 said to
linger about the grave where its mortal consort lies. - I know, if it is in your
power, you will task your humanity - your compassion - shall I add, your
affection? - in order to assuage the almost intolerable disquiet that torments
the heart of your afflicted,
                                                                          WILSON
    Gloucester, March 31.
 

                To Sir Watkin Phillips, of Jesus college, Oxon.

                                                              Hot-well, April 18
Dear Phillips,
    I give Mansel credit for his invention, in propagating the report that I had
a quarrel with a mountebank's merry Andrew at Gloucester: but I have too much
respect for every appendage of wit, to quarrel even with the lowest buffoonery;
and therefore I hope Mansel and I shall always be good friends. I cannot,
however, approve of his drowning my poor dog Ponto, on purpose to convert Ovid's
pleonasm into a punning epitaph. - deerant quoque Littora Ponto: for, that he
threw him into the Isis, when it was so high and impetuous, with no other view
than to kill the fleas, is an excuse that will not hold water - But I leave poor
Ponto to his fate, and hope Providence will take care to accommodate Mansel with
a drier death.
    As there is nothing that can be called company at the Well, I am here in a
state of absolute rustication: This, however, gives me leisure to observe the
singularities in my uncle's character, which seems to have interested your
curiosity. The truth is, his disposition and mine, which, like oil and vinegar,
repelled one another at first, have now begun to mix by dint of being beat up
together. I was once apt to believe him a complete Cynic; and that nothing but
the necessity of his occasions could compel him to get within the pale of
society - I am now of another opinion. I think his peevishness arises partly
from bodily pain, and partly from a natural excess of mental sensibility; for, I
suppose, the mind as well as the body, is in some cases endued with a morbid
excess of sensation.
    I was t'other day much diverted with a conversation that passed in the
Pump-room, betwixt him and the famous Dr. L--n, who is come to ply at the Well
for patients. My uncle was complaining of the stink, occasioned by the vast
quantity of mud and slime, which the river leaves at low ebb under the windows
of the Pump-room. He observed, that the exhalations arising from such a
nuisance, could not but be prejudicial to the weak lungs of
