I'll answer it when I please, Mr Doctor. What's that. you say? The court was very full this morning, expecting Mr Harley would be declared Earl of Oxford, and have the treasurer's staff. Mr Harley never comes to court at all; somebody there asked me the reason; Why, said I, the Lord of Oxford knows. He always goes to the queen by the back stairs. I was told for certain, your jackanapes, Lord Santry, * was dead; Captain Cammock assured me so; and now he's alive again, they say; but that shan't do; he shall be dead to me as long as he lives. Dick Tighe and I meet and never stir our hats. I am resolved to mistake him for Witherington, the little nasty lawyer that came up to me so sternly at the castle the day I left Ireland. I'll ask the gentleman I saw walking with him, how long Witherington has been in town.

14. I went to town to-day by water. The hail quite discouraged me from walking, and there is no shade in the greatest part of the way: I took the first boat, and had a footman my companion; then went again by water, and dined in the city with a printer, to whom I carried a pamphlet in manuscript, that Mr Secretary gave The printer sent it to the secretary for his approbation, and he desired me to look it over, which I did, and found it a very scurvy piece. The reason I tell you so is, because it was done by your parson Slap, Scrap, Flap, (what d'ye call him ?) Trap, your chancellor's chaplain. 'Tis called "A Character of the present Set of Whigs," and is going to be printed, and no

me.

* Lord Santry was a violent Whig, and distinguished himself particularly by prosecuting Higgins, who might be called the Sacheverel of Ireland.

*

doubt the author will take care to produce it in Ireland. Dr Freind was with me, and pulled out a twopenny pamphlet just published, called "The State of Wit," giving a character of all the papers that have come out of late. The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of a paper called The Examiner, and says the supposed author of it is Dr Swift. But above all things he praises the Tatlers and Spectators; and I believe Steele and Addison were privy to the printing of it. Thus is one treated by these impudent dogs. And that villain Curl has scraped up some trash, and calls it Dr Swift's Miscellanies, with the name at large, and I can get no satisfaction of him. Nay, Mr Harley told me he had read it, and only laughed at me before lordkeeper, and the rest. Since I came home I have been sitting with the prolocutor, Dean Atterbury, who is my neighbour over the way; but generally keeps in town with his convocation. 'Tis late, &c.

15. My walk to town to-day was after ten, and prodigiously hot: I dined with Lord Shelburne, and have

* This State of Wit is reprinted in this edition. The author of the paper is supposed to be Gay.

“The Examiner is a paper which all men, who speak without prejudice, allow to be well written. Though his subject will admit of no great variety, he is continually placing it in so many different lights, and endeavouring to inculcate the same thing by so many beautiful changes of expression, that men who are concerned in no party may read him with pleasure. His way of assuming the question in debate is extremely artful; and his letter to Crassus is, I think, a masterpiece. As these papers are supposed to have been written by several hands, the critics will tell you, that they can discern a difference in their styles and beauties, and pretend to observe that the first Examiners abound chiefly in wit, the last in humour."

desired Mrs Pratt, who lodges there, to carry over Mrs Walls's tea; I hope she will do it, and they talk of going in a fortnight. My way is this: I leave my best gown and periwig at Mrs Vanhomrigh's, then walk up the Pall Mall, through the Park, out at Buckingham House, and so to Chelsea a little beyond the church : I set out about sunset, and get here in something less than an hour it is two good miles, and just five thousand seven hundred and forty-eight steps; so there is four miles a day walking, without reckoning what I walk while I stay in town. When I pass the Mall in the evening it is prodigious to see the number of ladies walking there; and I always cry shame at the ladies of Ireland, who never walk at all, as if their legs were of no use, but to be laid aside. I have been now almost three weeks here, and I thank God, am much better in my head, if it does but continue. I tell you what, if I was with you, when we went to Stoyte at Donnybrook, we would only take a coach to the hither end of Stephen's Green, and from thence go every step on foot, yes faith, every step; it would do: DD* goes as well as Presto. Every body tells me I look better already; for faith I looked sadly, that's certain. My breakfast is milk porridge: I don't love it, faith I hate it, but 'tis cheap and wholesome; and I hate to be obliged to either of those qualities for any thing.

16. I wonder why Presto will be so tedious in answering MD's letters; because he would keep the best to the last I suppose. Well, Presto must be humoured, it must be as he will have it, or there will be an old to do. Dead with heat, are not you very hot? My walks

* In this passage DD signifies both Dingley and Stella.

make my forehead sweat rarely; sometimes my morning journey is by water, as it was to-day with one parson Richardson, who came to see me, on his going to Ireland; and with him I send Mrs Walls's tea, and three books I got from the lords of the treasury for the college. * I dined with Lord Shelburne to-day; Lady Kerry and Mrs Pratt are going likewise for Ireland.— Lord I forgot, I dined with Mr Prior to-day, at his house, with Dean Atterbury and others; and came home pretty late, and I think I'm in a fuzz, and don't know what I say, never saw the like.

17. Sterne came here by water to see me this morning, and I went back with him to his boat. He tells me, that Mrs Edgworth married a fellow in her journey to Chester so I believe she little thought of any body's box but her own. I desired Sterne to give me directions where to get the box in Chester, which he says he will to-morrow, and I will write to Richardson to get it up there as he goes by, and whip it over. It is directed to Mrs Curry: you must caution her of it, and desire her to send it you when it comes. Sterne says Jemmy Leigh loves London mightily; that makes him stay so long, I believe, and not Sterne's business, which Mr Harley's accident has put much backward. We expect now every day that he will be Earl of Oxford and lord-treasurer. His patent is passing; but they say, lord-keeper's not yet, at least his son, young Harcourt, told me so t'other day. I dined to-day privately with my friend Lewis at his lodgings at Whitehall, T'other day at Whitehall I met a lady of my ac

* The University of Dublin. These appear to be volumes of Rymer's Fadera.

quaintance, whom I had not seen before, since I came to England: we were mighty glad to see each other, and she has engaged me to visit her, as I design to do. It is one Mrs Colledge; she has lodgings at Whitehall, having been seamstress to King William, worth three hundred a year. Her father was a fanatic joiner, hanged for treason in Shaftsbury's plot. This noble person and I were brought acquainted, some years ago, by Lady Berkeley. I love good creditable acquaintance; I love to be the worst of the company: I am not of those that say, for want of company, welcome trumpery. I was this evening with Lady Kerry and Mrs Pratt at Vauxhall, to hear the nightingales; but they are almost past singing.

18. I was hunting the secretary to-day in vain about some business, and dined with Colonel Crowe, late Governor of Barbadoes, and your friend Sterne was the third he is very kind to Sterne, and helps him in his business, which lies asleep till Mr Harley is lord-treasurer, because nothing of moment is now done in the treasury, the change being expected every day. I sat with Dean Atterbury till one o'clock after I came home; so 'tis late, &c.

19. Do you know that about our town we are mowing already and making hay, and it smells so sweet as we

* This poor man's name was Stephen Colledge. He made himself so busy in the affairs of the popish plot, that he acquired the name of "The Protestant Joiner." He went down in arms to the Oxford Parliament, and held some incautious and violent discourse about attacking the King's Guards, which was construed into High Treason. This trial may be seen in the State Trials, Vol. III. As he was universally judged by the Whigs to have had hard measure, the post granted by King William to his daughter was probably in acknowledgment of his sufferings.