44 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SANCROFT. 



call a cold, is a mistake. My deafness, which 

 made it troublesome both to me and to my 

 friends to converse with me, hath been many 

 months upon me : and, therefore, I dined pri- 

 vately here, as I use to do, nor have I eat at the 

 old house, or been there, but twice (and once 

 was on Christmas-day) since first I removed 

 hither. Notwithstanding, I thank you for your 

 kind advice, and will take a dose of my pills, 

 which I have by me, as soon as the weather 

 relents a little. 



*' Unless my memory hath got a strange cold 

 too, your neighbour said not one word to me of 

 any bill thrown out of the House of Lords, or 

 of any protestation made, or entered, with the 

 reasons of the dissent : insomuch, that when I 

 read all this in your letter, and had considered 

 it, as well as I could, I could not guess what 

 the bill concerned. 



*' After dinner, as we sat by the fireside, he 

 he very kindly proffered to make me a friend in 

 the Post-office, that should send me all foreign 

 news and letters, &c. To divert this, (having 

 a great averseness from keeping such intelli- 

 gence, which I fear may prove dangerous to me 

 in my circumstances,) I told him, that I had 

 now very little curiosity left alive in me ; and 

 that I was so far from beginning new corre- 

 spondencies, that I was thinking of putting an 



