you, because I am much pleased
to find that your mother stays so long with you, and I should think you
neither elegant nor grateful, if you did not study her gratification.
You will pay my respects to both the ladies, and to all the young
people. I am going Northward for a while, to try what help the country
can give me; but, if you will write, the letter will come after me.'

Next day he set out on a jaunt to Staffordshire and Derbyshire,
flattering himself that he might be in some degree relieved.

During his absence from London he kept up a correspondence with several
of his friends, from which I shall select what appears to me proper for
publication, without attending nicely to chronological order.

To Dr. BROCKLESBY, he writes, Ashbourne, July 20:--

'The kind attention which you have so long shewn to my health and
happiness, makes it as much a debt of gratitude as a call of interest,
to give you an account of what befals me, when accident recovers[1092]
me from your immediate care. The journey of the first day was performed
with very little sense of fatigue; the second day brought me to
Lichfield, without much lassitude; but I am afraid that I could not have
borne such violent agitation for many days together. Tell Dr. Heberden,
that in the coach I read _Ciceronianus_ which I concluded as I entered
Lichfield. My affection and understanding went along with Erasmus,
except that once or twice he somewhat unskilfully entangles Cicero's
civil or moral, with his rhetorical, character. I staid five days at
Lichfield, but, being unable to walk, had no great pleasure, and
yesterday (19th) I came hither, where I am to try what air and attention
can perform. Of any improvement in my health I cannot yet please myself
with the perception.--The asthma has no abatement. Opiates stop the fit,
so as that I can sit and sometimes lie easy, but they do not now procure
me the power of motion; and I am afraid that my general strength of body
does not encrease. The weather indeed is not benign; but how low is he
sunk whose strength depends upon the weather[1093]! I am now looking
into Floyer[1094] who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth
year. His book by want of order is obscure, and his asthma, I think, not
of the same kind with mine. Something however I may perhaps learn. My
appetite still continues keen enough; and what I consider as a symptom
of radical health, I have a voracious delight in raw summer fruit, of
which I