bear seeing me fall in so with this Ministry: but I love him still as well as ever, though we seldom meet.—Hussy, Stella, you jest about poor Congreve’s eyes; [95b] you do so, hussy; but I’ll bang your bones, faith.—Yes, Steele was a little while in prison, or at least in a spunging-house, some time before I came, but not since. [95c]—Pox on your convocations, and your Lamberts; [95d] they write with a vengeance! I suppose you think it a piece of affectation in me to wish your Irish folks would not like my “Shower,”; but you are mistaken. I should be glad to have the general applause there as I have here (though I say it); but I have only that of one or two, and therefore I would have none at all, but let you all be in the wrong. I don’t know, this is not what I would say; but I am so tosticated with supper and stuff, that I can’t express myself.—What you say of “Sid Hamet” is well enough; that an enemy should like it, and a friend not; and that telling the author would make both change their opinions. Why did you not tell Griffyth [95e] that you fancied there was something in it of my manner; but first spur up his commendation to the height, as we served my poor uncle about the sconce that I mended? Well, I desired you to give what I intended for an answer to Mrs. Fenton, [96a] to save her postage, and myself trouble; and I hope I have done it, if you han’t.
15. Lord, what a long day’s writing was yesterday’s answer to your letter, sirrahs! I dined to-day with Lewis and Ford, whom I have brought acquainted. Lewis told me a pure thing. I had been hankering with Mr. Harley to save Steele his other employment, and have a little mercy on him; and I had been saying the same thing to Lewis, who is Mr. Harley’s chief favourite. Lewis tells Mr. Harley how kindly I should take it, if he would be reconciled to Steele, etc. Mr. Harley, on my account, falls in with it, and appoints Steele a time to let him attend him, which Steele accepts with great submission, but never comes, nor sends any excuse. Whether it was blundering, sullenness, insolence, or rancour of party, I cannot tell; but I shall trouble myself no more about him. I believe Addison hindered him out of mere spite, being grated [96b] to the soul to think he should ever want my help to save his friend; yet now he is soliciting me to make another of his friends Queen’s Secretary at Geneva; and I’ll do it if I can; it is poor Pastoral Philips. [96c]
16. O, why did you leave my picture behind you at t’other lodgings? Forgot it? Well; but pray remember it now, and don’t roll it up, d’ye hear; but hang it carefully in some part of your room, where chairs and candles and mop-sticks won’t spoil it, sirrahs. No, truly, I will not be godfather to Goody Walls this bout, and I hope she will have no more. There will be no quiet nor cards for this child. I hope it will die the day after the christening. Mr. Harley gave me a paper, with an account of the sentence you speak of against the lads that defaced the statue, [97a] and that Ingoldsby [97b] reprieved that part of it of standing before the statue. I hope it was never executed. We have got your Broderick out; [97c] Doyne [97d] is to succeed him, and Cox [97e] Doyne. And so there’s an end of your letter; ’tis all answered; and now I must go on upon my own stock. Go on, did I say? Why, I have written enough; but this is too soon to send it yet, young women; faith, I dare not use you to it, you’ll always expect it; what remains shall be only short journals of a day, and so I’ll rise for this morning.—At night. I dined with my opposite neighbour, Darteneuf; and I was soliciting this day to present the Bishop of Clogher Vice-Chancellor; [97f] but it won’t do; they are all set against him, and the Duke of Ormond, they say, has resolved to dispose of it somewhere else. Well; little saucy rogues, do not stay out too late to-night, because it is Saturday night, and young women should come home soon then.
