4.  I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John; and after dinner he had a note from Mr. Harley, that he was much out of order.[8] Pray God preserve his health! everything depends upon it.  The Parliament at present cannot go a step without him, nor the Queen neither.  I long to be in Ireland; but the Ministry beg me to stay:  however, when this Parliament lurry[9] is over, I will endeavour to steal away; by which time I hope the First-Fruit business will be done.  This kingdom is certainly ruined as much as was ever any bankrupt merchant.  We must have peace, let it be a bad or a good one, though nobody dares talk of it.  The nearer I look upon things, the worse I like them.  I believe the confederacy will soon break to pieces, and our factions at home increase.  The Ministry is upon a very narrow bottom, and stand like an isthmus, between the Whigs on one side, and violent Tories on the other.  They are able seamen; but the tempest is too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them.  Lord Somers has been twice in the Queen’s closet, once very lately; and your Duchess of Somerset,[10] who now has the key, is a most insinuating woman; and I believe they will endeavour to play the same game that has been played against them.—­I have told them of all this, which they know already, but they cannot help it.  They have cautioned the Queen so much against being governed, that she observes it too much.  I could talk till to-morrow upon these things, but they make me melancholy.  I could not but observe that lately, after much conversation with Mr. Harley, though he is the most fearless man alive, and the least apt to despond, he confessed to me that uttering his mind to me gave him ease.

5.  Mr. Harley continues out of order, yet his affairs force him abroad:  he is subject to a sore throat, and was cupped last night:  I sent and called two or three times.  I hear he is better this evening.  I dined to-day in the City with Dr. Freind at a third body’s house, where I was to pass for somebody else; and there was a plaguy silly jest carried on, that made me sick of it.  Our weather grows fine, and I will walk like camomile.  And pray walk you to your Dean’s, or your Stoyte’s, or your Manley’s, or your Walls’.  But your new lodgings make you so proud, you will walk less than ever.  Come, let me go to bed, sirrahs.

6.  Mr. Harley’s going out yesterday has put him a little backwards.  I called twice, and sent, for I am in pain for him.  Ford caught me, and made me dine with him on his Opera-day; so I brought Mr. Lewis with me, and sat with him till six.  I have not seen Mr. Addison these three weeks; all our friendship is over.  I go to no Coffee-house.  I presented a parson of the Bishop of Clogher’s, one Richardson,[11] to the Duke of Ormond to-day:  he is translating prayers and sermons into Irish, and has a project about instructing the Irish in the Protestant religion.