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To John Bull.

Cheltenham, April 11, 1828.

My dear B.,—I have been prevented writing you of late; two of my youngest daughters have had the mizzles, which has been succeeded by a cough and considerable expectation, but I have changed my doctor, and shall do uncommon well now. The last person, who fancies himself a second Hippocrite, had the impotence to say my girls had a low fever—girls brought up as they have been, like duchesses—so I said nothing; but when he called again, I was denied to him and sent for his arrival; and we are all going on well, and keep up our spirits accordingly.

A regiment is I believe the best thing after all; for I have just discovered that Shakspeare, the mortal bird, as my son calls him, died of indisgestion, which I did not know till my new doctor told me so; he said, that poor Shakspeare was quite destroyed by common tato's, which must have been some coarse sort of the root in use in his time; and the doctor also told me, that he was attended by a Doctor Johnson and a Mr. Stevens; but I thought to myself, too many cooks spoil the broth; and even my medical said he thought he would have done better if they had left him alone. What made us talk about the great swain of Avon was my saying I thought She Stoops to Conquer a very droll play.

My son-in-law has bought a beautiful picture, a Remnant undoubted; it is as black as your hat, and shines like a tea tray, and is considered, as indeed it is, what the French call, a shade over of that great master; he has also bought a jem of considerable vallew; he says it is an antic of a dancing fawn, but it looks to me like a man with a tail, a jumping. He has got several very curious things at shops here; but he goes poking his nose into all the oles and corners for curiosities, and sometimes gets into sad scrapes; he is a French Mounsheer, you recollect; and at one of the sails he scraped acquaintance with a young dandy-looking man with dark musquitos on his lips, which we had seen every morning a drinking the waters regularly, and so we let him walk and talk with us; and at last we was told that he was no better than he should be, and had been convicted of purgery, which I did not think so great a crime, considering where we was; however, he is gone away, which I am glad of.

I told you my son-in-law was a French Mounsheer, but I did not know till the other day that he was in the army, for he has been so sly as never to mention it; but I saw one of his letters from his elder brother, and in the direction he called him Cadet, which after all is no very high rank, you know. I should, however, have very much liked to have seen the boys from the Miliary Asslum march to the Surrey Theatre; it must have been a beautiful site; I suppose they got leave through the Egerton General's office.

Have you read Lord Normandy's Yes or No, or Mr. Liston's Herbert Lacy? I should think it must be very droll, he is such a droll cretur himself; and pray tell me if you have heard any news from Portingal of the Don. Major Macpherson calls him Don M'Gill, and Captain O'Dogherty calls him Don My jewel—how do you pronounce it? I am told Lord Doodley used to call him, while he was in London, My gull.

There is not much stirring here; the good effect of the waters is quite aperient in our family; we are all mending, and exorcise ourselves for four hours at a time on what is called the well walk, which is a different place from the sick walk, which is entirely for the innphaleeds. Lavinia has got hold of a book called Bookarchy, containing the lives of a hundred Knights, she says; but she won't shew it to her sisters as is not yet marred; it is translated out of a foren tongue by a Mr. D. Cameron; all the Scotch is very clever.

Mr. Fulmer is going to Hauksvut next term, to be made a Doctor of Laws. He says he shall be away only two days, but I doubt its being over so soon, because he told me himself it must be done by degrees. After he is made a Doctor, he says he means to practise; but I told him I thought he had better practise first, in order to understand what he has to do afterwards. A friend of his came here to see him from Hauksvut College, who I thought was a clergyman by his dress; but I found out, by what Mr. Fulmer told me, that it was an old lady in disguise, for he said she was Margaret Professor, and he even went so far as to call her a Divinity, which to me did seem uncommon strange. However, there is no understanding these scholars; for it is not more than a fortnight since, that Fulmer told me he expected a brazen-nosed man to dinner, and when the gentleman came, his nose was just like other people's: so I suppose it was to surprise Lavinia, who was reading a work on Nosology at the very time.

You will be pleased to hear that I have let my house in Montague Place, unfurnished with conveniences, for three hundred and twenty pounds a-year, besides taxis; and I have skewered a very nice residence in the Regent's Park, within ten doors of the Call-and-see-um where the portrait of St. Paul is to be exhibited, and where I hope you will visit us; my two youngest, which is a-shooten up, is uncommon anxious to know you, now they have made their debutt into saucyity. The young one is a feline cretur as ever trod shoe leather. The other is more of an orty crackter, with very high spirts. They are indeed quite Theliar and Molpomona of the Ramsbottoms.

If you should run down here before we leave for town, pray come and take pot-luck, which is all we can offer you at Cheltenham. You must take us as you find us: we are all in the family way, and, as you know, delighted to see our friends, without any ceremony.

Do right, dear B., and send us the noose; for really the old Engines who are here for their health look so billyus, that without something to enliven us, we should get worse instead of better.

Ajew, ever yours,

D. L. Ramsbottom.