FROM CHARLES FORD, ESQ.
LONDON, NOV. 6, 1733.
I HAD the favour of your letter in Derbyshire, from whence I came last week. I am extremely concerned to hear the ill state of your health. I was afraid of it, when I was so long without the pleasure of hearing from you. Those sort of disorders puzzle the physicians every where; and they are merciless dogs in purging or vomiting to no purpose, when they do not know what to do. I heartily wish you would try the Bath waters, which are allowed to be the best medicine for strengthening the stomach; and most distempers in the head proceed from thence. Vomits may clean a foul stomach, but they are certainly the worst things that can be for a weak one. I have long had it at heart to see your works collected, and published with care. It is become absolutely necessary, since that jumble with Pope, &c. in three volumes, which put me in a rage whenever I meet them. I know no reason why, at this distance of time, the Examiners, and other political pamphlets written in the queen's reign, might not be inserted. I doubt you have been too negligent in keeping copies; but I have them bound up, and most of them single besides. I lent Mr. Corbet that paper to correct his Gulliver by; and it was from it that I mended my own. There is every single alteration from the original copy; and the printed book abounds with all those errours, which should be avoided in the new edition.
