company to a deaf man,
or a deaf man to company?

Lady Brown, whom I have seen, and who, by the way, has got the gout in
her eye, inquired very tenderly after you. And so I elegantly rest,
Yours, till death.

LETTER CCXLIX

BATH, December 6, 1761.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have been in your debt some time, which, you know, I am
not very apt to be: but it was really for want of specie to pay. The
present state of my invention does not enable me to coin; and you would
have had as little pleasure in reading, as I should have in writing 'le
coglionerie' of this place; besides, that I am very little mingled in
them. I do not know whether I shall be able to follow, your advice, and
cut a winner; for, at present, I have neither won nor lost a single
shilling. I will play on this week only; and if I have a good run, I will
carry it off with me; if a bad one, the loss can hardly amount to
anything considerable in seven days, for I hope to see you in town
to-morrow sevennight.

I had a dismal letter from Harte, last week; he tells me that he is at
nurse with a sister in Berkshire; that he has got a confirmed jaundice,
besides twenty other distempers. The true cause of these complaints I
take to be the same that so greatly disordered, and had nearly destroyed
the most august House of Austria, about one hundred and thirty years ago;
I mean Gustavus Adolphus; who neither answered his expectations in point
of profit nor reputation, and that merely by his own fault, in not
writing it in the vulgar tongue; for as to facts I will maintain that it
is one of the best histories extant.

'Au revoir', as Sir Fopling says, and God bless you!

LETTER CCL

BATH, November 2, 1762.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I arrived here, as I proposed, last Sunday; but as ill as
I feared I should be when I saw you. Head, stomach, and limbs, all out of
order.

I have yet seen nobody but Villettes, who is settled here for good, as it
is called. What consequences has the Duke of Devonshire's resignation
had? He has considerable connections and relations; but whether any of
them are resigned enough to resign with him, is another matter. There
will be, to be sure, as many, and as absurd reports, as there are in the
law books; I do not desire to know either; but inform me of what facts
come to your knowledge, and of such reports only as you believe are
grounded. And so God bless you!

LETTER CCLI

BATH, November 13, 1762.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I have