HOT WELL, April 18.

DEAR PHILLIPS,

I give Mansel credit for his invention, in propagating the report
that I had a quarrel with a mountebank's merry Andrew at
Gloucester: but I have too much respect for every appendage of
wit, to quarrel even with the lowest buffoonery; and therefore I
hope Mansel and I shall always be good friends. I cannot,
however, approve of his drowning my poor dog Ponto, on purpose to
convert Ovid's pleonasm into a punning epitaph, -- deerant quoque
Littora Ponto: for, that he threw him into the Isis, when it was
so high and impetuous, with no other view than to kill the fleas,
is an excuse that will not hold water -- But I leave poor Ponto
to his fate, and hope Providence will take care to accommodate
Mansel with a drier death.

As there is nothing that can be called company at the Well, I am
here in a state of absolute rustication: This, however, gives me
leisure to observe the singularities in my uncle's character,
which seems to have interested your curiosity. The truth is, his
disposition and mine, which, like oil and vinegar, repelled one
another at first, have now begun to mix by dint of being beat up
together. I was once apt to believe him a complete Cynic; and
that nothing but the necessity of his occasions could compel him
to get within the pale of society -- I am now of another opinion.
I think his peevishness arises partly from bodily pain, and
partly from a natural excess of mental sensibility; for, I
suppose, the mind as well as the body, is in some cases endued