The general scope of your letter afforded no indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. For God's sake don't think any more of 'Independent Tartary'. What are you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no _lineal descendant_ of Prester John? Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?--depend upon it they'll never make you their king, as long as any branch of that great stock is remaining. I tremble for your Christianity.... Read Sir John Mandeville's Travels to cure you, or come over to England. There is a Tartar-man now exhibiting at Exeter Change. Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no very favourable specimen of his countrymen! But perhaps the best thing you can do, is to _try_ to get the idea out of your head. For this purpose repeat to yourself every night, after you have said your prayers, the words, Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary, two or three times, and associate with them the _idea_ of _oblivion_ ('tis Hartley's method with obstinate memories), or say, Independent, Independent, have I not already got an _independence_? That was a clever way of the old Puritans, pun-divinity. My dear friend, think what a sad pity it would be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries, among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar-people! Some say they are Cannibals; and then, conceive a Tartar-fellow _eating_ my friend, and adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 'tis the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about Cambuscan, and the ring, and the horse of brass. Believe me, there are no such things, 'tis all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such darling things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the horse of brass, and frisk off for Prester John's country. But these are all tales; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's daughter never talked with birds! The Tartars, really, are a cold, insipid, smouchy set. You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ and cure yourself. Take hellebore (the counsel is Horace's, 'twas none of my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray, to avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heart-burn. _Shave the upper_ _lip_. Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages (they are nothing but lies), only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts. That has been your ruin_. Accustom yourself to write familiar letters, on common subjects, to your friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think about common things more.... I supped last night with Rickman, and met a merry _natural_ captain, who pleases himself vastly with once having made a pun at Otaheite in the O. language. 'Tis the same man who said Shakespeare he liked, because he was so _much of the gentleman_. Rickman is a man 'absolute in all