallow makes no summer: five righteous were formerly
+necessary to save a city, and they could not be found; so, till I find
+four more such righteous widows as yourself, I shall entertain my former
+notions of widowhood in general.
+
+I can assure you that I drink here very soberly and cautiously, and at
+the same time keep so cool a diet that I do not find the least symptom of
+heat, much less of inflammation.  By the way, I never had that complaint,
+in consequence of having drank these waters; for I have had it but four
+times, and always in the middle of summer.  Mr. Hawkins is timorous, even
+to minutia, and my sister delights in them.
+
+Charles will be a scholar, if you please; but our little Philip, without
+being one, will be something or other as good, though I do not yet guess
+what.  I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country,
+that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many
+words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and
+which are of no use in the common intercourse of life.  Useful knowledge
+in my opinion consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some
+Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for
+closet amusement.
+
+You are, by this time, certainly tired with this long letter, which I
+could prove to you from Horace's own words (for I am a scholar) to be a
+bad one; he says, that water-drinkers can write nothing good: so I am,
+with real truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXVII
+
+BATH, October 9, 1770.
+
+MADAM: I am extremely obliged to you for the kind part which you take in
+my, health and life: as to the latter, I am as indifferent myself as any
+other body can be; but as to the former, I confess care and anxiety, for
+while I am to crawl upon this planet, I would willingly enjoy the health
+at least of an insect.  How far these waters will restore me to that,
+moderate degree of health, which alone I aspire at, I have not yet given
+them a fair trial, having drank them but one week; the only difference I
+hitherto find is, that I sleep better than I did.
+
+I beg that you will neither give yourself, nor Mr. Fitzhugh, much trouble
+about the pine plants; for as it is three years before they fruit, I
+might as well, at my age, plant oaks, and hope to have the advantage of
+their timber: however, somebody or other, God knows who, will eat them,
+as somebody or other will fell and sell the oaks I planted five-and-forty
+years ago.
+
+I hope our boys are well; my respects to them both.  I am, with the
+greatest truth, your faithful and humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXVIII
+
+BATH, November 4,1770
+
+MADAM:  The post has been more favorable to you than I intended it
+should, for, upon my word, I answered your former letter the post after I
+had received it.  However you have got a loss, as we say sometimes in
+Ireland.
+
+My friends from time to time require bills of health from me in these
+suspicious times, when the plague is busy in some parts of Europe.
+All I can say, in answer to their kind inquiries, is, that I have not the
+distemper properly called the plague; but that I have all the plague of
+old age and of a shattered carcass.  These waters have done me what
+little good I expected from them; though by no means what I could have
+wished, for I wished them to be 'les eaux de Jouvence'.
+
+I had a letter, the other day, from our two boys; Charles' was very
+finely written, and Philip's very prettily: they are perfectly well,
+and say that they want nothing.  What grown-up people will or can say as
+much?  I am, with the truest esteem, Madam, your most faithful servant.
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXIX
+
+BATH, October 27,1771.
+
+MADAM: Upon my word, you interest yourself in the state of my existence
+more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us.  I
+ordered my valet de chambre, according to your orders, to inform you of
+my safe arrival here; to which I can add nothing, being neither better
+nor worse than I was then.
+
+I am very glad that our boys are well.  Pray give them the inclosed.
+
+I am not at all surprised at Mr. ------'s conversion, for he was,
+at seventeen, the idol of old women, for his gravity, devotion, and
+dullness.  I am, Madam, your most faithful, humble servant,
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER CCCXX
+
+TO CHARLES AND PHILIP STANHOPE
+
+I RECEIVED a few days ago two the best written letters that ever I saw in
+my life; the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope.
+As for you Charles, I did not wonder at it; for you will take pains,
+and are a lover of letters; but you, idle rogue, you Phil, how came you
+to write so well that one can almost say of you two, 'et cantare pores et
+respondre parati'!  Charles will explain this Latin to you.
+
+I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your
+intimacy with Master Strangeways; and that they call you Master
+Strangeways; for to be rude, you are a strange boy.  Is this true?
+
+Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will
+bring it you, when I come to town.  In the meantime, God bless you both!
+
+CHESTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITORS BOOKMARKS:
+
+All I desire for my own burial is not to be buried alive
+Anxiety for my health and life
+Borough-jobber
+Get what I can, if I cannot get what I will
+Horace
+I shall never know, though all the coffeehouses here do
+L'influenza
+Neither well nor ill, but UNWELL
+Read my eyes out every day, that I may not hang myself
+Stamp-act has proved a most pernicious measure
+Those who wish him the best, as I do, must wish him dead
+Water-drinkers can write nothing good
+Would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn
+Would not tell what she did not know
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters to His Son, 1766-71
+by The Earl of Chesterfield
+
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