(1789,) Nov. 6, Friday m(orning), Richmond.--Lord C. will receive a letter from me this morning which will be sufficient to assure you that George is well. He is so indeed, a tous egards. I stayed with him all Wednesday, and yesterday about noon I left him, so that in reality his course of erudition had but one day's interruption from me. Mr. Roberts is au comble de sa joie, et de sa gloire, having gained the prize for a better copy of verses upon the Deluge than that of any of his competitors. They are to be printed, so I shall see what I can at present have no idea of, and that is, how he will find matter from that event to furnish a hundred or two of blank verses. I should think that no one, but one like our friend John St. J(ohn), who uses Helicon as habitually as others do a cold bath, is equal to it. I only hope, for my part, that the argument will not be illustrated by any dkbordement of the Thames near this house; at present there is no appearance of it. I stayed at Matson, I will not say as long as it was good, but before it became very bad, which I believe it did before we had left the place two hours. The storm was brewing in the vale, but upon the hills we bade it defiance. I am very glad to be at a place where I can be stationary for a considerable time; and it is what is very requisite for my present state of health, which requires attention and regularity of living. If these are observed, I am as(su)red that after a time I shall be well, and that my lease for ten or twenty years seems as yet a good one. As for the labour and sorrow which his Majesty K(ing) D(avid) speaks of, I know of no age that is quite exempt from them, and have no fear of their being more severe in my caducity than they were in the flower of my age, when I had not more things to please me than I have now, although they might vary in their kind. When I see you and Lord C. with your children about you, and all of you in perfect health and spirits, my sensations of pleasure are greater than in the most joyous hours of my youth. It is no solitude, this place. We have got Onslows and Jeffreyes's, Mr. Walpole, &c., &c., and if Mr. Cambridge would permit it, I could be sometimes, as I wish to be, alone. On Monday Mie Mie and I shall go to town for one night. I am to meet Me de Bouflers(270) at Lady Lucan's. I think that if this next winter does not make a perfect Frenchman of me, I shall give it up. I hope, more, that it will afford Mie Mie also an opportunity of improving herself in a language which will be of more use to her, in all probability, than it can ever hereafter be to me. I am not disgusted with the language by the abhorrence which I have at present of the country. But these calamities, at times, happen in all climes, as well as in France. Man is a most savage animal when uncontrolled.