17. I went to Court to seek a dinner: but the Queen was not at church, she has got a touch of the gout; so the Court was thin, and I went to the Coffee-house; and Sir Thomas Frankland and his eldest son and I went and dined with his son William. [98a] I talked a great deal to Sir Thomas about Manley; and find he is his good friend, and so has Ned Southwell been, and I hope he will be safe, though all the Irish folks here are his mortal enemies. There was a devilish bite to-day. They had it, I know not how, that I was to preach this morning at St. James’s Church; an abundance went, among the rest Lord Radnor, who never is abroad till three in the afternoon. I walked all the way home from Hatton Garden at six, by moonlight, a delicate night. Raymond called at nine, but I was denied; and now I am in bed between eleven and twelve, just going to sleep, and dream of my own dear roguish impudent pretty MD.
18. You will now have short days’ works, just a few lines to tell you where I am, and what I am doing; only I will keep room for the last day to tell you news, if there be any worth sending. I have been sometimes like to do it at the top of my letter, until I remark it would be old before it reached you. I was hunting to dine with Mr. Harley to-day, but could not find him; and so I dined with honest Dr. Cockburn, and came home at six, and was taken out to next door by Dopping and Ford, to drink bad claret and oranges; and we let Raymond come to us, who talks of leaving the town to-morrow, but I believe will stay a day or two longer. It is now late, and I will say no more, but end this line with bidding my own dear saucy MD good-night, etc.
19. I am come down proud stomach in one instance, for I went to-day to see the Duke of Buckingham, [98b] but came too late: then I visited Mrs. Barton, [98c] and thought to have dined with some of the Ministry; but it rained, and Mrs. Vanhomrigh was nigh, and I took the opportunity of paying her for a scarf she bought me, and dined there; at four I went to congratulate with Lord Shelburne, for the death of poor Lady Shelburne dowager; [99a] he was at his country house, and returned while I was there, and had not heard of it, and he took it very well. I am now come home before six, and find a packet from the Bishop of Clogher, with one enclosed to the Duke of Ormond, which is ten days earlier dated than another I had from Parvisol; however, ’tis no matter, for the Duke has already disposed of the Vice-Chancellorship to the Archbishop of Tuam, [99b] and I could not help it, for it is a thing wholly you know in the Duke’s power; and I find the Bishop has enemies about the Duke. I write this while Patrick is folding up my scarf, and doing up the fire (for I keep a fire, it costs me twelvepence a week); and so be quiet till I am gone to bed, and then sit down by me a little, and we will talk a few words more. Well; now MD is at my bedside; and now what shall we say? How does Mrs. Stoyte? What had the Dean for supper? How much did Mrs. Walls win? Poor Lady Shelburne: well, go get you to bed, sirrahs.
20. Morning. I was up this morning early, and shaved by candlelight, and write this by the fireside. Poor Raymond just came in and took his leave of me; he is summoned by high order from his wife, but pretends he has had enough of London. I was a little melancholy to part with him; he goes to Bristol, where they are to be with his merchant brother, and now thinks of staying till May; so she must be brought to bed in England. He was so easy and manageable, that I almost repent I suffered him to see me so seldom. But he is gone, and will save Patrick some lies in a week: Patrick is grown admirable at it, and will make his fortune. How now, sirrah, must I write in a morning to your impudence?
Stay till night,
And then I’ll write,
In black and white,
By candlelight,
Of wax so bright,
It helps the sight—
A bite, a bite!
Marry come up, Mistress Boldface.—At night. Dr. Raymond came back, and goes to-morrow. I did not come home till eleven, and found him here to take leave of me. I went to the Court of Requests, thinking to find Mr. Harley and dine with him, and refused Henley, and everybody, and at last knew not where to go, and met Jemmy Leigh by chance, and he was just in the same way, so I dined at his lodgings on a beef-steak, and drank your health; then left him and went to the tavern with Ben Tooke and Portlack, the Duke of Ormond’s secretary, drinking nasty white wine till eleven. I am sick, and ashamed of it, etc.
21. I met that beast Ferris, Lord Berkeley’s [100a] steward formerly; I walked with him a turn in the Park, and that scoundrel dog is as happy as an emperor, has married a wife with a considerable estate in land and houses about this town, and lives at his ease at Hammersmith. See your confounded sect! [100b]
