Transcription

my Inclination too, For tho I wish'd to see Paris, (which I never had done, but in a very cursory manner) Yet my Health and my Spirits were at that time such, that I was neither fit to live in the World and in Amusements, nor able to live out of it and much alone, and yet there I was obliged to stay, from not being able to go further. Add to all this the presence of the Young Pretender at Paris, where I could not avoid hearing of him in every Company and almost of nothing else, and of conversing chiefly with- Persons, who had convers'd with him, or had still communication with him. Figure to yourself, Sir, the Distress of this. For you may believe I desir'd to avoid any Disrespect to a person entitled to Respect, both from his Birth and from his Misfortunes. as much as I certainly desired plainly to avoid any Connection with him, or any Appearance of any connection or Inclination to it. This must have been a Difficulty to any one and more to one of my Make, and especially to one of my Family. But this would only have been a little Embarassment which for the sake of Curiosity [[symbol]], one would almost have compounded for, for a time. But in the condition of Health and Spirits in which I then was. This added so much to the Inquietude of my Situation that I do not conceive a more uneasy Situation than that which I then was in, and in that Excess of Inquietude, my Mind was so much agitated oppressed and weaken'd, that I believe I did twenty Extravagancies to endeavor to throw of any way, the weight that overwhelmm'd me, and I dare say produced myself in all Respects very ill at Paris, at my first Appearance there, so that I have often wondered at the Degree of some thing more than Civility and even of Regard which they show'd to me pretty generally there. From forcing myself into Dissipations of all kind, with Time I recovered Spirits, and with them Strength, and Health, and finding myself so much mended (even from what I had [[catchword]] been [[/catchword]]