Diary of the times of Charles II/Volume 1/Sir William Temple to Mr. Sidney, March 2
This is most of it the same letter I had writ last post.
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE TO MR. SIDNEY.
I am mightily sorry to hear that you have any illness fallen upon your eyes, which was an affliction I met with in my employments abroad, and so am the more sensible of it upon your occasion. You must spare them from reading and writing whilst it lasts, and by no means tamper with them. I never found any thing do mine so much good as putting a leaf of tobacco into each nostril as soon as you wake, and keep it for an hour either sitting up in your bed or dressing yourself. It will make you a little sick, perhaps, at first, but when it does, pull it out, and 'tis presently past; then you may put new in, and 'twill grow easier with custom. You should not be cold when you use it.
Sir Robert Southwell may be with you as soon as this, having resolved to embark this afternoon. I hope he may acquit himself well of his commission, setting aside a little formality, which may pass in Germany. He has positive injunctions to communicate every thing to the Prince and you, and to stay for an answer to our despatch at the Hague, in case the Prince judges any thing amiss or necessary in his instructions for Berlin.
I know not what to say for my Lord Bodmin, but that he is my Lord President's son, and has had, it seems, a long promise of this commission, but that and twenty other things would not have passed with me, and therefore I take myself to be better at Sheen than in the Secretary's place, though my Lord Sunderland pressed me upon it again so late as Saturday last ; but you know, I suppose, that I am fixed, because you know several of the reasons I have for it. The Prince will be pleased, I hope, with the resolutions he finds when here in all the foreign matters, which are so exactly upon his own plan ; and my Lord Sunderland and his friends answer to you that they will last.
I will repeat nothing that I write in the enclosed to the Prince, but relieve your eyes as soon as I can by telling you that I am ever and perfectly yours,