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I AM very much obliged to you for the detail you enter into on the subject of your own health: in this you cannot be too circumstantial for me, who had received no account of you, but at second hand-such as, that you were dangerously ill, and therefore went to France; that you meant to try a better climate, and therefore staid at Paris; that you had relapsed, and were confined to your bed, and extremely in vogue, and supped in the best company, and were at public diversions. I rejoice to find (improbable as it seemed) that all the wonderful part of this is strictly true, and that the serious part has been a little exaggerated. This latter I conclude not so much from your own account of yourself, as from the spirits in which I see you write; and long may they continue to support you! I mean in a reasonable degree of elevation but if (take notice) they are so volatile, so flippant, as to suggest any of those doctrines of health, which you preach with all the zeal of a French atheist; at least, if they really do influence your practice; I utterly renounce them and all their works. They are evil spirits, and will lead you to destruction.-You have long built your hopes on temperance, you say, and hardiOn the first point we are agreed. The second has totally disappointed you, and therefore you will persist in it; by all means. But then be sure to persist too in being young, in stopping the course of time, and making the shadow return back upon your sun-dial. If find this not so easy, acquiesce with a good grace. you in my anilities, put on your under-stockings of yarn or woollen, even in the night-time. Don't provoke me! or I shall order you two night-caps (which by the way would do your eyes good), and put a little of any French liqueur into your water: they are nothing but brandy and sugar, and among their various flavours some of

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them may surely be palatable enough. The pain in your feet I can bear; but I shudder at the sickness in your stomach, and the weakness that still continues. I conjure you, as you love yourself; I conjure you by Strawberry, not to trifle with these edge-tools. There is no cure for the gout, when in the stomach, but to throw it into the limbs. There is no relief for the gout in the limbs, but in gentle warmth and gradual perspi

ration.

I was much entertained with your account of our neighbours. As an Englishman and an Antigallican, I rejoice at their dulness and their nastiness; though I fear we shall come to imitate them in both. Their atheism is a little too much, too shocking to rejoice at. I have been long sick at it in their authors, and hated them for it but I pity their poor innocent people of fashion. They were bad enough, when they believed every thing!

I have searched where you directed me; which I could not do sooner, as I was at London when I received your letter, and could not easily find her Grace's works. Here they abound in every library. The print* you ask after is the frontispiece to Nature's Pictures drawn by Fancy's Pencil. But lest there should be any mistake, I must tell you, the family are not at dinner, but sitting round a rousing fire and telling stories. The room is just such a one as we lived in at Rheims; I mean as to the glazing and ceiling. The chimney is supported by cariatides; over the mantel-piece the arms of the family. The Duke and Duchess are crowned with laurel. A servant stands behind him, holding a hat and feather: another is shutting a window. Diepenbecke delin. & (I think) S. Clouwe sculps. It is

* Mr. Walpole had observed that he had been shewn a print of the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle at dinner with their family; in consequence he requested Mr. Gray to examine their graces' folios, and ascertain if it was not a frontispiece to some one of them.

I RECEIVED the book* you were so good to send me, and have read it again (indeed I could hardly be said to have read it before) with attention and with pleasure. Your second edition is so rapid in its progress, it will now hardly answer any purpose to tell you either my own objections, or those of other people. Certain it is, that you are universally read here; but what we think, is not so easy to come at. We stay as usual to see the success, to learn the judgment of the town, to be directed in our opinions by those of more competent judges. If they like you, we shall; if any one of name write against you, we give you up for we are modest and diffident of ourselves, and not without reason. History in particular is not our fort; for (the truth is) we read only modern books and the pamphlets of the day. I have heard it objected, that you raise doubts and difficulties, and do not satisfy them by telling us what was really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the King of Prussia; and above all to King

*The Historic Doubts.

William, and the Revolution. These are seriously the most sensible things I have heard said, and all that I can recollect. If you please to justify yourself, you may.

My own objections are little more essential: they relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the expression or obscure the meaning. I could point out several small particulars of this kind, and will do so, you think it can serve any purpose after publication. When I hear you read, they often escape me, partly because I am attending to the subject, and partly because from habit I understand you where a stranger might often be at a loss.

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As to your arguments, most of the principal points are made out with a clearness and evidence that no one would expect where materials are so scarce. still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry VI. The chronicler of Croyland charges it full on him, though without a name or any mention of circumstances. The interests of Edward were the interests of Richard too, though the throne were not then in view; and that Henry still stood in their way, they might well imagine, because, though deposed and imprisoned once before, he had regained his liberty and his crown; and was still adored by the people. I should think, from the word tyranni, the passage was written after Richard had assumed the crown: but, if it was earlier, does not the bare imputation imply very early suspicions at least of Richard's bloody nature, especially in the mouth of a person that was no enemy to the house of York, nor friend to that of Beaufort?

That the Duchess of Burgundy, to try the temper of the nation, should set up a false pretender to the throne (when she had the true Duke of York in her hands), and that the queen-mother (knowing her son was alive) should countenance that design, is a piece of policy utterly incomprehensible; being the most likely means to

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Another unaccountable thing is, that Richard, a prince of the house of York, undoubtedly brave, clear-sighted, artful, attentive to business; of boundless generosity, as appears from his grants; just and merciful, as his laws and his pardons seem to testify; having subdued the Queen and her hated faction, and been called first to the protectorship and then to the crown by the body of the nobility and by the parliament; with the common people to friend (as Carte often asserts), and having nothing against him but the illegitimate family of his brother Edward, and the attainted house of Clarence (both of them within his power);-that such a man should see within a few months Buckingham, his best friend, and almost all the southern and western counties on one day in arms against him; that, having seen all these insurrections come to nothing, he should march with a gallant army against a handful of needy adventurers, led by a fugitive, who had not the shadow of a title, nor any vir

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