Adieu, my dear friend. I am, with Mrs. Unwin's best compliments,
Ever yours,
W. C.
TO MRS. KING.[605]
Weston, Aug. 4, 1791.
My dear Madam,—Your last letter, which gave us so unfavourable an account of your health, and which did not speak much more comfortably of Mr. King's, affected us with much concern. Of Dr. Raitt we may say, in the words of Milton,
"His long experience did attain
To something like prophetic strain;"
for as he foretold to you, so he foretold to Mrs. Unwin, that, though her disorders might not much threaten life, they would yet cleave to her to the last; and she and perfect health must ever be strangers to each other. Such was his prediction, and it has been hitherto accomplished. Either head-ache or pain in the side has been her constant companion ever since we had the pleasure of seeing you. As for myself, I cannot properly say that I enjoy a good state of health, though in general I have it, because I have it accompanied with frequent fits of dejection, to which less health and better spirits would, perhaps, be infinitely preferable. But it pleased God that I should be born in a country where melancholy is the national characteristic. To say the truth, I have often wished myself a Frenchman.
N. B. I write this in very good spirits.
You gave us so little hope in your last, that we should have your company this summer at Weston, that to repeat our invitation seems almost like teasing you. I will only say, therefore, that, my Norfolk friends having left us, of whose expected arrival here I believe I told you in a former letter, we should be happy could you succeed them. We now, indeed, expect Lady Hesketh, but not immediately; she seldom sees Weston till all its summer beauties are fled, and red, brown, and yellow, have supplanted the universal verdure.
My Homer is gone forth, and I can devoutly say, "Joy go with it!" What place it holds in the estimation of the generality I cannot tell, having heard no more about it since its publication than if no such work existed. I must except, however, an anonymous eulogium from some man of letters, which I received about a week ago. It was kind in a perfect stranger, as he avows himself to be, to relieve me, at so early a day, from much of the anxiety that I could not but feel on such an occasion. I should be glad to know who he is, only that I might thank him.