MY DEAR FRIEND: I received, with great pleasure, your letter of the 22d August; for, by not having a line from you in your secretary’s two letters, I suspect that you were worse than he cared to tell me; and so far I was in the right, that your fever was more malignant than intermitting ones generally are, which seldom confines people to their bed, or at most, only the days of the paroxysms. Now that, thank God, you are well again, though weak, do not be in too much haste to be better and stronger: leave that to nature, which, at your age, will restore both your health and strength as soon as she should. Live cool for a time, and rather low, instead of taking what they call heartening things: Your manner of making presents is noble, ‘et sent la grandeur d’ame d’un preux Chevalier’. You depreciate their value to prevent any returns; for it is impossible that a wine which has counted so many Syndicks, that can only be delivered by a ‘senatus consultum’, and is the PANACEA Of the North, should be sold for a ducat a bottle. The ‘sylphium’ of the Romans, which was stored up in the public magazines, and only distributed by order of the magistrate, I dare say, cost more; so that I am convinced, your present is much more valuable than you would make it.
Here I am interrupted, by receiving your letter of the 25th past. I am glad that you are able to undertake your journey to Bremen: the motion, the air, the new scene, the everything, will do you good, provided you manage yourself discreetly.
Your bill for fifty pounds shall certainly be accepted and paid; but, as in conscience I think fifty pounds is too little, for seeing a live Landgrave, and especially at Bremen, which this whole nation knows to be a very dear place, I shall, with your leave, add fifty more to it. By the way, when you see the Princess Royal of Cassel, be sure to tell her how sensible you are of the favorable and too partial testimony, which you know she wrote of you to Princess Amelia.
The King of Prussia has had the victory, which you in some measure foretold; and as he has taken ‘la caisse militaire’, I presume ‘Messieurs les Russes sont hors de combat pour cette campagne’; for ‘point d’argent, point de Suisse’, is not truer of the laudable Helvetic body, than ‘point d’argent, point de Russe’, is of the savages of the Two Russias, not even excepting the Autocratrice of them both. Serbelloni, I believe, stands next in his Prussian Majesty’s list to be beaten; that is, if he will stand; as the Prince de Soubize does in Prince Ferdinand’s, upon the same condition. If both these things happen, which is by no means improbable, we may hope for a tolerable peace this winter; for, ‘au bout du compte’, the King of Prussia cannot hold out another year; and therefore he should make the best of these favorable events, by way negotiation.
I think I have written a great deal, with an actual giddiness of head upon me. So adieu.
I am glad you have received my letter of the Ides of July.
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