morrow.
Farewell, MD MD MD, ME ME, FW FW ME ME.

LETTER 46.(1)

LONDON, May 10, 1712.

I have not yet ease or humour enough to go on in my journal method,
though I have left my chamber these ten days. My pain continues still
in my shoulder and collar: I keep flannel on it, and rub it with brandy,
and take a nasty diet drink. I still itch terribly, and have some few
pimples; I am weak, and sweat; and then the flannel makes me mad with
itching; but I think my pain lessens. A journal, while I was sick,
would have been a noble thing, made up of pain and physic, visits, and
messages; the two last were almost as troublesome as the two first. One
good circumstance is that I am grown much leaner. I believe I told you
that I have taken in my breeches two inches. I had your N.29 last night.
In answer to your good opinion of my disease, the doctors said they
never saw anything so odd of the kind; they were not properly shingles,
but herpes miliaris, and twenty other hard names. I can never be sick
like other people, but always something out of the common way; and as
for your notion of its coming without pain, it neither came, nor
stayed, nor went without pain, and the most pain I ever bore in my life.
Medemeris(2) is retired in the country, with the beast her husband, long
ago. I thank the Bishop of Clogher for his proxy; I will write to him
soon. Here is Dilly's wife in town; but I have not seen her yet. No,
sinkerton:(3) 'tis not a sign of health, but a sign that, if it had not
come out, some terrible fit of sickness would have followed. I was at
our Society last Thursday, to receive a new member, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer;(4) but I drink nothing above wine and water. We shall
have a peace, I hope, soon, or at least entirely broke; but I believe
the first. My Letter to Lord Treasurer, about the English tongue,(5) is
now printing; and I suffer my name to be put at the end of it, which
I never did before in my life. The Appendix to the Third Part of John
Bull(6) was published yesterday; it is equal to the rest. I hope you
read John Bull. It was a Scotch gentleman,(7) a friend of mine, that
writ it; but they put it upon me. The Parliament will hardly be up
till June. We were like to be undone some days ago with a tack; but we
carried it bravely, and the Whigs came in to help us. Poor Lady Masham,
I am afraid, will lose her only son, about a twelvemonth old, with the
king's evil. I never would let Mrs. Fenton see me d