I am impatient to hear that your charity to me has not ended in the gout
to yourself--all my comfort is, if you have it, that you have good Lady
Brown to nurse you.[1]

[Footnote 1: In a letter of the preceding week he mentions having gone
to Bath to drink the waters there, but "is disappointed in the city.
Their new buildings, that are so admired, look like a collection of
little hospitals. The rest is detestable, and all crammed together, and
surrounded with perpendicular hills that have no beauty. The river [the
Avon] is paltry enough to be the Seine or the Tiber. Oh! how unlike my
lovely Thames!"]

My health advances faster than my amusement. However, I have been to one
opera, Mr. Wesley's. They have boys and girls with charming voices, that
sing hymns, in parts, to Scotch ballad tunes; but indeed so long, that
one would think they were already in eternity, and knew how much time
they had before them. The chapel is very neat, with true Gothic windows
(yet I am not converted); but I was glad to see that luxury is creeping
in upon them before persecution: they have very neat mahogany stands for
branches, and brackets of the same in taste. At the upper end is a broad
_hautpas_ of four steps, advancing in the middle: at each end of the
broadest part are two of _my_ eagles, with red cushions for the parson
and clerk. Behind them rise three more steps, in the midst of which is a
third eagle for pulpit. Scarlet armed chairs to all three. On either
hand, a balcony for elect ladies. The rest of the congregation sit on
forms. Behind the pit, in a dark niche, is a plain table within rails;
so you see the throne is for the apostle. Wesley is a lean elderly man,
fresh-coloured, his hair smoothly combed, but with a _soupçon_ of curl
at the ends. Wondrous clean, but as evidently an actor as Garrick. He