patched up. I am confident your collection of bon mots, and contes à rire will be much the best extant; but you are apt to be terribly sanguine about the profits of publishing: however it shall have all the pushing I can give. I have been much out of order with a spice of my giddiness, which began before you left us: I am better of late days, but not right yet, though I take daily drops and bitters. I must do the best I can, but shall never more be a night-walker. You hear they have in England passed the excise on tobacco, and by their votes it appears they intend it on more articles. And care is taken by some special friends here to have it the same way here. We are slaves already. And from my youth upward, the great wise men, whom I used to be among, taught me, that a general excise (which they now by degrees intend) is the most direct and infallible way to slavery. Pray G— send it them in his justice, for they well deserve it. All your friends and the town are just as you left it. I humdrum it on, either on horseback, or dining and sitting the evening at home, endeavouring to write, but write nothing merely out of indolence, and want of spirits. No soul has broke his neck, or is hanged, or married; only Cancerina[1] is dead, and I let her go to her grave without a coffin, and without fees. So I am going to take my evening walk after five, having not been out of doors yet. I wish you well and safe at home; pray call on me on Sunday night.
