LETTER 48. KENSINGTON, June 17, 1712. I have been so tosticated about since my last, that I could not go on in my journal manner, though my shoulder is a great deal better; however, I feel constant pain in it, but I think it diminishes, and I have cut off some slices from my flannel. I have lodged here near a fortnight, partly for the air and exercise, partly to be near the Court, where dinners are to be found. I generally get a lift in a coach to town, and in the evening I walk back. On Saturday I dined with the Duchess of Ormond at her lodge near Sheen, and thought to get a boat back as usual. I walked by the bank to Cue, but no boat, then to Mortlake, but no boat, and it was nine o'clock. At last a little sculler called, full of nasty people. I made him set me down at Hammersmith, so walked two miles to this place, and got here by eleven. Last night I had another such difficulty. I was in the City till past ten at night; it rained hard, but no coach to be had. It gave over a little, and I walked all the way here, and got home by twelve. I love these shabby difficulties when they are over; but I hate them, because they arise from not having a thousand pound a year. I had your N.30 about three days ago, which I will now answer. And first, I did not relapse, but found I came out before I ought; and so, and so, as I have told you in some of my last. The first coming abroad made people think I was quite recovered, and I had no more messages afterwards. Well, but John Bull is not writ by the person you imagine, as hope! It is too good for another to own. Had it been Grub Street, I would have let people think as they please; and I think that's right: is not it now? so flap ee hand, and make wry mouth oo-self, sauci doxi. Now comes DD. Why sollah, I did write in a fortnight my 47th; and if it did not come in due time, can I help wind and weather? am I a Laplander? am I a witch? can I work miracles? can I make easterly winds? Now I am against Dr. Smith. I drink little water with my wine, yet I believe he is right. Yet Dr. Cockburn told me a little wine would not hurt me; but it is so hot and dry, and water is so dangerous. The worst thing here is my evenings at Lord Masham's, where Lord Treasurer comes, and we sit till after twelve. But it is convenient I should be among them for a while as much as possible. I need not tell oo why. But I hope that will be at an end in a month or two, one way or other, and I am resolved it shall. But I can't go to Tunbridge, or anywhere else out of the way, in this juncture. So Ppt designs for Templeoag (what a name is that!). Whereabouts is that place? I hope not very far from Dublin. Higgins is here, roaring that all is wrong in Ireland, and would have me get him an audience of Lord Treasurer to tell him so; but I will have nothing to do in it, no, not I, faith. We have had no thunder till last night, and till then we were dead for want of rain; but there fell a great deal: no field looked green. I reckon the Queen will go to Windsor in three or four weeks: and if The Secretary takes a house there, I shall be sometimes with him. But how affectedly Ppt talks of my being here all the summer; which I do not intend: nor to stay one minute longer in England than becomes the circumstances I am in. I wish you would go soon into the country, and take a good deal of it; and where better than Trim? Joe will be your humble servant, Parvisol your slave, and Raymond at your command, for he piques himself on good manners. I have seen Dilly's wife--and I have seen once or twice old Bradley here. He is very well, very old, and very wise: I believe I must go see his wife, when I have leisure. I should be glad to see Goody Stoyte and her husband; pray give them my humble service, and to Catherine, and to Mrs. Walls--I am not the least bit in love with Mrs. Walls--I suppose the cares of the husband increase with the fruitfulness of the wife. I am grad at halt to hear of Ppt's good health: pray let her finish it by drinking waters. I hope DD had her bill, and has her money. Remember to write a due time before ME money is wanted, and be good galls, dood dallars, I mean, and no crying dallars. I heard somebody coming upstairs, and forgot I was in the country; and I was afraid of a visitor: that is one advantage of being here, that I am not teased with solicitors. Molt, the chemist, is my acquaintance. My service to Dr. Smith. I sent the question to him about Sir Walter Raleigh's cordial, and the answer he returned is in these words: "It is directly after Mr. Boyle's receipt." That commission is performed; if he wants any of it, Molt shall use him fairly. I suppose Smith is one of your physicians. So, now your letter is fully and impartially answered; not as rascals answer me: I believe, if I writ an essay upon a straw, I should have a shoal of answerers: but no matter for that; you see I can answer without making any reflections, as becomes men of learning. Well, but now for the peace: why, we expect it daily; but the French have the staff in their own hands, and we trust to their honesty. I wish it were otherwise. Things are now in the way of being soon in the extremes of well or ill. I hope and believe the first. Lord Wharton is gone out of town in a rage, and curses himself and friends for ruining themselves in defending Lord Marlborough and Godolphin, and taking Nottingham into their favour. He swears he will meddle no more during this reign; a pretty speech at sixty-six, and the Queen is near twenty years younger, and now in very good health; for you must know her health is fixed by a certain reason, that she has done with braces (I must use the expression), and nothing ill is happened to her since; so she has a new lease of her life. Read the Letter to a Whig Lord. Do you ever read? Why don't you say so? I mean does DD read to Ppt? Do you walk? I think Ppt should walk to DD; as DD reads to Ppt, for Ppt oo must know is a good walker; but not so good as Pdfr. I intend to dine to-day with Mr. Lewis, but it threatens rain; and I shall be too late to get a lift; and I must write to the Bishop of Clogher. 'Tis now ten in the morning; and this is all writ at a heat. Farewell deelest. . . deelest MD, MD, MD, MD, MD, FW, FW, FW, ME, ME, ME, Lele, ME, Lele, ME, Lele, ME, Lele, Lele, Lele, ME.

