the bishop of Clogher, and a packet from MD. 1 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 nobody's credit but my own. Well, I see though-Pshaw, it is from sir Andrew Fountain: what, another! I fancy that is from Mrs. Barton ; 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. 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 difference: I doubt it has lain in Steele's That is, to the next page; for he is now within three lines of the bottom of the first. + Joshua Dawson, esq., secretary to the lord justices of Ireland. He built a very fine house in a street called by his own name, which is now the mansion house of the lord mayor of Dublin. office, 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 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. 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 Fountain : 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 in the cabinet. But I beg you to tell it to no person alive; for so I am ordered, till in publick: and I hope to get something of greater value. After dinner came in lord Peterborow: 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 No. 230, printed in vol. V. + This appears to be an interjection of surprise at the length of his journal. they 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 balked, but they tell me it is nothing. I shall judge by next visit. I tipt his porter with a halfcrown; 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 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 for Stella. Do not read this, you little rogue, with your little eyes; but 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 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, by invitation, and drank Irish wine*; but, before we parted, there came in the prince of puppies, colonel Edgworth; + 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 about 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 of fine clothes, one finer than another, hung upon chairs in his bedchamber, together with his nightgown, and shaving plate, disposed in their proper places. The next morning, upon his coming down to breakfast, with his boots on, his brother asked him where he proposed riding before dinner: I am going directly home, said the colonel. Lord! said his brother, I thought you intended to stay some time with us. No, replied the colonel, I cannot stay with you at present; I only just came to see you and my sister, and must return home this morning. And accordingly his clothes, &c. were packed up, and off he went. But what merit soever the colonel might have had to boast of, his son Talbot Edgworth excelled him by at least fifty bars length. Talbot never thought of any thing but fine clothes, splendid furniture for his horse, and exciting, as he flattered himself, universal admiration. In these pursuits he expended his whole income, which, at best, was very inconsiderable: in other respects he cared not how he lived. To do him justice, he was an exceeding handsome fellow, well shaped, and of a good height, rather tall than of the middle size. He began very early in his life, even before he was of age, to shine forth in the world, and continued to blaze during the whole reign of George |