18.  Did you ever see such a blundering goosecap as Presto?  I saw the number 21 at top, and so I went on as if it were the day of the month, whereas this is but Wednesday the 18th.  How shall I do to blot and alter them?  I have made a shift to do it behind, but it is a great botch.  I dined with Lord Anglesea to-day, but did not go to the House of Commons about the yarn; my head was not well enough.  I know not what is the matter; it has never been thus before:  two days together giddy from morning till night, but not with any violence or pain; and I totter a little, but can make shift to walk.  I doubt I must fall to my pills again:  I think of going into the country a little way.  I tell you what you must do henceforward:  you must enclose your letter in a fair half-sheet of paper, and direct the outside “To Erasmus Lewis, Esquire, at my Lord Dartmouth’s office at Whitehall”:  for I never go to the Coffee-house, and they will grudge to take in my letters.  I forgot to tell you that your mother was to see me this morning, and brought me a flask of sweet-water for a present, admirable for my head; but I shall not smell to it.  She is going to Sheen, with Lady Giffard:  she would fain send your papers over to you, or give them to me.  Say what you would have done, and it shall be done; because I love Stella, and she is a good daughter, they say, and so is Dingley.

19.  This morning General Webb was to give me a visit:  he goes with a crutch and stick, yet was forced to come up two pair of stairs.  I promised to dine with him, but afterwards sent my excuses, and dined privately in my friend Lewis’s lodgings at Whitehall, with whom I had much business to talk of, relating to the public and myself.  Little Harrison the Tatler goes to-morrow to the secretaryship I got him at the Hague, and Mr. St. John has made him a present of fifty guineas to bear his charges.  An’t I a good friend?  Why are not you a young fellow, that I might prefer you?  I had a letter from Bernage from Kinsale:  he tells me his commission for captain-lieutenant was ready for him at his arrival:  so there are two jackanapeses I have done with.  My head is something better this evening, though not well.

20.  I was this morning with Mr. Secretary, whose packets were just come in, and among them a letter from Lord Peterborow to me:  he writes so well, I have no mind to answer him, and so kind, that I must answer him.  The Emperor’s[4] death must, I think, cause great alterations in Europe, and, I believe, will hasten a peace.  We reckon our King Charles will be chosen Emperor, and the Duke of Savoy set up for Spain; but I believe he will make nothing of it.  Dr. Freind and I dined in the City at a printer’s, and it has cost me two shillings in coach-hire, and a great deal more this week and month, which has been almost all rain, with now and then sunshine, and is the truest April that I have known these many years.  The lime-trees in the Park are all out in leaves, though not large leaves yet.  Wise people are going into the country; but many think the Parliament can hardly be up these six weeks.  Mr. Harley was with the Queen on Tuesday.  I believe certainly he will be Lord Treasurer:  I have not seen him this week.