as that when you shut your eyes you write most like Presto.  I know the time when I did not write to you half so plain as I do now; but I take pity on you both.  I am very much concerned for Mrs. Walls’s eyes.  Walls says nothing of it to me in his letter dated after yours.  You say, “If she recovers, she may lose her sight.”  I hope she is in no danger of her life.  Yes, Ford is as sober as I please:  I use him to walk with me as an easy companion, always ready for what I please, when I am weary of business and Ministers.  I don’t go to a Coffee-house twice a month.  I am very regular in going to sleep before eleven.—­And so you say that Stella is a pretty girl; and so she be, and methinks I see her just now as handsome as the day is long.  Do you know what? when I am writing in our language, I make up my mouth just as if I was speaking it.  I caught myself at it just now.  And I suppose Dingley is so fair and so fresh as a lass in May, and has her health, and no spleen.—­In your account you sent do you reckon as usual from the 1st of November[18] was twelvemonth?  Poor Stella, will not Dingley leave her a little daylight to write to Presto?  Well, well, we’ll have daylight shortly, spite of her teeth; and zoo[19] must cly Lele and Hele, and Hele aden.  Must loo mimitate Pdfr, pay?  Iss, and so la shall.  And so lele’s fol ee rettle.  Dood-mollow.—­At night.  Mrs. Barton sent this morning to invite me to dinner; and there I dined, just in that genteel manner that MD used when they would treat some better sort of body than usual.

8.  O dear MD, my heart is almost broken.  You will hear the thing before this comes to you.  I writ a full account of it this night to the Archbishop of Dublin; and the Dean may tell you the particulars from the Archbishop.  I was in a sorry way to write, but thought it might be proper to send a true account of the fact; for you will hear a thousand lying circumstances.  It is of Mr. Harley’s being stabbed this afternoon, at three o’clock, at a Committee of the Council.  I was playing Lady Catharine Morris’s[20] cards, where I dined, when young Arundel[21] came in with the story.  I ran away immediately to the Secretary, which was in my way:  no one was at home.  I met Mrs. St. John in her chair; she had heard it imperfectly.  I took a chair to Mr. Harley, who was asleep, and they hope in no danger; but he has been out of order, and was so when he came abroad to-day, and it may put him in a fever:  I am in mortal pain for him.  That desperate French villain, Marquis de Guiscard,[22] stabbed Mr. Harley.  Guiscard was taken up by Mr. Secretary St. John’s warrant for high treason, and brought before the Lords to be examined; there he stabbed Mr. Harley.  I have told all the particulars already to the Archbishop.  I have now, at nine, sent again, and they tell me he is in a fair way.  Pray pardon my distraction; I now think of all his kindness to me.—­The poor creature now lies stabbed in his bed by a desperate French Popish villain.  Good-night, and God preserve you both, and pity me; I want it.