broke. Dilly is just such a puppy as ever; and it is so uncouth, after so long an intermission. My twenty-fifth

is

gone this evening to the post. I think I will direct my next (which is this) to Mr Curry's, and let them send it to Wexford, and then the next enclosed to Reading. Instruct me how I shall do. I long to hear from you from Wexford, and what sort of place it is. The town grows very empty and dull. This evening I have had a letter from Mr Philips, the pastoral poet, to get him a certain employment from lord-treasurer. I have now had almost all the Whig poets my solicitors; and I have been useful to Congreve, Steele, and Harrison; but I will do nothing for Philips; I find he is more a puppy than ever, so don't solicit for him. Besides, I will not trouble lord-treasurer, unless upon some very extraordinary occasion.

July 1. Dilly lies conveniently for me when I come to town from Chelsea of a Sunday, and go to the secretary's; so I called at his lodgings this morning, and sent for my gown, and dressed myself there. He had a letter from the bishop, with an account that you were set out for Wexford the morning he writ, which was June 26, and he had the letter the 30th; that was very quick. The bishop says, you design to stay there two months or more. Dilly had also a letter from Tom Ashe, full of Irish news : that your Lady Linden is dead, and I know not what besides, of Dr Coghil* losing his drab, &c. The secre

* Dr Marmaduke Coghill was judge of the Prerogative Court for Ireland. In his judicial capacity he was called on to decide a question between a wife and her husband, who had given her a good beating. Upon this occasion the Doctor delivered a grave opinion, that moderate chastisement, with such a switch as he held in his hand, was within the husband's matrimonial privilege. This

tary is gone to Windsor, and I dined with Mrs Vanhomrigh. Lord-treasurer is at Windsor too: they will be going and coming all summer, while the queen is there, and the town is empty; and I fear I shall be sometimes forced to stoop beneath my dignity, and send to the alehouse for a dinner. Well, sirrahs, had you a good journey to Wexford? Did you drink ale by the way? were you never overturned? how many things did you forget? do you lie on straw in your new town where you are Cudsho, the next letter to Presto will be dated from Wexford. What fine company have you there? what new acquaintance have you got? you are to write constantly to Mrs Walls and Mrs Stoyte: and the dean said, shall we never hear from you? Yes, Mr Dean, we'll make bold to trouble you with a letter. Then at Wexford; when you meet a lady; Did your waters pass well this morning, madam? Will Dingley drink them too? Yes, I warrant, to get her a stomach. I suppose you are all gamesters at Wexford. Don't lose your money, sirrah, far from home. I believe I shall go to Windsor in a few days; at least, the secretary tells me so. He has a small house there, with just room enough for him and me; and I would be satisfied to pass a few days there some times. Sirrahs, let me go to sleep, 'till past twelve in our town.

2. Sterne came to me this morning, and tells me he has yet some hopes of compassing his business: he was with Tom Harley, the secretary of the treasury, and

legal maxim gave so much offence or alarm to a lady to whom for some time he had paid his addresses with a prospect of success, that she positively dismissed the assertor of so ungallant a doctrine. To this disappointment Swift alludes in the text. Dr Coghill, as may be guessed from his opinions, died unmarried.

made him doubt a little he was in the wrong; the poor man tells me, it will almost undo him if he fails. I called this morning to see Will. Congreve, who lives much by himself, is forced to read for amusement, and cannot do it without a magnifying glass. I have set him very well with the ministry, and I hope he is in no danger of losing his place. I dined in the city with Dr Freind, not among my merchants, but with a scrub instrument of mischief of mine, whom I never mentioned to you, nor am like to do. You are two little saucy Wexfordians, you are now drinking waters. You drink waters! you go fiddlestick. Pray God send them to do you good; if not, faith next summer you shall come to the Bath.

3. Lord Peterborow desired to see me this morning at nine. I had not seen him before since he came home. I met Mrs Manley there, who was soliciting him to get some pension or reward for her service in the cause, by writing her Atalantis, and prosecution, &c. upon it.* * I

* There was something very diverting in the prosecution of Mrs Manley here alluded to. Being a person of light conditions, she wrote a sort of licentious private history, under the colour of a romance. This work, which she called the ATALANTIS, made free with the characters, and disclosed the intrigues, of several persons of consequence, not forgetting her own. For this the printer was apprehended; but Mrs Manley courageously appeared before the Court of King's Bench, and took the whole burden on her own shoulders. She underwent a sharp examination by Lord Sunderland; but maintained, with unaltered constancy, that the whole work was mere invention, without any sinister allusion to real characters. When Lord Sunderland pointed out particulars which were irreconcileable with this account, she said, that if these bore any resemblance to real incidents, she must have come by them through inspiration. And when his Lordship urged that the anec

seconded her, and hope they will do something for the poor woman. My lord kept me two hours upon politics: he comes home very sanguine; he has certainly done great things at Savoy and Vienna, by his negotiations: he is violent against a peace, and finds true what I writ to him, that the ministry seems for it. He reasons well ; yet I am for a peace. I took leave of Lady Kerry, who goes to-morrow for Ireland; she picks up Lord Shelburne and Mrs Pratt at Lord Shelburne's house. I was this evening with lord-treasurer. Tom Harley was there; and whispered me that he began to doubt about Sterne's business. I told him he would find he was in the wrong. I sat two or three hours at lord-treasurer's. He rallied me sufficiently upon my refusing to take him into our club; told a judge who was with us, that my name was Thomas Swift. I had a mind to prevent Sir H. Bellasis going to Spain, who is a most covetous cur; and I fell a railing against avarice, and turned it so, that he smoked me, and named Bellasis. I went on, and said

*

it was a shame to send him; to which he agreed, but desired I would name some who understood business, and do not love money, for he could not find them. I said, there was something in a treasurer different from other men; that we ought not to make a man a bishop

dotes were not of a nature usually suggested by divine impulse, the lady coolly answered, that there were evil angels as well as good, who might possess equal powers of inspiration. In short, there was no making any thing of Mrs Manley, who at length was set at liberty, after several fruitless examinations.

* Sir Henry Bellasis was member for Durham. He was this year appointed a commissioner to inquire into the number and quality of the English forces in Spain and Portugal, and to examine the army accounts.

who does not love divinity, or a general who does not love war; and I wondered why the queen would make a man lord-treasurer who does not love money. He was mightily pleased with what I said. He was talking of the first-fruits of England; and I took occasion to tell him, that I would not for a thousand pounds any body but he had got them to Ireland, who got them for England too. He bid me consider what a thousand pounds was. I said, I would have him to know I valued a thousand pounds as little as he valued a million.-Is it not silly to write all this? But it gives you an idea what our conversation is with mixed company. I have taken a lodging in Suffolk Street, and go to it on Thursday; and design to walk the Park and the town, to supply my walking here: yet I will walk here sometimes too, in a visit now and then to the dean. When I was almost at home, Patrick told me he had two letters for me, and gave them to me in the dark; yet I could see one of them was from saucy MD. I went to visit the dean for half an hour; and then came home, and first read the other letter, which was from the Bishop of Clogher, who tells me the Archbishop of Dublin mentioned, in a full assembly of the clergy, the queen's granting the first-fruits; said it was done by the lordtreasurer; and talked much of my merit in it: but reading your's, I find nothing of that. bishop lies, out of a desire to please me. Mrs Vanhomrigh. Well, sirrahs, you are gone to Wexford, but I'll follow you.

Perhaps the

I dined with

4. Sterne came to me again this morning, to advise about reasons and memorials he is drawing up; and we went to town by water together; and having nothing to do, I stole into the city to an instrument of mine, and then