SIR,—­I am so far from thinking you ill-natured for wishing I might not outlive you, that I should not have thought you at all kind if you had done otherwise; no, in earnest, I was never yet so in love with my life but that I could have parted with it upon a much less occasion than your death, and ’twill be no compliment to you to say it would be very uneasy to me then, since ’tis not very pleasant to me now.  Yet you will say I take great pains to preserve it, as ill as I like it; but no, I’ll swear ’tis not that I intend in what I do; all that I aim at is but to keep myself from proving a beast.  They do so fright me with strange stories of what the spleen will bring me to in time, that I am kept in awe with them like a child; they tell me ’twill not leave me common sense, that I shall hardly be fit company for my own dogs, and that it will end either in a stupidness that will make me incapable of anything, or fill my head with such whims as will make me ridiculous.  To prevent this, who would not take steel or anything,—­though I am partly of your opinion that ’tis an ill kind of physic.  Yet I am confident that I take it the safest way, for I do not take the powder, as many do, but only lay a piece of steel in white wine over night and drink the infusion next morning, which one would think were nothing, and yet ’tis not to be imagined how sick it makes me for an hour or two, and, which is the misery, all that time one must be using some kind of exercise.  Your fellow-servant has a blessed time on’t that ever you saw.  I make her play at shuttlecock with me, and she is the veriest bungler at it ever you saw.  Then am I ready to beat her with the battledore, and grow so peevish as I grow sick, that I’ll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England.  But then to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after for joy that I am well again.  I am told ’twill do me good, and am content to believe it; if it does not, I am but where I was.

I do not use to forget my old acquaintances.  Almanzor is as fresh in my memory as if I had visited his tomb but yesterday, though it be at least seven year agone since.  You will believe I had not been used to great afflictions when I made his story such a one to me, as I cried an hour together for him, and was so angry with Alcidiana that for my life I could never love her after it.  You do not tell me whether you received the books I sent you, but I will hope you did, because you say nothing to the contrary.  They are my dear Lady Diana’s, and therefore I am much concerned that they should be safe.  And now I speak of her, she is acquainted with your aunt, my Lady B., and says all that you say of her.  If her niece has so much wit, will you not be persuaded to like her; or say she has not quite so much, may not her fortune make it up?  In earnest, I know not what to say, but if your father does not use all his kindness and all his power to make you consider your own advantage, he is not like other