LETTER CCLXXX

My dear friend:  Your great character of Prince Henry, which I take to be a very just one, lowers the King of Prussia’s a great deal; and probably that is the cause of their being so ill together.  But the King of Prussia, with his good parts, should reflect upon that trite and true maxim, ‘Qui invidet minor’, or Mr. de la Rouchefoucault’s, ’Que l’envie est la plus basse de toutes les passions, puisqu’on avoue bien des crimes, mais que personae n’avoue l’envie’.  I thank God, I never was sensible of that dark and vile passion, except that formerly I have sometimes envied a successful rival with a fine woman.  But now that cause is ceased, and consequently the effects.

What shall I, or rather what can I tell you of the political world here?  The late Ministers accuse the present with having done nothing, the present accuse the late ones with having done much worse than nothing.  Their writers abuse one another most scurrilously, but sometimes with wit.  I look upon this to be ‘peloter en attendant partie’, till battle begins in St., Stephen’s Chapel.  How that will end, I protest I cannot conjecture; any farther than this, that if Mr. Pitt does not come into the assistance of the present ministers, they will have much to do to stand their ground.  C-----T------will play booty; and who else have they?  Nobody but C-----, who has only good sense, but not the necessary talents nor experience, ‘AEre ciere viros martemque accendere cantu’.  I never remember, in all my time, to have seen so problematical a state of affairs, and a man would be much puzzled which side to bet on.

Your guest, Miss C-----, is another problem which I cannot solve.  She no
more wanted the waters of Carlsbadt than you did.  Is it to show the Duke
of Kingston that he cannot live without her? a dangerous experiment!
which may possibly convince him that he can.  There is a trick no doubt in
it; but what, I neither know nor care; you did very well to show her
civilities, ‘cela ne gute jamais rien’.  I will go to my waters, that is,
the Bath waters, in three weeks or a month, more for the sake of bathing
than of drinking.  The hot bath always promotes my perspiration, which is
sluggish, and supples my stiff rheumatic limbs.  ‘D’ailleurs’, I am at
present as well, and better than I could reasonably expect to be, ’annu
septuagesimo primo’.  May you be so as long, ‘y mas’!  God bless you!

LETTER CCLXXXI

London, October 25, 1765

My dear friend:  I received your letter of the 10th ‘sonica’; for I set out for Bath to-morrow morning.

If the use of those waters does me no good, the shifting the scene for some time will at least amuse me a little; and at my age, and with my infirmities, ‘il faut faire de tout bois feche’.  Some variety is as necessary for the mind as some medicines are for the body.