29. I was this morning in town by ten, though it was shaving-day, and went to the Secretary about some affairs, then visited the Duke and Duchess of Ormond; but the latter was dressing to go out, and I could not see her. My Lord Oxford had the staff given him this morning; so now I must call him Lord Oxford no more, but Lord Treasurer: I hope he will stick there: this is twice he has changed his name this week; and I heard to-day in the City (where I dined) that he will very soon have the Garter.--Pr'ythee, do not you observe how strangely I have changed my company and manner of living? I never go to a coffee-house; you hear no more of Addison, Steele, Henley, Lady Lucy, Mrs. Finch, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, etc. I think I have altered for the better. Did I tell you the Archbishop of Dublin has writ me a long letter of a squabble in your town about choosing a Mayor, and that he apprehended some censure for the share he had in it? I have not heard anything of it here; but I shall not be always able to defend him. We hear your Bishop Hickman is dead; but nobody here will do anything for me in Ireland; so they may die as fast or slow as they please.--Well, you are constant to your deans, and your Stoyte, and your Walls. Walls will have her tea soon; Parson Richardson is either going or gone to Ireland, and has it with him. I hear Mr. Lewis has two letters for me: I could not call for them to-day, but will to-morrow; and perhaps one of them may be from our little MD, who knows, man? who can tell? Many a more unlikely thing has happened.--Pshaw, I write so plaguy little, I can hardly see it myself. WRITE BIGGER, SIRRAH Presto. No, but I won't. Oh, you are a saucy rogue, Mr. Presto, you are so impudent. Come, dear rogues, let Presto go to sleep; I have been with the Dean, and 'tis near twelve.

