Part 6

13. O Lord, here is but a trifle of my letter written yet; what shall Presto do for prattle-prattle, to entertain MD? The talk now grows fresher of the Duke of Ormond for Ireland; though Mr. Addison says he hears it will be in commission, and Lord Galway {36b} one. These letters of mine are a sort of journal, where matters open by degrees; and, as I tell true or false, you will find by the event whether my intelligence be good; but I do not care twopence whether it be or no.—At night. To-day I was all about St. Paul’s, and up at the top like a fool, with Sir Andrew Fountaine and two more; and spent seven shillings for my dinner like a puppy: this is the second time he has served me so; but I will never do it again, though all mankind should persuade me, unconsidering puppies! There is a young fellow here in town we are all fond of, and about a year or two come from the University, one Harrison, {36c} a little pretty fellow, with a great deal of wit, good sense, and good nature; has written some mighty pretty things; that in your 6th _Miscellanea_, {37a} about the Sprig of an Orange, is his: he has nothing to live on but being governor to one of the Duke of Queensberry’s {37b} sons for forty pounds a year. The fine fellows are always inviting him to the tavern, and make him pay his club. Henley {37c} is a great crony of his: they are often at the tavern at six or seven shillings reckoning, and he always makes the poor lad pay his full share. A colonel and a lord were at him and me the same way to-night: I absolutely refused, and made Harrison lag behind, and persuaded him not to go to them. I tell you this, because I find all rich fellows have that humour of using all people without any consideration of their fortunes; but I will see them rot before they shall serve me so. Lord Halifax is always teasing me to go down to his country house, which will cost me a guinea to his servants, and twelve shillings coach-hire; and he shall be hanged first. Is not this a plaguy silly story? But I am vexed at the heart; for I love the young fellow, and am resolved to stir up people to do something for him: he is a Whig, and I will put him upon some of my cast Whigs; for I have done with them; and they have, I hope, done with this kingdom for our time. They were sure of the four members for London above all places, and they have lost three in the four. {37d} Sir Richard Onslow, {37e} we hear, has lost for Surrey; and they are overthrown in most places. Lookee, gentlewomen, if I write long letters, I must write you news and stuff, unless I send you my verses; and some I dare not; and those on the “Shower in London” I have sent to the _Tatler_, and you may see them in Ireland. I fancy you will smoke me in the _Tatler_ I am going to write; for I believe I have told you the hint. I had a letter sent me to-night from Sir Matthew Dudley, and found it on my table when I came in. Because it is extraordinary, I will transcribe it from beginning to end. It is as follows: “Is the Devil in you? Oct. 13, 1710.” I would have answered every particular passage in it, only I wanted time. Here is enough for to-night, such as it is, etc.

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 to-night. I have sent a box to Mr. Sterne, to send to you by some friend: I have directed it for Mr. Curry, at his house; so you have warning when it comes, as I hope it will soon. The handkerchiefs will be put in some friend’s pocket, not to pay custom. And so here ends my sixth, sent when I had but three of MD’s: now I am beforehand, and will keep so; and God Almighty bless dearest MD, etc.

LETTER VII.

LONDON, _Oct._ 19, 1710.

FAITH, I am undone! this paper is larger than the other, and yet I am condemned to a sheet; but, since it is MD, I did not value though I were condemned to a pair. I told you in my letter to-day where I had been, and how the day passed; and so, etc.

20. To-day I went to Mr. Lewis, at the Secretary’s office, to know when I might see Mr. Harley; and by and by comes up Mr. Harley himself, and appoints me to dine with him to-morrow. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, {44a} and went to wait on the two Lady Butlers; {44b} but the porter answered they were not at home: the meaning was, the youngest, Lady Mary, is to be married to-morrow to Lord Ashburnham, {44c} the best match now in England, twelve thousand pounds a year, and abundance of money. Tell me how my “Shower” is liked in Ireland: I never knew anything pass better here. I spent the evening with Wortley Montagu {45a} and Mr. Addison, over a bottle of Irish wine. Do they know anything in Ireland of my greatness among the Tories? Everybody reproaches me of it here; but I value them not. Have you heard of the verses about the “Rod of Sid Hamet”? Say nothing of them for your life. Hardly anybody suspects me for them; only they think nobody but Prior or I could write them. But I doubt they have not reached you. There is likewise a ballad full of puns on the Westminster Election, {45b} that cost me half an hour: it runs, though it be good for nothing. But this is likewise a secret to all but MD. If you have them not, I will bring them over.

