14. Is that tobacco at the top of the paper, [38a] or what? I do not remember I slobbered. Lord, I dreamt of Stella, etc., so confusedly last night, and that we saw Dean Bolton [38b] and Sterne [38c] go into a shop: and she bid me call them to her, and they proved to be two parsons I know not; and I walked without till she was shifting, and such stuff, mixed with much melancholy and uneasiness, and things not as they should be, and I know not how: and it is now an ugly gloomy morning.—At night. Mr. Addison and I dined with Ned Southwell, and walked in the Park; and at the Coffee-house 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. Oh, I will not open it yet! yes I will! no I will not! I am going; I cannot stay till I turn over. [39a] What shall I do? My fingers itch; and now I 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 nobody’s credit but my own. Well, I see though— Pshaw, ’tis from Sir Andrew Fountaine. What, another! I fancy that’s from Mrs. Barton; [39b] 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 [39c] office at the Castle. I fear this is from Patty Rolt, by the scrawl. 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; [39d] 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’s a fortnight difference: I doubt it has lain in Steele’s office, and he forgot. Well, there’s an end of that: he is turned out of his place; [39e] and you must desire those who send me packets, to enclose them in a paper directed to Mr. Addison, at St. James’s Coffee-house: 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: slidikins, 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. 3. 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. [40a] Slids, I would the horse were in your—chamber! Have not I ordered Parvisol to obey your directions about him? And han’t 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 anything 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? [40b] That’s he; but say nothing; ’twas only a little revenge. I will remember to bring it over. The Bishop of Clogher has smoked my Tatler, [40c] about shortening of words, etc. But, God So! [40d] etc.
15. I will write plainer if I can remember it; for Stella must not spoil her eyes, and Dingley can’t 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 [41a] dined with us. He has left my memorial with the Queen, who has consented to give the First-Fruits and Twentieth Parts, [41b] and will, we hope, declare it to-morrow 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: [41c] we renewed our acquaintance, and he grew mightily 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 [41d] 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. [41e] Ten to one whether you see them in Ireland; yet here they run prodigiously. Harley presented me to Lord President of Scotland, [41f] and Mr. Benson, [41g] Lord of the Treasury. Prior and I came away at nine, and sat at the Smyrna [42a] 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 me it is nothing. I shall judge by next visit. I tipped his porter with half a 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 afoot like a scoundrel: then went with 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, [42b] and a bottle of palsy-water [42c] 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, [42d] whom I have not seen; but Sterne has undertaken it. The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella. Don’t 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, etc.
17. This letter should 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, [43a] by invitation, and drank Irish wine; [43b] but, before we parted, there came in the prince of puppies, Colonel Edgworth; [43c] so I went away. This day came out the Tatler, made up wholly of my “Shower,” and a preface to it. They say it is the best thing I ever writ, and I think so too. I suppose the Bishop of Clogher will show it you. Pray tell me how you like it. Tooke is going on with my Miscellany. [43d] I’d give a penny the letter to the Bishop of Killaloe [43e] was in it: ’twould do him honour. Could not you contrive to say, you hear they are printing my things together; and that you with the bookseller had that letter among the rest: but don’t say anything of it as from me. I forget whether it was good or no; but only having heard it much commended, perhaps it may deserve it. Well, I have to-morrow to finish this letter in, and then I will send it next day. I am so vexed that you should write your third to me, when you had but my second, and I had written five, which now I hope you have all: and so I tell you, you are saucy, little, pretty, dear rogues, etc.
18. To-day I dined, by invitation, with Stratford and others, at a young merchant’s in the City, with Hermitage and Tokay, and stayed till nine, and am now come home. And that dog Patrick is abroad, and drinking, and I cannot I get my night-gown. I have a mind to turn that puppy away: he has been drunk ten times in three weeks. But I han’t time to say more; so good-night, etc.
19. I am come home from dining in the city with Mr. Addison, at a merchant’s; and just now, at the Coffee-house, we have notice that the Duke of Ormond was this day declared Lord Lieutenant at Hampton Court, in Council. I have not seen Mr. Harley since; but hope the affair is done about First-Fruits. I will see him, if possible, to-morrow morning; but this goes