Henley told me that the Tories were insup-port-able people, because they are for bringing in French claret, and will not sup-port.  Mr. Harley will hardly get abroad this week or ten days yet.  I reckon, when I send away this letter, he will be just got into the House of Commons.  My last letter went in twelve days, and so perhaps may this.  No it won’t, for those letters that go under a fortnight are answers to one of yours, otherwise you must take the days as they happen, some dry, some wet, some barren, some fruitful, some merry, some insipid; some, etc.—­I will write you word exactly the first day I see young gooseberries, and pray observe how much later you are.  We have not had five fine days this five weeks, but rain or wind.  ’Tis a late spring they say here.—­Go to bed, you two dear saucy brats, and don’t keep me up all night.

7.  Ford has been at Epsom, to avoid Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  He forced me to-day to dine with him; and tells me there are letters from Ireland, giving an account of a great indiscretion in the Archbishop of Dublin, who applied a story out of Tacitus very reflectingly on Mr. Harley, and that twenty people have written of it; I do not believe it yet.[3] I called this evening to see Mr. Secretary, who has been very ill with the gravel and pain in his back, by burgundy and champagne, added to the sitting up all night at business; I found him drinking tea while the rest were at champagne, and was very glad of it.  I have chid him so severely that I hardly knew whether he would take it well:  then I went and sat an hour with Mrs. St. John, who is growing a great favourite of mine; she goes to the Bath on Wednesday, for she is much out of health, and has begged me to take care of the Secretary.

8.  I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John; he gave me a letter to read, which was from the publisher of the newspaper called the Postboy;[4] in it there was a long copy of a letter from Dublin, giving an account of what the Whigs said upon Mr. Harley’s being stabbed, and how much they abuse him and Mr. Secretary St. John; and at the end there were half a dozen lines, telling the story of the Archbishop of Dublin, and abusing him horribly; this was to be printed on Tuesday.  I told the Secretary I would not suffer that about the Archbishop to be printed, and so I crossed it out; and afterwards, to prevent all danger, I made him give me the letter, and, upon further thought, would let none of it be published:  and I sent for the printer, and told him so, and ordered him, in the Secretary’s name, to print nothing reflecting on anybody in Ireland till he had showed it me.  Thus I have prevented a terrible scandal to the Archbishop, by a piece of perfect good fortune.  I will let him know it by next post; and pray, if you pick it out, let me know, and whether he is thankful for it; but say nothing.