event of his death his wife and children could have no hope except from some acknowledgment by the Government of his past services. Meanwhile his diseases were slowly gaining ground. The terrible winter of 1753-54, which, from the weather record in the _Gentleman's_, seems, with small intermission, to have been prolonged far into April, was especially trying to asthmatic patients, and consequently wholly against him. In February he returned to town, and put himself under the care of the notorious Dr. Joshua Ward of Pall Mall, by whom he was treated and tapped for dropsy. [Footnote: Ward appears in Hogarth's _Consultation of Physicians_, 1736, and in Pope--"Ward try'd on Puppies, and the Poor, his Drop." He was a quack, but must have possessed considerable ability. Bolingbroke wished Pope to consult him in 1744; and he attended George II. There is an account of him in Nichols's _Genuine Works of Hogarth_, i. 89.] He was at his worst, he says, "on that memorable day when the public lost Mr. Pelham (March 6th);" but from this time, he began, under Ward's medicines, to acquire "some little degree of strength," although his dropsy increased. With May came the long-delayed spring, and he moved to Fordhook, [Footnote: It lay on the Uxbridge Road, a little beyond Acton, and nearly opposite the subsequent site of the Ealing Common Station of the Metropolitan District Railway. The spot is now occupied by "commodious villas."] a "little house" belonging to him at Ealing, the air of which place then enjoyed a considerable reputation, being reckoned the best in Middlesex, "and far superior to that of Kensington Gravel-Pits." Here a re-perusal of Bishop Berkeley's _Siris_, which had been recalled to his memory by Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, "the inimitable author of the _Female Quixote_," set him drinking tar-water with apparent good effect, except as far as his chief ailment was concerned. The applications of the trocar became more frequent: the summer, if summer it could be called, was "mouldering away;" and winter, with all its danger to an invalid, was drawing on apace. Nothing seemed hopeful but removal to a warmer climate. Aix in Provence was at first thought of, but the idea was abandoned on account of the difficulties of the journey. Lisbon, where Doddridge had died three years before, was then chosen; a passage in a vessel trading to the port was engaged for the sick man, his wife, daughter, and two servants; and after some delays they started. At this point the actual _Journal_ begins with a well-remembered entry:--