21. I got MD’s fourth to-day at the Coffee-house. God Almighty bless poor, dear Stella, and her eyes and head! What shall we do to cure them? poor, dear life! Your disorders are a pull-back for your good qualities. Would to Heaven I were this minute shaving your poor, dear head, either here or there! Pray do not write, nor read this letter, nor anything else; and I will write plainer for Dingley to read from henceforward, though my pen is apt to ramble when I think whom I am writing to. I will not answer your letter until I tell you that I dined this day with Mr. Harley, who presented me to the Earl of Stirling, {45c} a Scotch lord; and in the evening came in Lord Peterborow. I stayed till nine before Mr. Harley would let me go, or tell me anything of my affair. He says the Queen has now granted the First-Fruits and Twentieth Parts; but he will not give me leave to write to the Archbishop, because the Queen designs to signify it to the Bishops in Ireland in form; and to take notice, that it was done upon a memorial from me; which, Mr. Harley tells me he does to make it look more respectful to me, etc.; and I am to see him on Tuesday. I know not whether I told you that, in my memorial which was given to the Queen, I begged for two thousand pounds a year more, though it was not in my commission; but that, Mr. Harley says, cannot yet be done, and that he and I must talk of it further: however, I have started it, and it may follow in time. Pray say nothing of the First-Fruits being granted, unless I give leave at the bottom of this. I believe never anything was compassed so soon, and purely done by my personal credit with Mr. Harley, who is so excessively obliging, that I know not what to make of it, unless to show the rascals of the other party that they used a man unworthily who had deserved better. The memorial given to the Queen from me speaks with great plainness of Lord Wharton. I believe this business is as important to you as the Convocation disputes from Tisdall. {46} I hope in a month or two all the forms of settling this matter will be over; and then I shall have nothing to do here. I will only add one foolish thing more, because it is just come into my head. When this thing is made known, tell me impartially whether they give any of the merit to me, or no; for I am sure I have so much, that I will never take it upon me.—Insolent sluts! because I say Dublin, Ireland, therefore you must say London, England: that is Stella’s malice.—Well, for that I will not answer your letter till to-morrow-day, and so and so: I will go write something else, and it will not be much; for ’tis late.

22. I was this morning with Mr. Lewis, the under-secretary to Lord Dartmouth, two hours, talking politics, and contriving to keep Steele in his office of stamped paper: he has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred pounds a year, for writing a _Tatler_, {47a} some months ago, against Mr. Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to three hundred pounds. This was devilish ungrateful; and Lewis was telling me the particulars: but I had a hint given me, that I might save him in the other employment: and leave was given me to clear matters with Steele. Well, I dined with Sir Matthew Dudley, and in the evening went to sit with Mr. Addison, and offer the matter at distance to him, as the discreeter person; but found party had so possessed him, that he talked as if he suspected me, and would not fall in with anything I said. So I stopped short in my overture, and we parted very drily; and I shall say nothing to Steele, and let them do as they will; but, if things stand as they are, he will certainly lose it, unless I save him; and therefore I will not speak to him, that I may not report to his disadvantage. Is not this vexatious? and is there so much in the proverb of proffered service? When shall I grow wise? I endeavour to act in the most exact points of honour and conscience; and my nearest friends will not understand it so. What must a man expect from his enemies? This would vex me, but it shall not; and so I bid you good-night, etc.

23. I know ’tis neither wit nor diversion to tell you every day where I dine; neither do I write it to fill my letter; but I fancy I shall, some time or other, have the curiosity of seeing some particulars how I passed my life when I was absent from MD this time; and so I tell you now that I dined to-day at Molesworth’s, the Florence Envoy, then went to the Coffee-house, where I behaved myself coldly enough to Mr. Addison, and so came home to scribble. We dine together to-morrow and next day by invitation; but I shall alter my behaviour to him, till he begs my pardon, or else we shall grow bare acquaintance. I am weary of friends; and friendships are all monsters, but MD’s.

24. I forgot to tell you, that last night I went to Mr. Harley’s, hoping—faith, I am blundering, for it was this very night at six; and I hoped he would have told me all things were done and granted: but he was abroad, and came home ill, and was gone to bed, much out of order, unless the porter lied. I dined to-day at Sir Matthew Dudley’s, with Mr. Addison, etc.

25. I was to-day to see the Duke of Ormond; and, coming out, met Lord Berkeley of Stratton, {48a} who told me that Mrs. Temple, {48b} the widow, died last Saturday, which, I suppose, is much to the outward grief and inward joy of the family. I dined to-day with Addison and Steele, and a sister of Mr. Addison, who is married to one Mons. Sartre, {48c} a Frenchman, prebendary of Westminster, who has a delicious house and garden; yet I thought it was a sort of monastic life in those cloisters, and I liked Laracor better. Addison’s sister is a sort of a wit, very like him. I am not fond of her, etc.