stemper, 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