you to begin your journey in May, and continue your absence from the dear object of your vows till after the dog-days, when love is said to be unwholesome.  We have been disappointed at Martinico; I wish we may not be so at Guadaloupe, though we are landed there; for many difficulties must be got over before we can be in possession of the whole island.  A pro pos de bottes; you make use of two Spanish words, very properly, in your letter; were I you, I would learn the Spanish language, if there were a Spaniard at Hamburg who could teach me; and then you would be master of all the European languages that are useful; and, in my mind, it is very convenient, if not necessary, for a public man to understand them all, and not to be obliged to have recourse to an interpreter for those papers that chance or business may throw in his way.  I learned Spanish when I was older than you; convinced by experience that, in everything possible, it was better to trust to one’s self than to any other body whatsoever.  Interpreters, as well as relaters, are often unfaithful, and still oftener incorrect, puzzling, and blundering.  In short, let it be your maxim through life to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others.  This rule has been of infinite service to me in the course of my life.

I am rather better than I was; which I owe not to my physicians, but to an ass and a cow, who nourish me, between them, very plentifully and wholesomely; in the morning the ass is my nurse, at night the cow; and I have just now, bought a milch-goat, which is to graze, and nurse me at Blackheath.  I do not know what may come of this latter, and I am not without apprehensions that it may make a satyr of me; but, should I find that obscene disposition growing upon me, I will check it in time, for fear of endangering my life and character by rapes.  And so we heartily bid you farewell.

LETTER CCXLI

London, March 30, 1759

My dear friend:  I do not like these frequent, however short, returns of your illness; for I doubt they imply either want of skill in your physician, or want of care in his patient.  Rhubarb, soap, and chalybeate medicines and waters, are almost always specifics for obstructions of the liver; but then a very exact regimen is necessary, and that for a long continuance.  Acids are good for you, but you do not love them; and sweet things are bad for you, and you do love them.  There is another thing very bad for you, and I fear you love it too much.  When I was in Holland, I had a slow fever that hung upon me a great while; I consulted Boerhaave, who prescribed me what I suppose was proper, for it cured me; but he added, by way of postscript to his prescription, ‘Venus rarius colatur’; which I observed, and perhaps that made the medicines more effectual.