23. Morning. I sat up late last night, and waked late to-day; but will now answer your letter in bed before I go to town, and I will send it to-morrow; for perhaps you mayn't go so soon to Wexford.--No, you are not out in your number; the last was Number 14, and so I told you twice or thrice; will you never be satisfied? What shall we do for poor Stella? Go to Wexford, for God's sake: I wish you were to walk there by three miles a day, with a good lodging at every mile's end. Walking has done me so much good, that I cannot but prescribe it often to poor Stella. Parvisol has sent me a bill for fifty pounds, which I am sorry for, having not written to him for it, only mentioned it two months ago; but I hope he will be able to pay you what I have drawn upon him for: he never sent me any sum before, but one bill of twenty pounds half a year ago. You are welcome as my blood to every farthing I have in the world; and all that grieves me is, I am not richer, for MD's sake, as hope saved. I suppose you give up your lodgings when you go to Wexford; yet that will be inconvenient too: yet I wish again you were under a necessity of rambling the country until Michaelmas, faith. No, let them keep the shelves, with a pox; yet they are exacting people about those four weeks; or Mrs. Brent may have the shelves, if she please. I am obliged to your Dean for his kind offer of lending me money. Will that be enough to say? A hundred people would lend me money, or to any man who has not the reputation of a squanderer. O, faith, I should be glad to be in the same kingdom with MD, however, although you are at Wexford. But I am kept here by a most capricious fate, which I would break through, if I could do it with decency or honour.--To return without some mark of distinction would look extremely little; and I would likewise gladly be somewhat richer than I am. I will say no more, but beg you to be easy till Fortune take her course, and to believe that MD's felicity is the great end I aim at in all my pursuits. And so let us talk no more on this subject, which makes me melancholy, and that I would fain divert. Believe me, no man breathing at present has less share of happiness in life than I: I do not say I am unhappy at all, but that everything here is tasteless to me for want of being as I would be. And so, a short sigh, and no more of this. Well, come and let's see what's next, young women. Pox take Mrs. Edgworth and Sterne! I will take some methods about that box. What orders would you have me give about the picture? Can't you do with it as if it were your own? No, I hope Manley will keep his place; for I hear nothing of Sir Thomas Frankland's losing his. Send nothing under cover to Mr. Addison, but "To Erasmus Lewis, Esq.; at my Lord Dartmouth's office at Whitehall." Direct your outside so.--Poor dear Stella, don't write in the dark, nor in the light neither, but dictate to Dingley; she is a naughty, healthy girl, and may drudge for both. Are you good company together? and don't you quarrel too often? Pray love one another, and kiss one another just now, as Dingley is reading this; for you quarrelled this morning just after Mrs. Marget had poured water on Stella's head: I heard the little bird say so. Well, I have answered everything in your letter that required it, and yet the second side is not full. I'll come home at night, and say more; and to-morrow this goes for certain. Go, get you gone to your own chambers, and let Presto rise like a modest gentleman, and walk to town. I fancy I begin to sweat less in the forehead by constant walking than I used to do; but then I shall be so sunburnt, the ladies will not like me. Come, let me rise, sirrahs. Morrow.--At night. I dined with Ford to-day at his lodgings, and I found wine out of my own cellar, some of my own chest of the great Duke's wine: it begins to turn. They say wine with you in Ireland is half a crown a bottle. 'Tis as Stella says; nothing that once grows dear in Ireland ever grows cheap again, except corn, with a pox, to ruin the parson. I had a letter to-day from the Archbishop of Dublin, giving me further thanks about vindicating him to Mr. Harley and Mr. St. John, and telling me a long story about your Mayor's election, wherein I find he has had a finger, and given way to further talk about him; but we know nothing of it here yet. This walking to and fro, and dressing myself, takes up so much of my time that I cannot go among company so much as formerly; yet what must a body do? I thank God I yet continue much better since I left the town; I know not how long it may last. I am sure it has done me some good for the present. I do not totter as I did, but walk firm as a cock, only once or twice for a minute, I do not know how; but it went off, and I never followed it. Does Dingley read my hand as well as ever? do you, sirrah? Poor Stella must not read Presto's ugly small hand.

Preserve your eyes,
If you be wise.

Your friend Walls's tea will go in a day or two towards Chester by one Parson Richardson. My humble service to her, and to good Mrs. Stoyte, and Catherine; and pray walk while you continue in Dublin. I expect your next but one will be from Wexford. God bless dearest MD.

