I am sure you are so too. You ought to be as cheerful as you can, for both our sakes, and read pleasant things that will make you laugh, and not sit moping with your elbows on your knees on a little stool by the fire. It is most infallible that riding would do Mobkin[1] more good than any other thing, provided fair days and warm clothes be provided: and so it would to you; and if you lose any skin, you know Job says, skin for skin will a man give for his life. It is either Job or Satan says so, for aught you know. I am getting an ill head in this cursed town, for want of exercise. I wish I were to walk with you fifty times about your garden, and then drink your coffee. I was sitting last night with half a score of both sexes for an hour, and grew as weary as a dog. Every body grows silly and disagreeable or I grow monkish and splenetick; which is the same thing. Conversation is full of nothing but South Sea, and the ruin of the kingdom, and scarcity of money.
FROM SIR THOMAS HANMER.
I RECEIVED the favour of a letter from you about ten days since, at which time the duke of
