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,