bootikins

I have but one single doubt left about the bootikins, which is, whether they do not weaken my breast: but as I am sensible that my own spirits do half the mischief, and that, if I could have held my tongue, and kept from talking and dictating letters, I should not have been half so bad as I have been, there remains but half due to bootikins on the balance: and surely the ravages of the last long fit, and two years more in age, ought to make another deduction.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

My dear Jean - You will herewith receive a pair of/[Page 32]/neat little bootikins; which, tho 'somewhat decayed may still be of use to you; if they are too small for yourself perhaps they will fit

New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle

My biennial visitant, the gout, has yielded to the bootikins, and stayed with me this last time but five weeks in lieu of five months.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

It would kill any body but me, who am of adamant, to walk out in the dew in winter in my slippers in half an hour after pulling off the bootikins.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

Whether I caught cold by the deluge in the night, or whether the bootikins, like the water of Styx, can only preserve the parts they surround, I doubt they have saved me but three weeks, for so long my reckoning has been out.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

A physician sent me word, good-naturedly, that there was danger of catching cold after the bootikins, unless one was careful.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

Next to my bootikins, I ascribe much credit to a diet-drink of dock-roots, of which Dr. Turton asked me for my receipt, as the best he had ever seen, and which I will send you if you please.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

However, this is no complaint, for it is the shortest fit I have had these sixteen years, and with trifling pain: therefore, as the fits decrease, it does ample honour to my bootikins regimen, and method.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4

I have been laid up with a fit of the gout in both feet and a knee; at Strawberry for an entire month, and eight days here: I took the air for the first time the day before yesterday, and am, considering, surprisingly recovered by the assistance of the bootikins and my own perseverance in drinking water.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3

Now, unless any body can prove to me that three weeks are longer than five months and a half, they will hardly convince me that the bootikins are not a cure for fits of the gout and a Very short cure, though they cannot prevent it: nor perhaps is it to be wished they should; for, if the gout prevents every thing else, would not one have something that does?

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4