Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, EPODE 3. The verse adorn again, Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe by Fairy-Fiction drest. In buskin'd measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horrour, tyrant of the throbbing breast. Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, Fond impious man, think'st thou, yon sanguine cloud, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me, with joy I see The different doom our fates assign, He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height CVIII. TO JOHN CHUTE. Stoke, August 14, 1755. DEAR SIR-I write to the Vine, imagining you may be still there, to tell you, that I was to have gone to Strawberry on Monday last; but being ill was obliged to write the day before, and excuse myself. Mr. W. could not receive my letter till Monday afternoon, and had therefore sent a messenger from London, early that morning to say, that he was very ill of a fever, and rash, and unable to go himself to Twickenham. I know this is a dangerous season; and that malignant fevers are now very common, and am therefore something alarmed at his situation. If you have heard anything, you will let me know, and particularly if anything should carry you soon to town. I myself have been ill, ever since I came out of Hampshire. I have had advice and been bloodied, and taken draughts of Salt of Wormwood, Lemons, Tincture of Guiacum, Magnesia, and the Devil. You will immediately conclude, they thought me rheumatic and feverish, no such thing! they thought me gouty, and that I had no fever. All I can say, is, that my heats in the morning are abated, that my foot begins to ach again; and that my head achs, and feels light and giddy. So much for me. My compts. to the gentleman with the Moco-smelling-bottle, the Muntz's, the Betties, and the Babies. Adieu, I am ever. CIX.-TO THOMAS WHARTON. Endorsed [October 18, 1755]. MY DEAR DOCTOR-I ought before now to have thanked you for your kind offer, which I mean soon to accept for a reason, which to be sure can be no reason to you or Mrs. Wharton, and therefore I think it my duty to give you notice of it. It is a very possible thing I may be ill again in town, which I would not chuse to be in a dirty inconvenient lodging, where perhaps my Nurse might stifle me with a pillow, and therefore it is no wonder, if I prefer your house. But I tell you of this in time, that if either of you are frighted at the thought of a sick body, you may make a handsome excuse, and save yourselves this trouble. You are not to imagine my illness is in Esse; no, it is only in Posse, otherwise I should myself be scrupulous of bringing it home to you. I shall be in town in about a fortnight. You will be sorry (as I am) at the destruction of poor Stonehewer's views, which promised so fair: but both he and I have known it this long time, so, I believe, he was prepared, and his old Patron is no bad resource. I am told, it is the fashion to be totally silent with regard to the ministry. Nothing is to be talked of, or even suspected, till the Parliament meets; in the meantime the new Manager has taken what appears to me a very odd step. If you do not hear of a thing, which is in it's nature no secret, I cannot well inform you by the Post, to me it is utterly unaccountable. Pray what is the reason I do not read your name among the Censors of the College? did they not offer it you, or have you refused it? I have not done a word more of Bard. Having been in a very listless, unpleasant, and inutile state of mind for this long 1 This alludes to the dismissal of Pitt, then paymaster of the forces, and the Right Honourable Henry Legge, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the question of engaging this nation in a continental connection for the defence of Hanover.-[Mit.] VOL. II. T while, for which I shall beg you to prescribe me somewhat strengthening and agglutinant, lest it turn to a confirmed Pythisis. To shew you how epidemical self-murther is this year, Lady M. Capel (Lord Essex's sister) a young person, has just cut the veins of both arms across, but (they say) will not die of it, she was well and in her senses, though of a family that are apt to be otherwise. Adieu, dear Doctor, I should be glad of a line from you, before I come.-Believe me ever, most sincerely yours, T. G. CX. TO THOMAS WHARTON. Cambridge, January 9, 1756. DEAR DOCTOR-I am quite of Mr. Alderman's opinion; provided you have a very fair prospect of success (for I do not love repulses, though I believe in such cases they are not attended with any disgrace) such an employment must necessarily give countenance and name to one in your profession, not to mention the use it must be of in refreshing and keeping alive the ideas of practice you have already got, and improving them by new observation. It cannot but lead to other business too in a more natural way, than perhaps any other; for whatever lucky chance may have introduced into the world here and there a Physician of great vogue, the same chance may hardly befall another in an age; and the indirect and by-ways, that doubtless have succeeded with many, are rather too dirty for you to tread. As to the time it would take I have continued the Soap every other day from the time I left you, except an interval or two of a week or ten days at a time, which I allow'd in order to satisfy myself, whether the good effects of it were lasting, or only temporary. I think, I may say it has absolutely cured that complaint I used to mention to you, and (what is more) the ill-habit, which perhaps was the cause of that, and of the flying pains I have every now and then felt in my joints. Whenever I use it, it much increases my appetite, and the heartburn is quite vanished. So I may venture to say, it does good to my stomach. When I shall speak of its bad effects, you are no longer to treat me as a whimsical body, for I am certain now, that it disorders the head, and much disturbs one's sleep. This I now avoid by taking it immediately before dinner; and besides these things are trifles compared with the good it has done me. In short, I am so well, it would be folly to take any other medicine: therefore |