I thank you for your letter and was glad to be informed how you are going on, but another very severe fit of illness makes me delay answering letters whatever pleasure I have in receiving them. I am much pleased with your account of the good discipline and studious character of your College. With such regular arrangements and excellent opportunities of improvement, added to your thirst of knowlege and your conscientious employment of time, I make no doubt but that thro’ the /divine/ blessing your attainments will be very considerable, I do not scruple to say, very high. I rejoyce at it the more as I am persuaded they will be dedicated to the best end, the glory of God, and the good of your fellow creatures. My chief apprehension on your subject is quite of another nature The only fear I entertain about you is on the score of health. Your constitution is not strong and your ardour for study is great, but take care not to indulge the one to the ruin of the other. What you might gain in literature by late hours, you would more than lose in strength and spirits, both of which you should husband carefully.

I am sorry to observe that there is a point in which you are not quite comfortable. I hope your perseverance and prudence will in time obviate it. in the mean time I am sorry you should have such a drawback on your comfort. But remember who they are for whom all things finally work for good.

M^r. Guilleband has been here twice but I was too ill to see him both times I find the School goes on pretty well but John Herd tells us your good Offices there are much missed. I am sorry to tell you that they have /been/ obliged to turn out that vacillating boy Tilake.

We were surprised sometime ago by a visit from your friend M^r. Taylor He spent the day with us. If you have not heard from him, you will be surprised to find that he was on his way to Plymouth – He has quitted Ludlow, and was going to embark as Chaplain on board a Man of War with a very good Salary, far superior to what he could have got at home; but what is better I hope he will be very useful in his new office as he will have probably seven hundred Men, (equal to the population of a considerable parish.) If the Captain should be a good Man, M^r. T. may be able to be a valuable instrument.