“I wrote you an account of my excursion to Bristol Hotwells: but I had not been returned to Chelsea more than three days, before I had an alarming seizure in my left hand, which neither heat, friction, nor medicines could subdue. It felt perfectly asleep; in a state of immoveable torpor. My medical friends would not tell me what this obstinate numbness was; but I discovered by their prescriptions, and advice as to regimen, that it was neither more nor less than a paralytic affection; and, near Christmas, it was pronounced to be a Bath case. On Christmas eve, I set out for that City, extremely weak and dispirited: the roads terrible, and almost incessant torrents of rain all the way. I was five days on the journey; I took Fanny Phillips with me, and we had excellent apartments on the South Parade, which is always warm when any sun shines. I put myself under the care of Dr. Parry, who, having resided, and practised physic at Bath more than forty years, must, _cæteris paribus_, know the virtues and vices of Bath waters better than the most renowned physicians in London. To give them fair play, I remained three months in this City; and I found my hand much more alive, and my general health very considerably amended. But, I caught so violent a fresh cold in my journey home, that it was called what the French style a _Fluxion de poitrine_, and I was immediately confined to my bed at Chelsea, and unable to eat, sleep, or speak. Strict starvation was then ordered; but softened off into fish and asparagus as soon as possible, by our wise and good Æsculapius, Sir Walter Farquhar: and now I am allowed poultry and game, under certain restrictions, and find myself tolerably well again. All this tedious account of _own self_ should still have been suppressed, but that I feared it might reach you by some other means, and give you greater alarm; I determined, therefore, to tell you the truth, the whole truth, &c., with my own paw: being able, at the same time, to write you that, cough excepted, which returns with cold weather, I passed last summer more free from complaint than I have passed any for many preceding years. And now it is time to say something of your other kindred, whose names you languish, you say, to see.