LETTER CXXXVIII 227 



again. But left his Services to you, as I told him I was writing.) 

 — But Mrs Mulso charges you with being unpolite in not 

 answering a Lady's Letter before you wrote to any Body else, 

 so You must get out of that Scrape as well as you can. I am 

 obliged to you for the care you took about my prebendal House, 

 but I am now determined to take Mr Lechmere's, as Mr Ashe 

 has declined it : I was in it ; it is a very queer One, but it's 

 Neighbourhood to the Church will make it now doubly commo- 

 dious to me. I must make my Appearance there towards the . 

 Beginning of June, tho' We have not made one Step yet towards 

 furnishing & disposing ye Mansion. 



We send our Congratulations to you on the Recovery of your 

 two Nephews, & to Mrs Etty in her safe going out again & ye 

 Health of her young One; & our Affte Compliments to that 

 family as well as your own. I am afraid Harry will be tugged 

 back by ye Leg before this reaches You, & will not be told how 

 much mortified we were at not seeing him ; but we are glad he 

 is now recovered from his Indisposition. Have you sent my My 

 to Jack ?* & has he acknowledged the Receipt ? & was he pleased 

 to see a little Effort of an old friend to amuse him? Why do 

 you not tell me of all these things, & of what he says of the 

 Spanish Camps & the Apprehensions of the Garrison about it, 

 or whether these things are all the Monsters of the Stock- 

 jobbers? — I desire You to get You some Spectacles; I own, as a 

 Batchelor, that it may have an awkward Look before Ladies, 

 but I should get a great deal more out of You in half a Sheet of 

 Paper, for You now write a Hand so preposterously large that 

 One of my Pages contains more than three of your's : and as 

 You now write alone by ye fire side in ye Ev'ning before You 

 go over to Mr Etty's, You may unpannell your Nose, taking Care 

 to rub ye Sides a little, & No One be the wiser for it but Myself. 

 The new Almanac has for ye Subject of it's Picture Magdalen 

 Tower wth the adjoining Buildings surveyed from towards ye End 

 of ye Bridge near the Physic Garden. The Engraving is elegant 

 enough, but I had expected the Entrance to Oxford by the Castle, 

 which in it's present State would have been grotesque enough 

 & a newer Plan, for Virtue had done Magdalen Tower very well ; 

 yet it is so pleasing an Object that it never tires. 



We have been rather Mexican by ye floods, which broke ye 

 Bridge at long Hamborough near Bladen. I expect Snow, as 

 I hear of it from the North ; & from Norfolk by Miss Allot, who 

 is there. I feel ye Influences of the Weather tho' I cannot go 

 out of Doors, but bating my Limbs pain, I have been better 

 these last 3 months than for any three months before, so well 

 does Confinement agree wth me. 



* Gilbert White's brother John, of Gibraltar. 



