I can tell you now thank God that your godson appears to be perfectly recovered, – which till to day I could not have said. He had a bilious remittent fever upon him for about ten days; & tho at no time in what is called danger, you very well know, how soon such a disease might have taken an alarming form, – especially when typhus is prevalent, as it is in these parts. I am not the better for this anxiety. This corporal tenement of mine is not in the best condition; it has begun to feel the effect of time in more ways than one. – I am going to Rydal for two or three days, for the sake of change. I should be glad now if I kept a carriage, but that I shall never do. A long walk I dare not venture on, – not for want of strength, or inclination, but because of an infirmity which makes a short one inconvenient, & must end in disabling me from xxx exercise.

Happily there are not many persons better able both in mind & body to bear with such a privation. – When you come here (for come you must,) I must ride with you.

His Right Honour was, very often, his Wrong Honour when he was in opposition, but his xxxx opposition was always fair & honourable, – there was none of that low, dirty malice about it, which is now displayed towards him, by Grey Bennet,

a man of whom I have heard him speak much more favourably with ill-requited liberality. I have a great dislike to that man, who seems to xx me to have no sense of charity or humanity for any but those who either suffer or deserve punishment. Your regular professor of philanthropy is the most hard-hearted hearted of all hypocrites. This is one of your precious reformers who would consult the comforts of thieves in prison, & cut down the salaries of Clerks in office, or turn them upon the world. I am very proud of being an Englishman when I think what this country has done, what hearts & intellects it has produced, & still contains, – but indeed Grosvenor, sometimes I am almost as much ashamed of it when I see a nation gulled by such fellows as Hume,

Bennett &c, & a government truckling to them, & discarding its servants, or curtailing them of their pay in deference to a cry for retrenchment which they know to be as absurd as it is rascally.

I am sorry you have not read the clean sheets

I should have liked to have known how you liked them. – Pray tell your friend Hawker

how much I am obliged to him. Westall

is a man for whom I have a great regard. He has got some sketches from Heaphy,

but they relate only to the last campaign. – I have had some very interesting communications from Gen. Whittingham,

& from Bart. Frere. And, the most important which have yet come into my hands, from Sir Hew Dalrymple, – which will compel me to rewrite part of the 8^th chapter.

But you know I never grudge at labour of this kind.

So poor Boswell

is dead! – a victim no doubt to the same weakness as his father.

There is one good natured man the less in the world, & I have lost in him an old acquaintance who used to meet me with a chearful countenance, & a hearty shake by the hand.