Should the state of your health not yet admit of your usual application to books, you may, in a great degree, and I hope you will, repair that loss by useful and instructive conversations with Mr. Harte:  you may, for example, desire him to give you in conversation the outlines, at least, of Mr. Locke’s logic; a general notion of ethics, and a verbal epitome of rhetoric; of all which Mr. Harte will give you clearer ideas in half an hour, by word of mouth, than the books of most of the dull fellows who have written upon those subjects would do in a week.

I have waited so long for the post, which I hoped would come, that the post, which is just going out, obliges me to cut this letter short.  God bless you, my dear child! and restore you soon to perfect health!

My compliments to Mr. Harte; to whose care your life is the least thing that you owe.

LETTER LXXIII

London, June 22, O. S. 1749.

Dear boy:  The outside of your letter of the 7th N. S., directed by your own hand, gave me more pleasure than the inside of any other letter ever did.  I received it yesterday at the same time with one from Mr. Harts of the 6th.  They arrived at a very proper time, for they found a consultation of physicians in my room, upon account of a fever which I had for four or five days, but which has now entirely left me.  As Mr. Harte Says that your lungs now and then give you A little pain, and that your swellings come and go variably, but as he mentions nothing of your coughing, spitting, or sweating, the doctors take it for granted that you are entirely free from those three bad symptoms:  and from thence conclude, that, the pain which you sometimes feel upon your lungs is only symptomatical of your rheumatic disorder, from the pressure of the muscles which hinders the free play of the lungs.  But, however, as the lungs are a point of the utmost importance and delicacy, they insist upon your drinking, in all events, asses’ milk twice a day, and goats’ whey as often as you please, the oftener the better:  in your common diet, they recommend an attention to pectorals, such as sago, barley, turnips, etc.  These rules are equally good in rheumatic as in consumptive cases; you will therefore, I hope, strictly observe them; for I take it for granted that you are above the silly likings or dislikings, in which silly people indulge their tastes, at the expense of their health.

I approve of your going to Venice, as much as I disapproved of your going to Switzerland.  I suppose that you are by this time arrived; and, in that supposition, I direct this letter there.  But if you should find the heat too great, or the water offensive, at this time of the year, I would have you go immediately to Verona, and stay there till the great heats are over, before you return to Venice.