LONDON,November 3,1767.
MY DEAR FRIEND:Your last letter brought me but a scurvy account of your health.For the headaches you complain of,I will venture to prescribe a remedy,which,by experience,I found a specific,when I was extremely plagued with them.It is either to chew ten grains of rhubarb every night going to bed:or,what I think rather better,to take,immediately before dinner,a couple of rhubarb pills,of five grains each;by which means it mixes with the aliments,and will,by degrees,keep your body gently open.I do it to this day,and find great good by it.As you seem to dread the approach of a German winter,I would advise you to write to General Conway,for leave of absence for the three rigorous winter months,which I dare say will not be refused.If you choose a worse climate,you may come to London;but if you choose a better and a warmer,you may go to Nice en Provence,where Sir William Stanhope is gone to pass his winter,who,I am sure,will be extremely glad of your company there.
I go to the Bath next Saturday.'Utinam de frustra'.God bless you!
