NOV. 1, 1734.
I HAVE yours with my lord Bolingbroke's Postscript of September 15, it was long on its way, and for some weeks after the date I was very ill with my two inveterate disorders, giddiness and deafness. The latter is pretty well off, but the other makes me totter towards evenings, and much dispirits me. But I continue to ride and walk, both of which, although they be no cures, are at least amusements. I did never imagine you to be either inconstant, or to want right notions of friendship, but I apprehend your want of health; and it has been a frequent wonder to me how you have been able to entertain the world so long, so frequently, so happily, under so many bodily disorders. My lord Bolingbroke says you have been three months rambling, which is the best thing you can possibly do in a summer season; and when the winter recalls you, we will for our own interests leave you to your speculations. God be thanked I have done with every thing, and of every kind, that requires writing, except now and then a letter; or, like a true old man, scribbling trifles only fit for children or schoolboys of the lowest class at best, which three or four of us read and laugh at to day, and burn to morrow. Yet, what is singular, I never am without some great work in view, enough to take up forty years of the most vigorous healthy man: although I am convinced that I shall
never
