21.  Morning.  Lord Keeper, and I, and Prior, and Sir Thomas Mansel, have appointed to dine this day with George Granville.  My head, I thank God, is better; but to be giddyish three or four days together mortified me.  I take no snuff, and I will be very regular in eating little and the gentlest meats.  How does poor Stella just now, with her deans and her Stoytes?  Do they give you health for the money you lose at ombre, sirrah?  What say you to that?  Poor Dingley frets to see Stella lose that four and elevenpence, the other night.  Let us rise.  Morrow, sirrahs.  I will rise, spite of your little teeth; good-morrow.—­At night.  O, faith, you are little dear saucyboxes.  I was just going in the morning to tell you that I began to want a letter from MD, and in four minutes after Mr. Ford sends me one that he had picked up at St. James’s Coffee-house; for I go to no coffee-house at all.  And, faith, I was glad at heart to see it, and to see Stella so brisk.  O Lord, what pretending?  Well, but I will not answer it yet; I’ll keep it for t’other side.  Well, we dined to-day according to appointment:  Lord Keeper went away at near eight, I at eight, and I believe the rest will be fairly fuddled; for young Harcourt,[5] Lord Keeper’s son, began to prattle before I came away.  It will not do with Prior’s lean carcass.  I drink little, miss my glass often, put water in my wine, and go away before the rest, which I take to be a good receipt for sobriety.  Let us put it into rhyme, and so make a proverb—­

     Drink little at a time;
     Put water with your wine;
     Miss your glass when you can;
     And go off the first man.

God be thanked, I am much better than I was, though something of a totterer.  I ate but little to-day, and of the gentlest meat.  I refused ham and pigeons, pease-soup, stewed beef, cold salmon, because they were too strong.  I take no snuff at all, but some herb snuff prescribed by Dr. Radcliffe.

     Go to your deans,
     You couple of queans.

I believe I said that already.  What care I? what cares Presto?

22.  Morning.  I must rise and go to the Secretary’s.  Mr. Harley has been out of town this week to refresh himself before he comes into Parliament.  Oh, but I must rise, so there is no more to be said; and so morrow, sirrahs both.—­ Night.  I dined to-day with the Secretary, who has engaged me for every Sunday; and I was an hour with him this morning deep in politics, where I told him the objections of the October Club, and he answered all except one, that no inquiries are made into past mismanagement.  But indeed I believe they are not yet able to make any:  the late Ministry were too cunning in their rogueries, and fenced themselves with an Act of general pardon.  I believe Mr. Harley must be Lord Treasurer; yet he makes one difficulty which is hard to answer:  he must be made a lord, and his estate is not large enough, and he is too generous to make it larger; and if the Ministry should change soon by any accident, he will be left in the suds.  Another difficulty is, that if he be made a peer, they will want him prodigiously in the House of Commons, of which he is the great mover, and after him the Secretary, and hardly any else of weight.  Two shillings more to-day for coach and chair.  I shall be ruined.