en days
before they can pronounce at all decisively as to the nature of his
disorder.

You seem, in your letter, to conceive the point of his recovery to
be much more desperate than I understand it to be thought even
after a derangement of months, or even years. There hardly passes a
day in which one does not hear of cases of that sort, and we are
now told that a disorder of this sort has appeared in several
instances in Devonshire in the course of this autumn, where the
patient has been in this way for six weeks together, and has then
entirely recovered.

I have no other news.

Ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, Nov. 20th, 1788.
MY DEAR BROTHER,

I went down yesterday to Windsor, as a matter of form, to inquire
after the King's health. Having nothing very material to write to
you in the morning, I thought it best to take the chance of being
back early enough to write before the post went out. This, however,
I found impossible, on account of the different people whom I met at
Windsor, and with whom I was naturally anxious to converse.

The account, as far as relates to the King's actual situation for
these two or three last days, is much less favourable than it has
been. The disorder of his intellects has continued almost, if not
entirely, without intermission for the whole of that time. He talks
incessantly for many hours together, and without any appearance of
sense or reason, sometimes knowing the persons who are about him, at
other times mistaking them, or fancying himself employed in
different occupations, such as taking notes on books, or giving
different orders. He has appeared several times to have that sort of
consciousness of his situation which lunatics are observed to
possess, and to use the same sort of methods for concealing it. All
this constitutes the gloomy side of the picture; and Warren is so
much impressed with this, that he told Pitt there was now every
reason to believe that the disorder was no other than direct lunacy.

On the other hand, I understand that he, as well as the other
physicians, are now agreed as to the cause of the disorder. You may
remember that, at the beginning of this unhappy situation, I
mentioned to you t