246.
To his Stepmother.
April 11th, 1775.
Dear Madam,
I am sorry to hear of your rheumatism, but the return of Spring is much in your favour. I wish you would follow Mrs. Porten's method, who is never out of order above four and twenty hours at a time, and is still, take her upon the whole, one of the youngest women I know about town. I am glad to find that Mr. Eliot is coming to Bath; he will be in town, I suppose, some days after the end of the Sessions. His friends continually ask me about him, and when his name is drawn upon a Ballot it is a standing joke in the House of Commons. It will certainly not be in my power to attend him and to visit you as I could have wished during the very short period of our Holidays. I never yet found myself more taken up with business: one part of it, though indeed the most trifling, you will not, I believe, be displeased at, a presentation at Court next week. I likewise have an engagement to meet Lord North at dinner, which will probably be followed by another at his own House (but this between ourselves). Besides all this, the melancholy duty which I am discharging to poor Clarke makes it impossible for me to move for some time, as my Colleague—Skipwith—takes the country business and leaves me that of town, which is much more perplexing and tedious than I expected. So you see, dear Madam, that you must return my visit, and I hope you will seriously think of it. Deyverdun kisses your hands, and will soon send you something in verse or prose.
I am, dear Madam,
Most truly yours,
E. G.
Be so good as to give me a line on Mr. E.'s arrival, with some idea of his intended motions, that I may epistolize him.