repairing.  I live in too much solitude, and am often deeply dejected:  I wish we were nearer, and rejoice in your removal to London.  A friend, at once cheerful and serious, is a great acquisition.  Let us not neglect one another for the little time which Providence allows us to hope.  Of my health I cannot tell you, what my wishes persuaded me to expect, that it is much improved by the season or by remedies.  I am sleepless; my legs grow weary with a very few steps, and the water breaks its boundaries in some degree.  The asthma, however, has remitted; my breath is still much obstructed, but is more free than it was.  Nights of watchfulness produce torpid days; I read very little, though I am alone; for I am tempted to supply in the day what I lost in bed.  This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery.  Yet am I so much better than in the beginning of the year, that I ought to be ashamed of complaining.  I now sit and write with very little sensibility of pain or weakness; but when I rise, I shall find my legs betraying me.  Of the money which you mentioned, I have no immediate need; keep it, however, for me, unless some exigence requires it.  Your papers I will shew you certainly when you would see them, but I am a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own acceptum et expensum[1122], and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes, for the res familiares.  Forgive me for I mean well.  I hope, dear Sir, that you and Lady Rothes, and all the young people, too many to enumerate, are well and happy.  GOD bless you all.’

To MR. WINDHAM:—­

August.  ’The tenderness with which you have been pleased to treat me, through my long illness, neither health nor sickness can, I hope, make me forget; and you are not to suppose, that after we parted you were no longer in my mind.  But what can a sick man say, but that he is sick?  His thoughts are necessarily concentered in himself; he neither receives nor can give delight; his enquiries are after alleviations of pain, and his efforts are to catch some momentary comfort.  Though I am now in the neighbourhood of the Peak, you must expect no account of its wonders, of its hills, its waters, its caverns, or its mines; but I will tell you, dear Sir, what I hope you will not hear with less satisfaction, that, for about a week past, my asthma has been less afflictive.’

Lichfield.  October 2[1123].  ’I believe you have been long enough acquainted with the phoenomena of sickness, not to be surprised that a sick man wishes to be where he is not, and where it appears to every body but himself that he might easily be, without having the resolution to remove.  I thought Ashbourne a solitary place, but did not come hither till last Monday.  I have here more company, but my health has for this last week not advanced; and in the languor of disease how little can be done?  Whither or when I shall make my next remove I cannot tell; but I entreat you, dear Sir, to let me know, from time to time, where you may be found, for your residence is a very powerful attractive to, Sir, your most humble servant.’