378.
To his Stepmother.
Bentinck Street, September 17th, 1779.
Dear Madam,
*I am well and happy; two words which you will accept as the substance of a very long letter; and even as a sufficient excuse for a very long silence. Yet I really do intend to behave better; and to prevent the abominable consequence of hours and days and posts stealing away, till the sum total amounts to a formidable account, I have a great mind to enter into an agreement, of sending you regularly every month, a miniature picture of my actual state and condition on the first day of the aforesaid month.
I am happy to hear of the very beneficial effects you have derived from your recent friendship with the Goats;[440] and as I cannot discover in what respect this poor Country is more prosperous or secure than it was last year, I must consider your present confidence as a proof that you view the prospect through a purer medium, and a glass of a more chearful colour. I find myself so much more susceptible of private friendship than of public spirit, that I am very well satisfied with that conclusion. My summer has been passed in the town and neighbourhood, which I still maintain to be the best society, and the best retirement; the latter, however, has been sometimes interrupted by the Colonel of Dragoons[441] with a train of Serjeants, Trumpets, Recruits, &c. &c. My own time is much and agreeably employed in the prosecution of my business. After doing much more than I expected to have done within the time, I find myself much less advanced than I expected: yet I begin to reckon, and as well as I can calculate, I believe, that in twelve or fourteen months I shall be brought to bed, perhaps of twins. May they live, and prove as healthy as their eldest brother.
DISCLAIMS THE "HISTORY OF OPPOSITION."
With regard to the little foundling which so many friends or enemies chose to lay at my door, I am perfectly innocent, even of the knowledge of that production; and all the faults or merits of the History of Opposition must, as I am informed, be imputed to Macpherson, the Author or translator of Fingal.* I am much at a loss what to say about Mr. Eliot; he is certainly very far from being in a good state of health or spirits, but I am not Physician enough to distinguish between the influence of the body and that of the mind: he feels for the public with the most exquisite sensibility, and all his sentiments are of the painful kind. He still loiters in town, which I dare say he will not leave till near the meeting of Parliament, and will go about the month of November to pass the Summer in Cornwall. His delay has disconcerted my measures, as I had resolved (however inconvenient it might be) to make an Expedition this year to Port Eliot; and had proposed myself the pleasure of passing some days at Bath on my way. Cornwall must be deferred till next summer, which will arrange indeed much better with my litterary projects; but I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of seeing you either before the meeting of Parliament or in the Christmas recess.
I am, Dear Madam,
Most truly Yours,
E. Gibbon.