18. It has rained hard from morning till night, and cost me three shillings in coach−hire. We have had LETTER 37.
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abundance of wet weather. I dined in the City, and was with the printer, who has now a fifth edition of the Conduct, etc.: it is in small, and sold for sixpence; they have printed as many as three editions, because they are to be sent in numbers into the country by great men, etc., who subscribe for hundreds. It has been sent a fortnight ago to Ireland: I suppose you will print it there. The Tory Lords and Commons in Parliament argue all from it; and all agree that never anything of that kind was of so great consequence, or made so many converts. By the time I have sent this letter, I expect to hear from little MD: it will be a month, two days hence, since I had your last, and I will allow ten days for accidents. I cannot get rid of the leavings of a cold I got a month ago, or else it is a new one. I have been writing letters all this evening till I am weary, and I am sending out another little thing, which I hope to finish this week, and design to send to the printer in an unknown hand. There was printed a Grub Street speech of Lord Nottingham;[2] and he was such an owl to complain of it in the House of Lords, who have taken up the printer for it. I heard at Court that Walpole[3] (a great Whig member) said that I and my whimsical Club writ it at one of our meetings, and that I should pay for it. He will find he lies: and I shall let him know by a third hand my thoughts of him. He is to be Secretary of State, if the Ministry changes; but he has lately had a bribe proved against him in Parliament, while he was Secretary at War. He is one of the Whigs’ chief speakers.
19. Sad dismal weather. I went to the Secretary’s office, and Lewis made me dine with him. I intended to have dined with Lord Treasurer. I have not seen the Secretary this week. Things do not mend at all. Lord Dartmouth despairs, and is for giving up; Lewis is of the same mind; but Lord Treasurer only says, “Poh, poh, all will be well.” I am come home early to finish something I am doing; but I find I want heart and humour, and would read any idle book that came in my way. I have just sent away a penny paper to make a little mischief. Patrick is gone to the burial of an Irish footman, who was Dr. King’s[4] servant; he died of a consumption, a fit death for a poor starving wit’s footman. The Irish servants always club to bury a countryman.
20. I was with the Secretary this morning, and, for aught I can see, we shall have a languishing death: I can know nothing, nor themselves neither. I dined, you know, with our Society, and that odious Secretary would make me President next week; so I must entertain them this day se’nnight at the Thatched House Tavern,[5]
where we dined to−day: it will cost me five or six pounds; yet the Secretary says he will give me wine. I found a letter when I came home from the Bishop of Clogher.
21. This is the first time I ever got a new cold before the old one was going: it came yesterday, and appeared in all due forms, eyes and nose running, etc., and is now very bad; and I cannot tell how I got it. Sir Andrew Fountaine and I were invited to dine with Mrs. Van. I was this morning with the Duke of Ormond; and neither he nor I can think of anything to comfort us in present affairs. We must certainly fall, if the Duchess of Somerset be not turned out; and nobody believes the Queen will ever part with her. The Duke and I were settling when Mr. Secretary and I should dine with him, and he fixes upon Tuesday; and when I came away I remembered it was Christmas Day. I was to see Lady , who is just up after lying−in; and the ugliest sight I have seen, pale, dead, old and yellow, for want of her paint. She has turned my stomach. But she will soon be painted, and a beauty again.
22. I find myself disordered with a pain all round the small of my back, which I imputed to champagne I had drunk; but find it to have been only my new cold. It was a fine frosty day, and I resolved to walk into the City. I called at Lord Treasurer’s at eleven, and stayed some time with him.He showed me a letter from a great Presbyterian parson[6] to him, complaining how their friends had betrayed them by passing this Conformity Bill; and he showed me the answer he had written, which his friends would not let him send; but was a very good one. He is very cheerful; but gives one no hopes, nor has any to give. I went into the City, and there I dined.
23. Morning. As I was dressing to go to church, a friend that was to see me advised me not to stir out; so I shall keep at home to−day, and only eat some broth, if I can get it. It is a terrible cold frost, and snow fell LETTER 37.
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yesterday, which still remains: look there, you may see it from the penthouses. The Lords made yesterday two or three votes about peace, and Hanover, of a very angry kind to vex the Ministry, and they will meet sooner by a fortnight than the Commons; and they say, are preparing some knocking addresses. Morrow, sirrahs. I’ll sit at home, and when I go to bed I will tell you how I am.I have sat at home all day, and eaten only a mess of broth and a roll. I have written a Prophecy,[7] which I design to print; I did it to−day, and some other verses.
24. I went into the City to−day in a coach, and dined there. My cold is going. It is now bitter hard frost, and has been so these three or four days. My Prophecy is printed, and will be published after Christmas Day; I like it mightily: I don’t know how it will pass. You will never understand it at your distance, without help. I believe everybody will guess it to be mine, because it is somewhat in the same manner with that of
“Merlin”[8] in the Miscellanies. My Lord Privy Seal set out this day for Holland: he’ll have a cold journey. I gave Patrick half a crown for his Christmas box, on condition he would be good, and he came home drunk at midnight. I have taken a memorandum of it, because I never design to give him a groat more. ‘Tis cruel cold.
25. I wish MD a merry Christmas, and many a one; but mine is melancholy: I durst not go to church to−day, finding myself a little out of order, and it snowing prodigiously, and freezing. At noon I went to Mrs. Van, who had this week engaged me to dine there to−day: and there I received the news that poor Mrs. Long[9]
died at Lynn in Norfolk on Saturday last, at four in the morning: she was sick but four hours. We suppose it was the asthma, which she was subject to as well as the dropsy, as she sent me word in her last letter, written about five weeks ago; but then said she was recovered. I never was more afflicted at any death. The poor creature had retired to Lynn two years ago, to live cheap, and pay her debts. In her last letter she told me she hoped to be easy by Christmas; and she kept her word, although she meant it otherwise. She had all sorts of amiable qualities, and no ill ones, but the indiscretion of too much neglecting her own affairs. She had two thousand pounds left her by an old grandmother,[10] with which she intended to pay her debts, and live on an annuity she had of one hundred pounds a year, and Newburg House, which would be about sixty pounds more. That odious grandmother living so long, forced her to retire; for the two thousand pounds was settled on her after the old woman’s death, yet her brute of a brother, Sir James Long,[11] would not advance it for her; else she might have paid her debts, and continued here, and lived still: I believe melancholy helped her on to her grave. I have ordered a paragraph to be put in the Postboy,[12] giving an account of her death, and making honourable mention of her; which is all I can do to serve her memory: but one reason was spite; for her brother would fain have her death a secret, to save the charge of bringing her up here to bury her, or going into mourning. Pardon all this, for the sake of a poor creature I had so much friendship for.