5. I dined to-day with my friend Lewis, and we were deep in politics how to save the present Ministry; for I am afraid of Mr. Secretary, as I believe I told you. I went in the evening to see Mr. Harley; and, upon my word, I was in perfect joy. Mr. Secretary was just going out of the door; but I made him come back, and there was the old Saturday Club, Lord Keeper, Lord Rivers, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Harley, and I; the first time since his stabbing. Mr. Secretary went away; but I stayed till nine, and made Mr. Harley show me his breast, and tell all the story; and I showed him the Archbishop of Dublin's letter, and defended him effectually. We were all in mighty good humour. Lord Keeper and I left them together, and I walked here after nine two miles, and I found a parson drunk fighting with a seaman, and Patrick and I were so wise to part them, but the seaman followed him to Chelsea, cursing at him, and the parson slipped into a house, and I know no more. It mortified me to see a man in my coat so overtaken. A pretty scene for one that just came from sitting with the Prime Ministers! I had no money in my pocket, and so could not be robbed. However, nothing but Mr. Harley shall make me take such a journey again. We don't yet know who will be President in Lord Rochester's room. I measured, and found that the penknife would have killed Mr. Harley if it had gone but half the breadth of my thumb-nail lower, so near was he to death. I was so curious as to ask him what were his thoughts while they were carrying him home in the chair. He said he concluded himself a dead man. He will not allow that Guiscard gave him the second stab; though my Lord Keeper, who is blind, and I that was not there, are positive in it. He wears a plaster still as broad as half a crown. Smoke how wide the lines are, but, faith, I don't do it on purpose: but I have changed my side in this new Chelsea bed, and I do not know how, methinks, but it is so unfit, and so awkward, never saw the like.

LETTER 21. LONDON, April 14, 1711. Remember, sirrahs, that there are but nine days between the dates of my two former letters. I sent away my twentieth this moment, and now am writing on like a fish, as if nothing was done. But there was a cause for my hasting away the last, for fear it should not come time enough before a new quarter began. I told you where I dined to-day; but forgot to tell you what I believe, that Mr. Harley will be Lord Treasurer in a short time, and other great removes and promotions made. This is my thought, etc.

6. Mr. Secretary desired I would see him this morning; said he had several things to say to me, and said not one; and the Duke of Ormond sent to desire I would meet him at Mr. Southwell's by ten this morning too, which I did, thinking it was some particular matter. All the Irish in town were there, to consult upon preventing a Bill for laying a duty on Irish yarn; so we talkt a while, and then all went to the lobby of the House of Commons, to solicit our friends, and the Duke came among the rest; and Lord Anglesea solicited admirably, and I did wonders. But, after all, the matter was put off till Monday, and then we are to be at it again. I dined with Lord Mountjoy, and lookt over him at chess, which put me in mind of Stella and Griffyth. I came home, and that dog Patrick was not within; so I fretted, and fretted, and what good did that do me?

And so get you gone to your deans,
You couple of queans.

I can't find rhyme to Walls and Stoyte.--Yes, yes,

You expect Mrs. Walls,
Be dress'd when she calls,
To carry you to Stoyte,
Or else HONI SOIT.

Henley told me that the Tories were insup-port-able people, because they are for bringing in French claret, and will not SUP-PORT. Mr. Harley will hardly get abroad this week or ten days yet. I reckon, when I send away this letter, he will be just got into the House of Commons. My last letter went in twelve days, and so perhaps may this. No it won't, for those letters that go under a fortnight are answers to one of yours, otherwise you must take the days as they happen, some dry, some wet, some barren, some fruitful, some merry, some insipid; some, etc.--I will write you word exactly the first day I see young gooseberries, and pray observe how much later you are. We have not had five fine days this five weeks, but rain or wind. 'Tis a late spring they say here.--Go to bed, you two dear saucy brats, and don't keep me up all night.

LETTER 19. LONDON, March 24, 1710-11. It was a little cross in Presto not to send to-day to the Coffee-house to see whether there was a letter from MD before I sent away mine; but, faith, I did it on purpose, because I would scorn to answer two letters of yours successively. This way of journal is the worst in the world for writing of news, unless one does it the last day; and so I will observe henceforward, if there be any politicks or stuff worth sending. My shin mends in spite of the scratching last night. I dined to-day at Ned Southwell's with the Bishop of Ossory and a parcel of Irish gentlemen. Have you yet seen any of the Spectators? Just three weeks to-day since I had your last, N.11. I am afraid I have lost one by the pacquet that was taken; that will vex me, considering the pains MD take to write, especially poor pretty Stella, and her weak eyes. God bless them and the owner, and send them well, and little me together, I hope ere long. This illness of Mr. Harley puts everything backwards, and he is still down, and like to be so, by that extravasated blood which comes from his breast to the wound: it was by the second blow Guiscard gave him after the penknife was broken. I am shocked at that villainy whenever I think of it. Biddy Floyd is past danger, but will lose all her beauty: she had them mighty thick, especially about her nose.

