I am sorry you and your friend Count Lorenzi(20) are such political foes, but I am much more concerned for the return of your headaches.  I don’t know what to say about Ward’s(21) medicine, because the cures he does in that complaint are performed by him in person.  He rubs his hand with some preparation and holds it upon your forehead, from which several have found instant relief.  If you please, I will consult him whether he will send you any preparation for it; but you must first send me the exact symptoms and circumstances of your disorder and constitution, for I would not for the world venture to transmit to you a blind remedy for an unexamined complaint.

You cannot figure a duller season:  the weather bitter, no party, little money, half the world playing the fool in the country with the militia, others raising regiments or with their regiments; in short, the end of a war and of a reign furnish few episodes.  Operas are more in their decline than ever.  Adieu!

(19) Caroline, eldest daughter of William third Duke of Devonshire, and wife of William Ponsonby, Earl of Besborough.

(20) Minister of France at Florence, though a Florentine.

(21) Ward, the empiric, whose pill and drop were supposed, at this time, to have a surprising effect.  He is immortalized by Pope-

“See Ward by batter’d beaux invited over.”

There is a curious statue of him in marble at the Society of Arts, in full dress, and a flowing wig.-D.

Letter 11 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1760. (page 37)

I shall almost frighten you from coming to London, for whether you have the constitution of a horse or a man, you will be equally in danger.  All the horses in town are laid up with sore throats and colds, and are so hoarse you cannot hear them speak, I, with all my immortality, have been -half killed; that violent bitter weather was too much for me; I have had a nervous fever these six or seven weeks every night, and have taken bark enough to have made a rind for Daphne; nay, have even stayed at home two days; but I think my eternity begins to bud again.  I am quite of Dr. Garth’s mind, who, when any body commended a hard frost to him, used to reply, “Yes, Sir, ’fore Gad, very fine weather, Sir, very wholesome weather, Sir; kills trees, Sir; very good for man, Sir.”  There has been cruel havoc among the ladies; my Lady Granby is dead; and the famous Polly, Duchess of Bolton, and my Lady Besborough.  I have no great reason to lament the last, and yet the circumstances of her death, and the horror of it to her family, make one shudder.  It was the same sore throat and fever that carried off four of their children a few years ago.  My lord now fell ill of it, very ill, and the eldest daughter slightly:  my lady caught it, attending her husband, and concealed it as long as she could.  When at last the physician