Chelsea, May 12, 1711.
I SENT you my twenty-second this afternoon in town. I dined with Mr. Harley and the old club, Lord Rivers, lord-keeper, and Mr. Secretary. — They rallied me last week, and said I must have Mr. St. John's leave, so I writ to him yesterday, that, foreseeing I should never dine again with Sir Simon Harcourt, knight, and Robert Harley, Esq., I was resolved to do it today . The jest is, that, before Saturday next, we expect they will be lords; for Mr. Harley's patent is drawing to be Earl of Oxford. Mr. Secretary and I came away at seven, and he brought me to our town's end in his coach; so I lost my walk. St. John read my letter to the company, which was all raillery, and passed purely.
13. It rained all last night and this morning as heavy as lead; but I just got fair weather to walk to town before church. The roads are all1 over in deep puddle. The hay of our town is almost fit to be mowed. I went to court after church, (as I always do on Sundays,) and then dined with Mr. Secretary, who has engaged me for every Sunday, and poor MD dined at home upon a bit of veal, and a pint of wine. Is it not plaguy insipid to tell you every day where I dine? yet now I have got into the way of it, I cannot forbear it neither. Indeed, Mr. Presto, you had better go answer MD's letter, N. 14. 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.
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14. I went to town today by water. The heat 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 me. 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 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 lord-keeper, 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.
15. My walk to town today was after ten, and prodigiously hot; I dined with Lord Shelburne, and have 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 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 Prestohate. 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 anything.
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 make my forehead sweat rarely; sometimes my morning journey is by water, as it was today 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.* * * * *
17. We expect now every, day that Mr. Harley 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 today privately with my friend Lewis at his lodgings at Whitehall. T'other day at Whitehall I met a lady of my acquaintance, 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 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 today 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.
19. Do you know that about our town we are mowing already and making hay, and it smells so sweet as we walk through the flowery meads; but the hay-making nymphs are perfect drabs, nothing so clean and pretty as farther in the country. There is a mighty increase of dirty wenches in straw hats since I knew London. I staid at home till five o'clock, and dined with Dean Atterbury: then went by water to Mr. Harley's, where the Saturday club was met, with the addition of the Duke of Shrewsbury. I whispered Lord Rivers, that I did not like to see a stranger among us: and the rogue told it aloud: but Mr. Secretary said, the duke writ to have leave: so I appeared satisfied, and so we laughed. Mr. Secretary told me the Duke of Buckingham had been talking to him much about me, and desired my acquaintance. I answered, it could not be: for he had not made sufficient advances. Then the Duke of Shrewsbury said, he thought that duke was not used to make advances. I said I could not help that; for I always expected advances in proportion to men's quality, and more from a duke than other men. The duke replied, that he did not mean any thing of his quality; which was handsomely said enough; for he meant his pride: and I: have invented a notion to believe that nobody is proud. At ten all the company went away; and from ten till twelve Mr. Harley and I sat together, where we talked through a great deal of matters I had a mind to settle with him, and then walked, in a fine moonshine night, to s Chelsea, where I got by one. Lord Rivers conjured me not to walk so late; but I would, because I had no other way; but I had no money to lose.
20. By what lord-keeper told me last night, I find he will not be made a peer so soon: but Mr. Harley's patent for - Earl of Oxford is now drawing, and will be done in three days. We made him own it, which he did scurvily, and then talked of it like the rest. Mr. Secretary had too much company with him today ; so I came away soon after dinner. I give no man liberty to swear or talk lewdly, and I found some of them were in constraint, so I left them to themselves. I wish you a merry Whitsuntide, and pray tell me how you pass away your time: but faith, you are going to Wexford, and I fear this letter is too late; it shall go on Thursday, and sooner it cannot, I have so much business to hinder me answering yours. Where must I direct in your absence? Do you quit your lodgings?
21. Going to town this morning, I met in the Pall Mall a clergyman of Ireland, whom I love very well, and was glad to see, and with him a little jackanapes of Ireland too, who married Nanny Swift, uncle Adam's daughter, one Perry; perhaps you may have heard of him. His wife has sent him here to get a place from Lownds; because my uncle and Lownds married two sisters, and Lownds is a great man here in the treasury: but by good luck I have no acquaintance with him: however he expected I should be his friend to Lownds, and one word of mine, etc., the old cant. But I will not go two yards to help him. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, where I keep my best gown and periwig to put on when I come to town and be a spark.
22. I dined today in the city, and coming home this evening, I met Sir Thomas Mansel and Mr. Lewis in the Park. Lewis whispered me that Mr. Harley's patent for Earl of Oxford was passed in Mr. Secretary St. John's office; so tomorrow or next day I suppose he will be declared Earl of Oxford, and have the staff. This man has grown by persecution, turnings out, and stabbing. What waiting, and crowding, and bowing, will be at his levee? yet, if human nature be capable of so much constancy, I should believe he will be the same man still, bating the necessary forms of grandeur he must keep up. 'Tis late sirrahs, and I'll go sleep. * * * *
23. 0 faith, I should be glad to be in the same kingdom with MD, however, although you were 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 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 1 man breathing at present has less share of happiness in life than I: I do not say I am unhappy at all, but that every thing here is tasteless to me for want of being where I would be. And so a short sigh, and no more of this.
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