-At night. Mr Addison and I dined with Ned Southwell, and walked in the Park; and at the coffeehouse I found a letter from the Bishop of Clogher, and a packet from MD. I opened the bishop's letter; but put up MD's, and visited a lady just come to town, and am now got into bed, and going to open your little letter: and God send I may find MD well, and happy, and merry, and that they love Presto as they do fires. O, I will not open it yet! yes I will! no I will not; I am going; I cannot stay till I turn over :* what shall I do? my fingers itch: and I now have it in my left hand; and now I will open it this very moment.—I have just got it, and am cracking the seal, and cannot imagine what is in it; I fear only some letter from a bishop, and it comes too late: I shall employ no body's credit but my own. Well, I see though-Pshaw, it is from Sir Andrew Fountaine : what, another! I fancy that is from Mrs Barton;t she told me she would write to me; but she writes a better hand than this: I wish you would inquire; it must be at Dawson's office at the castle. I fear this is from Patty Rolt, by the scrawl.

* That is, to the next page; for he is now within three lines of the bottom of the first.

+ Mrs Barton was niece to Sir Isaac Newton, and widow of a Colonel Barton. She was witty, beautiful, and a favourite among the toasts of the Kit-Cat Club. She did some prejudice to her reputation by undertaking the superintendence of Lord Halifax's family, but was compensated by a large legacy. Mrs Barton was married a second time to Mr Conduit, who succeeded Sir Isaac Newton in his office in the Mint; she survived her husband, and died a widow in 1739. She was a favourite of Swift.

Joshua Dawson, Esq., Secretary to the Lord Justices of Ireland. He built a fine house in Dawson's Street, which is now the mansion-house of the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Well, I will read MD's letter. Ah, no; it is from poor Lady Berkeley, to invite me to Berkeley Castle this winter; and now it grieves my heart: she says she hopes my lord is in a fair way of recovery: poor lady. Well, now I go to MD's letter: faith it is all right; I hoped it was wrong. Your letter, N 3, that I have now received, is dated Sept. 26, and Manley's letter, that I had five days ago, was dated Oct. 3, that is a fortnight's difference: I doubt it has lain in Steele's office, and he forgot. Well, there is an end of that: he is turned out of his place; and you must desire those who send me packets, to enclose them in a paper, directed to Mr Addison, at St James's Coffeehouse: not common letters, but packets: the Bishop of Clogher may mention it to the archbishop when he sees him. As for your letter, it makes me mad: flidikins, I have been the best boy in Christendom, and you come with your two eggs a-penny.-Well; but stay, I will look over my book; adad, I think there was a chasm between my N 2 and N S. Faith, I will not promise to write to you every week; but I will write every night, and when it is full I will send it; that will be once in ten days, and that will be often enough: and if you begin to take up the way of writing to Presto, only because it is Tuesday, a Monday bedad, it will grow a task; but write when you have a mind.—No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,-Agad, agad, agad, agad, agad, agad; no, poor Stellakins. Slids, I would the horse were in your-chamber. Have I not ordered Parvisol to obey your directions about him? and have not I said in my former letters, that you may pickle him, and boil him if you will? What do you trouble me about your horses for? Have I any thing to do with them!-Revolutions a hindrance to me in my

business; revolutions-to me in my business? if it were not for the revolutions I could do nothing at all; and now I have all hopes possible, though one is certain of nothing; but to-morrow I am to have an answer, and am promised an effectual one. I suppose I have said enough in this and a former letter how I stand with new people; ten times better than ever I did with the old; forty times more caressed. I am to dine to-morrow at Mr Harley's; and if he continues as he has begun, no man has been ever better treated by another. What you say about Stella's mother, I have spoken enough to it already. I believe she is not in town; for I have not yet seen her. My lampoon is cried up to the skies; but nobody suspects me for it, except Sir Andrew Fountaine at least they say nothing of it to me. Did not I tell you of a great man who received me very coldly ?* that is he; but say nothing; it was only a little revenge I will remember to bring it over. The Bishop of Clogher has smoked my Tatler, † about shortening of words, &c. But, God so! &c.

15. I will write plainer, if I can remember it; for Stella must not spoil her eyes, and Dingley cannot read my hand very well; and I am afraid my letters are too long then you must suppose one to be two, and read them at twice. I dined to-day with Mr Harley: Mr Prior dined with us. He has left my memorial with the queen, who has consented to give the first-fruits and twentieth parts, and will, we hope, declare it to-morrow

* Lord Godolphin. See the first article of the Journal. The lampoon was the verses on Sid Hamet's Rod, so often mentioned and recurred to below.

in the cabinet. But I beg you to tell it to no person alive; for so I am ordered, till in public; and I hope to get something of greater value. After dinner came in Lord Peterborow: we renewed our acquaintance, and he grew mightly fond of me.

They began to talk of a paper of verses called Sid Hamet. Mr Harley repeated part, and then pulled them out, and gave them to a gentleman at the table to read, though they had all read them often: Lord Peterborow would let nobody read them but himself: so he did; and Mr Harley bobbed me at every line to take notice of the beauties. Prior rallied Lord Peterborow for author of them; and Lord Peterborow said, he knew them to be his; and Prior then turned it upon me, and I on him. I am not guessed at all in town to be the author; yet so it is: but that is a secret only to you. Ten to one whether you see them in Ireland; yet here they run prodigiously. Harley presented me to Lord President of Scotland, * and Mr Benson, Lord of the Treasury. † Prior and I came away at nine, and sat at the Smyrna till eleven, receiving acquaintance.

16. This morning early I went in a chair, and Patrick before it, to Mr Harley, to give him another copy of my memorial, as he desired; but he was full of business, going to the queen, and I could not see him; but he desired I would send up the paper, and excused himself upon his hurry. I was a little baulked, but they tell

* Hew Dalrymple of North Berwick, Lord President of the Court of Session.

+ Robert Benson, Esq. made a Commissioner of the Treasury, 8th August 1710, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 7th June

me it is nothing. I shall judge by my next visit. I tipt his porter with a half-crown; and so I am well there for a time at least; I dined at Stratford's in the city, and had burgundy and tokay: came back a-foot like a scoundrel; then went to Mr Addison, and supped with Lord Mountjoy, which made me sick all night. I forgot that I bought six pounds of chocolate for Stella, and a little wooden box; and I have a great piece of Brazil tobacco for Dingley, and a bottle of palsy water for Stella; all which, with the two handkerchiefs that Mr Sterne has bought, and you must pay him for, will be put in the box directed to Mrs Curry's, and sent by Dr Hawkshaw, whom I have not seen but Sterne has undertaken it. * The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella. Do not read this, you little rogue, with your little eyes; but give it to Dingley, pray now; and I will write as plain as the skies: and let Dingley write Stella's part, and Stella dictate to her, when she apprehends her eyes, &c.

17. This letter sbould have gone this post, if I had not been taken up with business, and two nights being late out, so it must stay till Thursday. I dined to-day with your Mr Sterne, by invitation, and drank Irish wine; but, before we parted, there came in the prince of puppies, Colonel Edgworth; ‡ so I went away. This

* The miscarriage of the box containing these articles is matter of much subsequent speculation in the Journal.

+ Claret.

"It is reported of this Colonel Ambrose Edgworth, that he once made a visit to one of his brothers, who lived at the distance of one day's journey from his house, and that he travelled to see him with his led horse, portmantuas, &c. As soon as he arrived at his brother's, the portmantuas were unpacked, and three suits