In the name of the Gods my Dear Jay! what can have made you the Subject of Diseases?1 I thought your Temperance might almost have baffled the unwholsom Blasts of Spring or Autumn, the Glowing heats of Augt: or the nipping frosts of January. Or have you since my Departure indulged your self more freely in the use of Generous Wine, adding to the pleasures of Sociability? do your Friends use larger Glasses, or give more in number, do they give you Bumpers or offer the Lady next your Heart in Challenges; or have you in your Entertainments done all these? Or is it the India Spices to the palate so much pleasing added to your meats that which have against your Health been so Rebellious? From what ever of these causes or if the cause you can divine, let it be your Study to oppose it. Let not the Importunity of Business chain you to your Pen? Exercise tending to the restoration of your Health is of much more importance to you. Let your mind as little as possible with the disorder of your Body participate. They furnish food each for the other and without further nourishment Increase with absolute Dominion [illegible]

To me and not my Friends my absence proves Unfortunate, from pleasing Society being almost sequesterd, doubly do I feel its Influence. Custom tis true begets a property of Contentment, and sometimes to fate the Mind it Reconciles. But tis not always so: for of my Companions that I do the loss regret as much to day as the day on which we parted am I bold to testify—

Hence a month, or time a little more allow’d, to leave this place is my Intention; and if report be true, my Situation for the better will be alter’d: much for the worse it Cannot be, for since in this place I have held Acquaintance, small have been my profits, and less my Satisfaction, with few people have I been able to converse, wanting fluency in the Language,2 and with Books as few, having no more than what I have my self Imported. Thus wanting the means not only of Improvement and Satisfaction of but of adding to my fortune should I cast up my Acct: the Ballance Could be little more than,3 except indeed that the weakness and depravity of human nature to my view are more Conspicuous.—

Should ^my^ Style somewhat Poetical appear, To astonishment let not a place be given; nor of my Sufficiency must you entertain a [illegible] ^dubious thought^; for to your understanding thus much shall be divulged—long in a Garret have I lived; and hence my Poetry its commencement took; But in this same Garret shall I not long Continue, & much to my Fear my Poetic Talents must thence depart—so health and happiness my Dear Jay. Write to me frequently I beseech you—