Elwood[19] and you play at? is it the Spanish game ombre? Your card−purse? you a card− purse! you a fiddlestick. You have luck indeed; and luck in a bag. What a devil! is that eight−shilling tea−kettle copper, or tin japanned? It is like your Irish politeness, raffling for tea−kettles. What a splutter you keep, to convince me that Walls has no taste! My head continues pretty well. Why do you write, dear sirrah Stella, when you find your eyes so weak that you cannot see? what comfort is there in reading what you write, when one knows that? So Dingley cannot write, because of the clutter of new company come to Wexford! I suppose the noise of their hundred horses disturbs you; or do you lie in one gallery, as in an hospital? What! you are afraid of losing in Dublin the acquaintance you have got in Wexford, and chiefly the Bishop of Raphoe,[20] an old, doting, perverse coxcomb? Twenty at a time at breakfast. That is like five pounds at a time, when it was never but once. I doubt, Madam Dingley, you are apt to lie in your travels, though not so bad as Stella; she tells thumpers, as I shall prove in my next, if I find this receives encouragement.− −So Dr. Elwood says there are a world of pretty things in my works. A pox on his praises! an enemy here would say more. The Duke of LETTER 29.
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Buckingham would say as much, though he and I are terribly fallen out; and the great men are perpetually inflaming me against him: they bring me all he says of me, and, I believe, make it worse out of roguery.No,
’tis not your pen is bewitched, Madam Stella, but your old SCRAWLING, SPLAY−FOOT POT−HOOKS, S, S,[21] ay that’s it: there the s, s, s, there, there, that’s exact. Farewell, etc.
Our fine weather is gone; and I doubt we shall have a rainy journey to−day. Faith, ’tis shaving−day, and I have much to do. When Stella says her pen was bewitched, it was only because there was a hair in it. You know, the fellow they call God−help−it had the same thoughts of his wife, and for the same reason. I think this is very well observed, and I unfolded the letter to tell you it.
Cut off those two notes above; and see the nine pounds indorsed, and receive the other; and send me word how my accounts stand, that they may be adjusted by Nov. 1.[22] Pray be very particular; but the twenty pounds I lend you is not to be included: so make no blunder. I won’t wrong you, nor you shan’t wrong me; that is the short. O Lord, how stout Presto is of late! But he loves MD more than his life a thousand times, for all his stoutness; tell them that; and that I’ll swear it, as hope saved, ten millions of times, etc. etc.
I open my letter once more, to tell Stella that if she does not use exercise after her waters, it will lose all the effects of them: I should not live if I did not take all opportunities of walking. Pray, pray, do this, to oblige poor Presto.
LETTER 30.
WINDSOR, Sept. 8, 1711.
I made the coachman stop, and put in my twenty−ninth at the post−office at two o’clock to−day, as I was going to Lord Treasurer, with whom I dined, and came here by a quarter−past eight; but the moon shone, and so we were not in much danger of overturning; which, however, he values not a straw, and only laughs when I chide at him for it. There was nobody but he and I, and we supped together, with Mr. Masham, and Dr.
Arbuthnot, the Queen’s favourite physician, a Scotchman. I could not keep myself awake after supper, but did all I was able to disguise it, and thought I came off clear; but, at parting, he told me I had got my nap already.
It is now one o’clock; but he loves sitting up late.
9. The Queen is still in the gout, but recovering: she saw company in her bed−chamber after church; but the crowd was so great, I could not see her. I dined with my brother Sir William Wyndham,[1] and some others of our Society, to avoid the great tables on Sunday at Windsor, which I hate. The usual company supped to−night at Lord Treasurer’s, which was Lord Keeper, Mr. Secretary, George Granville, Masham, Arbuthnot, and I. But showers have hindered me from walking to−day, and that I do not love.Noble fruit, and I dare not eat a bit. I ate one fig to−day, and sometimes a few mulberries, because it is said they are wholesome, and you know a good name does much. I shall return to town to−morrow, though I thought to have stayed a week, to be at leisure for something I am doing. But I have put it off till next; for I shall come here again on Saturday, when our Society are to meet at supper at Mr. Secretary’s. My life is very regular here: on Sunday morning I constantly visit Lord Keeper, and sup at Lord Treasurer’s with the same set of company. I was not sleepy to−night; I resolved I would not; yet it is past midnight at this present writing.
London, 10. Lord Treasurer and Masham and I left Windsor at three this afternoon: we dropped Masham at Kensington with his lady, and got home by six. It was seven before we sat down to dinner, and I stayed till past eleven. Patrick came home with the Secretary: I am more plagued with Patrick and my portmantua than with myself. I forgot to tell you that when I went to Windsor on Saturday I overtook Lady Giffard and Mrs.
Fenton[2] in a chariot, going, I suppose, to Sheen. I was then in a chariot too, of Lord Treasurer’s brother, who had business with the Treasurer; and my lord came after, and overtook me at Turnham Green, four miles LETTER 30.
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from London; and then the brother went back, and I went in the coach with Lord Treasurer: so it happened that those people saw me, and not with Lord Treasurer. Mrs. F. was to see me about a week ago; and desired I would get her son into the Charter−house.
11. This morning the printer sent me an account of Prior’s Journey;[3] it makes a twopenny pamphlet. I suppose you will see it, for I dare engage it will run; ’tis a formal, grave lie, from the beginning to the end. I writ all but about the last page; that I dictated, and the printer writ. Mr. Secretary sent to me to dine where he did; it was at Prior’s: when I came in, Prior showed me the pamphlet, seemed to be angry, and said, “Here is our English liberty!” I read some of it, and said I liked it mightily, and envied the rogue the thought; for, had it come into my head, I should have certainly done it myself. We stayed at Prior’s till past ten; and then the Secretary received a packet with the news of Bouchain being taken, for which the guns will go off to−morrow. Prior owned his having been in France, for it was past denying: it seems he was discovered by a rascal at Dover, who had positive orders to let him pass. I believe we shall have a peace.
12. It is terrible rainy weather, and has cost me three shillings in coaches and chairs to−day, yet I was dirty into the bargain. I was three hours this morning with the Secretary about some business of moment, and then went into the City to dine. The printer tells me he sold yesterday a thousand of Prior’s Journey, and had printed five hundred more. It will do rarely, I believe, and is a pure bite. And what is MD doing all this while? got again to their cards, their Walls, their deans, their Stoytes, and their claret? Pray present my service to Mr. Stoyte and Catherine. Tell Goody Stoyte she owes me a world of dinners, and I will shortly come over and demand them.Did I tell you of the Archbishop of Dublin’s last letter? He had been saying, in several of his former, that he would shortly write to me something about myself; and it looked as if he intended something for me: at last out it comes, and consists of two parts. First, he advises me to strike in for some preferment now I have friends; and secondly, he advises me, since I have parts, and learning, and a happy pen, to think of some new subject in divinity not handled by others, which I should manage better than anybody. A rare spark this, with a pox! but I shall answer him as rarely. Methinks he should have invited me over, and given me some hopes or promises. But hang him! and so good−night, etc.