LETTER CCXLVIII

Bath, November 21, 1761.

My dear friend:  I have this moment received your letter of the 19th.  If I find any alterations by drinking these waters, now six days, it is rather for the better; but, in six days more, I think I shall find with more certainty what humor they are in with me; if kind, I will profit of, but not abuse their kindness; all things have their bounds, ’quos ultra citrave nequit consistere rectum’; and I will endeavor to nick that point.

The Queen’s jointure is larger than, from some reasons, I expected it would be, though not greater than the very last precedent authorized.  The case of the late Lord Wilmington was, I fancy, remembered.

I have now good reason to believe that Spain will declare war to us, that is, that it will very soon, if it has not already, avowedly assist France, in case the war continues.  This will be a great triumph to Mr. Pitt, and fully justify his plan of beginning with Spain first, and having the first blow, which is often half the battle.

Here is a great deal of company, and what is commonly called good company, that is, great quality.  I trouble them very little, except at the pump, where my business calls me; for what is 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.