best company, though he can introduce you to none so good as his own. He
has of late applied himself very seriously to foreign affairs, especially
those of Saxony and Poland; he knows them perfectly well, and will tell
you what he knows. He always expresses, and I have good reason to believe
very sincerely, great kindness and affection for you.

The works of the late Lord Bolingbroke are just published, and have
plunged me into philosophical studies; which hitherto I have not been
much used to, or delighted with; convinced of the futility of those
researches; but I have read his "Philosophical Essay" upon the extent of
human knowledge, which, by the way, makes two large quartos and a half.
He there shows very clearly, and with most splendid eloquence, what the
human mind can and cannot do; that our understandings are wisely
calculated for our place in this planet, and for the link which we form
in the universal chain of things; but that they are by no means capable
of that degree of knowledge, which our curiosity makes us search after,
and which our vanity makes us often believe we arrive at. I shall not
recommend to you the reading of that work; but, when you return hither, I
shall recommend to your frequent and diligent perusal all his tracts that
are relative to our history and constitution; upon which he throws
lights, and scatters graces, which no other writer has ever done.

Reading, which was always a pleasure to me, in the time even of my
greatest dissipation, is now become my only refuge; and, I fear, I
indulge it too much at the expense of my eyes. But what can I do? I must
do something; I cannot bear absolute idleness; my ears grow every day
more useless to me, my eyes consequently more necessary; I will not hoard
them like a miser, but will rather risk the loss, than not enjoy the use
of them.