Letter from John Wilson Croker, West Molesey, to Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, 1852 June 18 : autograph manuscript signed.

Acknowledging receipt of Palmerston's letter; describing his recent serious illness: "I have been dangerously ill for six months ; for three of which my life was reckoned by minutes - but I was mercifully spared any serious bodily suffering & any diminuation of either intellect or spirits;" saying that his illness is a heart condition and caused fainting fits, but it seems to have stabilized; adding "I give you these details as your letter makes me hope they will not be wholly uninteresting to you, as the last gleams of a life of which above twenty of the [best?] years were passed in your society & friendship;" commenting on his past political career: "I will only say, what I think I said to you in Stanhope Street, the last time we were ever alone to gether, that, like Mr. Fox, I liked coalitions, but still better reconciliations;" quoting a line of poetry by Edmund Waller ("Those suns of empire, where they rise, they set") and adding "But that is no affair of mine ; & my pen begs pardon for having, I know not how, slipt into it;" discussing the authorship of some verses; denying having written an article ("I have plenty of real sins of that kind to answer for"); quoting several lines in Latin from Horace's Epistles; concluding "Adieu, my old friend, I have little hopes of ever seeing you again unless accident should bring you into my neighbour hood, & kindness into my house ; for tho' I walk & drive out, I receive, & even pay, visits, my tether is very short."