I have just been interrupted for some minutes by an acquaintance, one Mr. Threader. He is flitting and hopping about Waghorn’s and the Lobby like a sparrow whose nest has just been blown down in a wind-storm. Most of his energies are directed towards what is going on in Lords, which has to do with some Asiento money that has gone missing (if you have not heard of this scandal, vide any of the newspapers on the ship that brought you this letter). But he has graciously spared a few minutes to feign some concern for Sir Isaac. Two weeks have passed since Newton came here to discourse of Longitude before Commons, was pulled aside to treat of Mint matters in Star Chamber, and suffered a nervous collapse. Countless rumors have circulated concerning the nature and gravity of his illness, and Mr. Threader has just recited all of them to me whilst studying my face. I cannot guess what my phizz told him, but my words let him know that the stories are all falsehoods. The truth of the matter is that Newton has been moved back to his house in St. Martin’s, and is recovering satisfactorily. Today I addressed the Longitude Committee in his stead—not because he is really all that sick, but because no inducement will now prevail on him to come back to Westminster Palace, which he looks on as a thriving nest of vipers, hornets, Jesuits, &c., &c. If he ever sets foot in this place again—which will happen only if he is compelled to, by a Trial of the Pyx—he will not come naïve and unready, as he did a fortnight ago. He will come in the habit of a Grenadier, viz. as bedizened with Bombs as is the Apple Tree with Fruit.