16. I have made but little progress in this letter for so many days, thanks to Guiscard and Mr. Harley; and it would be endless to tell you all the particulars of that odious fact. I do not yet hear that Guiscard is dead, but they say 'tis impossible he should recover. I walkt too much yesterday for a man with a broken shin; to-day I rested, and went no farther than Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where I dined; and Lady Betty Butler coming in about six, I was forced in good manners to sit with her till nine; then I came home, and Mr. Ford came in to visit my shin, and sat with me till eleven: so I have been very idle and naughty. It vexes me to the pluck that I should lose walking this delicious day. Have you seen the Spectator yet, a paper that comes out every day? 'Tis written by Mr. Steele, who seems to have gathered new life, and have a new fund of wit; it is in the same nature as his Tatlersii, and they have all of them had something pretty. I believe Addison and he club. I never see them; and I plainly told Mr. Harley and Mr. St. John, ten days ago, before my Lord Keeper and Lord Rivers, that I had been foolish enough to spend my credit with them in favour of Addison and Steele; but that I would engage and promise never to say one word in their behalf, having been used so ill for what I had already done.--So, now I am got into the way of prating again, there will be no quiet for me.

When Presto begins to prate,
Give him a rap upon the pate.

O Lord, how I blot! 'tis time to leave off, etc.

14. My journals are like to be very diverting, now I cannot stir abroad, between accounts of Mr. Harley's mending, and of my broken shin. I just walkt to my neighbour Vanhomrigh at two, and came away at six, when little Harrison the Tatlerii came to me, and begged me to dictate a paper to him, which I was forced in charity to do. Mr. Harley still mends; and I hope in a day or two to trouble you no more with him, nor with my shin. Go to bed and sleep, sirrahs, that you may rise to-morrow and walk to Donnybrook, and lose your money with Stoite and the Dean; do so, dear little rogues, and drink Presto's health. O pray, don't you drink Presto's health sometimes with your deans, and your Stoites, and your Walls, and your Manleys, and your everybodies, pray now? I drink MD's to myself a hundred thousand times.

24. Morning. This letter certainly goes this evening, sure as you're alive, young women, and then you will be so shamed that I have had none from you; and, if I was to reckon like you, I would say, I were six letters before you, for this is N.16, and I have had your N.10. But I reckon you have received but fourteen, and have sent eleven. I think to go to-day a Minister-of-State-hunting in the Court of Requests; for I have something to say to Mr. Harley. And 'tis fine, cold, sunshiny weather; I wish dear MD would walk this morning in your Stephen's Green; 'tis as good as our Park, but not so large. Faith, this summer we'll take a coach for sixpence to the Green Well, the two walks, and thence all the way to Stoite's. My hearty service to Goody Stoite and Catherine; and I hope Mrs. Walls had a good time. How inconstant I am! I can't imagine I was ever in love with her. Well, I'm going; what have you to say? I DON'T CARE HOW I WRITE NOW. I don't design to write on this side; these few lines are but so much more than your due; so I'll write LARGE or small as I please. Oh, faith, my hands are starving in bed; I believe it is a hard frost. I must rise, and bid you good-bye, for I'll seal this letter immediately, and carry it in my pocket, and put it into the post-office with my own fair hands. Farewel. This letter is just a fortnight's journal to-day. Yes, and so it is, I'm sure, says you, with your two eggs a penny. Lele, lele, lele. O Lord, I am saying lele, lele, to myself, in all our little keys: and, now you talk of keys, that dog Patrick broke the key-general of the chest of drawers with six locks, and I have been so plagued to get a new one, besides my good two shillings!