I have, at another part of my day, a scene, which time or use cannot reconcile to me.  I see my mother’s strength grow less every day, without any consolation, but that her mind does not decay with it.  In short, my dear Lord, as I have often told you, j’ai l’esprit et le coeur trop fracasses for me to be happy at present, and all I can say is that I might, by untoward accidents, be more miserable, and these are removed from my view pour le moment; but I wait for a period of time when I shall be relieved from uncertainty of what may happen, and when I may live and breathe without restraint and apprehension.  That period will, as I imagine, arrive in about two months, and till then les assurances les plus fortes sont trop faibles pour mon repos.

It is some time since I have had a long letter from you.  I hope to have one of some sort or other to-morrow.  I hope all goes quietly, at least Gregg says that you write cheerfully.  On s’accoutume a tout, they say, but I know and feel very sensibly that there are exceptions to that adage.

The author of a new Grub Street poem, I see, allows me a great share of feeling, at the same time that he relates facts of me, which, if they were true, would, besides making me ridiculous, call very much into question what he asserts with any reasonable man.  I do not know if you have received this performance.  If I thought you had not, paltry as it is, I should send it to you.  The work I mean is called “The Diaboliad."(138) This hero is Lord Ernham.  Lord Hertford and Lord Beauchamp are the chief persons whom he loads with his invectives.  Lord Lyttleton (and) his cousin Mr. Ascough are also treated with not much lenity; Lord Pembroke with great familiarity, as well as C. Fox; and Fitzpatrick, although painted in colours bad enough at present, is represented as one whom in time the Devil will lose for his disciple.  I am only attacked upon that trite and very foolish opinion concerning le pene e le Delitte (ed i delitted), acknowledging (it) to proceed from an odd and insatiable curiosity, and not from a mauvais coeur.  In some places I think there is versification, and a few good lines, and the piece seems to be wrote by one not void of parts, but who, with attention, might write much better.(139)

I forgive him his mention of me, because I believe that he does it without malice, but, if I had leisure to think of such things, I must own the frequent repetition of the foolish stories would make me peevish.  Alas!  I have no time to be peevish.  Quand on a le coeur gros, et serre, comme je l’ai souvent a cette heure, il est rare que l’on a de l’humeur; l’ame est trop serieusement attaquee et touchee pour preter attention a de petites choses; chez moi, je suis triste, je soupire, mais je ne gronde plus, je ne m’emporte pas.

Richard, I hear, goes in about a fortnight.  Fish Craufurd thinks, as I am told, that Lord O(ssory?) should pay his debts; that is, give him 40,000 pounds from his own children, pour le delivrer des Juifs.  He pays already to one of them out of his 300 pounds a year, which he meant to have paid to his brother for a more comfortable maintenance.