voit gueres le fond du sac.—­Il faut attendre.—­Those sort of expletives are of infinite use; and nine people in ten think they mean something.  But to the Landgrave of Hesse I think you would do well to say, in seeming confidence, that you have good reason to believe that the principal objection of his Majesty to the convention was that his Highness’s interests, and the affair of his troops, were not sufficiently considered in it.  To the Prussian Minister assert boldly that you know ‘de science certaine’, that the principal object of his Majesty’s and his British Ministry’s intention is not only to perform all their present engagements with his Master, but to take new and stronger ones for his support; for this is true—­at least at present.

You did very well in inviting Comte Bothmar to dine with you.  You see how minutely I am informed of your proceedings, though not from yourself.  Adieu.

I go to Bath next Saturday; but direct your letters, as usual, to London.

LETTER CCXI

Bath, October 26, 1757.

My dear friend:  I arrived here safe, but far from sound, last Sunday.  I have consequently drunk these waters but three days, and yet I find myself something better for them.  The night before I left London.  I was for some hours at Newcastle House, where the letters, which came that morning, lay upon the table:  and his Grace singled out yours with great approbation, and, at the same time, assured me of his Majesty’s approbation, too.  To these two approbations I truly add my own, which, ‘sans vanite’, may perhaps be near as good as the other two.  In that letter you venture ‘vos petits raisonnemens’ very properly, and then as properly make an excuse for doing so.  Go on so, with diligence, and you will be, what I began to despair of your ever being, somebody.  I am persuaded, if you would own the truth, that you feel yourself now much better satisfied with yourself than you were while you did nothing.

Application to business, attended with approbation and success, flatters and animates the mind:  which, in idleness and inaction, stagnates and putrefies.  I could wish that every rational man would, every night when he goes to bed, ask himself this question, What have I done to-day?  Have I done anything that can be of use to myself or others?  Have I employed my time, or have I squandered it?  Have I lived out the day, or have I dozed it away in sloth and laziness?  A thinking being must be pleased or confounded, according as he can answer himself these questions.  I observe that you are in the secret of what is intended, and what Munchausen is gone to Stade to prepare; a bold and dangerous experiment in my mind, and which may probably end in a second volume to the “History of the Palatinate,” in the last century.  His Serene Highness of Brunswick has, in my mind, played a prudent and saving game; and I am apt to believe that the other Serene Highness, at Hamburg, is more likely to follow his example than to embark in the great scheme.