Note 16 — Chapter XLIV

I have been very unwell from a visitation of my old enemy, the cramp in my stomach, which much resembles, as I conceive, the process by which the deil would make one's king's-hood into a spleuchan,[16] according to the anathema of Burns. Unfortunately, the opiates which the medical people think indispensable to relieve spasms, bring on a habit of body which has to be counteracted by medicines of a different tendency, so as to produce a most disagreeable see-saw—a kind of pull-devil, pull-baker contention, the field of battle being my unfortunate præcordia. I am better to-day, and I trust shall be able to dispense with these alternations. I still hope to be in London in April.