undivided power, and sincere patriotism divested of all personal views.  Where is that prodigy to be found? and how should it have the power, if it had all the rest?  And if it had the power, how could it be divested of that power again?  And if it were not, how long would it retain its virtues?  Power and wisdom would soon unite, like Antony and Augustus, to annihilate their colleague virtue, for being a poor creature like Lepidus.  In short, the mass of matter is too big for me:  I am going Out of the world, and cannot trouble myself about it.  I do think of your part in it, and wish to preserve you where you are, for the benefits that you may contribute.  I have a high opinion of Mr. Fox, and believe that by frankness you may become real friends, which would be greatly advantageous to the country.  There is no competition in my mind where you are concerned:  but Fox is the minister with whom I most wish you united,-indeed, to all the rest I am indifferent or adverse:  but, besides his superior abilities, he has a liberality of acting that is to my taste; it is like my father’s plainness, and has none of the paltry little finesses of a statesman.

Your parties do not tempt me, because I am not well enough to join in them:  nor yet will they stop me, though I had rather find only you and Lady Ailesbury and Mrs. Damer.  I am not seriously ill; nay, am better upon the whole than I was last year:  but I perceive decays enough in myself to be sensible that the scale may easily be inclined to the worst side.  This observation makes ’me very indifferent to every thing that is not much at my heart.  Consequently what concerns you is, as it has always been for above forty years, a principal object.  Adieu!

Letter 263To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(502)

Strawberry Hill, Sunday, August 27, 1783. (page 331)

Though I begin my letter on and have dated it Sunday, I recollect that it may miss you if you go to town on Tuesday, and therefore I shall not send it to the post till to-morrow.  I can give you but an indifferent account of myself.  I went to Lord Dacre’s:  but whether the heat and fatigue were too much for me, or whether the thunder turned me sour, for I am at least as weak as small-beer, I came back with the gout in my left hand and right foot.  The latter confined me for three days; but though my ankle is still swelled, I do not stay in my house:  however I am frightened, and shall venture no more expeditions yet; for my hands and feet are both so lame, that I am neither comfortable to myself or any body else, abroad, when I must confine them, stay by myself or risk pain, which the least fatigue gives me.  At this moment I have a worse embargo even than lameness on me.  The Prince d’Hessenstein has written to offer me a visit—­I don’t know when.  I have just answered his note, and endeavoured to limit its meaning to the shortest sense I could, by proposing to give him a dinner or a breakfast.  I would keep my bed rather than crack our northern French together for twelve hours.