wonderful situation of affairs, would take up much more time and paper
than either you or I can afford, though we have neither of us a great
deal of business at present.

I am in as good health as I could reasonably expect, at my age, and with
my shattered carcass; that is, from the waist upward; but downward it is
not the same: for my limbs retain that stiffness and debility of my long
rheumatism; I cannot walk half an hour at a time. As the autumn, and
still more as the winter approaches, take care to keep yourself very
warm, especially your legs and feet.

Lady Chesterfield sends you her compliments, and triumphs in the success
of her plaster. God bless you!




LETTER CCLXXXVII

BLACKHEATH, July 11, 1766.

MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a happy mortal, to have your time thus employed
between the great and the fair; I hope you do the honors of your country
to the latter. The Emperor, by your account, seems to be very well for an
emperor; who, by being above the other monarchs in Europe, may justly be
supposed to have had a proportionably worse education. I find, by your
account of him, that he has been trained up to homicide, the only science
in which princes are ever instructed; and with good reason, as their
greatness and glory singly depend upon the numbers of their
fellow-creatures which their ambition exterminates. If a sovereign