will find you at Wexford.  This letter will come three weeks after the last, so there is a week lost; but that is owing to my being out of town; yet I think it is right, because it goes enclosed to Mr. Reading:[3] and why should he know how often Presto writes to MD, pray?—­I sat this evening with Lady Betty Butler and Lady Ashburnham, and then came home by eleven, and had a good cool walk; for we have had no extreme hot weather this fortnight, but a great deal of rain at times, and a body can live and breathe.  I hope it will hold so.  We had peaches to-day.

22.  I went late to-day to town, and dined with my friend Lewis.  I saw Will Congreve attending at the Treasury, by order, with his brethren, the Commissioners of the Wine Licences.  I had often mentioned him with kindness to Lord Treasurer; and Congreve told me that, after they had answered to what they were sent for, my lord called him privately, and spoke to him with great kindness, promising his protection, etc.  The poor man said he had been used so ill of late years that he was quite astonished at my lord’s goodness, etc., and desired me to tell my lord so; which I did this evening, and recommended him heartily.  My lord assured me he esteemed him very much, and would be always kind to him; that what he said was to make Congreve easy, because he knew people talked as if his lordship designed to turn everybody out, and particularly Congreve:  which indeed was true, for the poor man told me he apprehended it.  As I left my Lord Treasurer, I called on Congreve (knowing where he dined), and told him what had passed between my lord and me; so I have made a worthy man easy, and that is a good day’s work.[4] I am proposing to my lord to erect a society or academy for correcting and settling our language, that we may not perpetually be changing as we do.  He enters mightily into it, so does the Dean of Carlisle;[5] and I design to write a letter to Lord Treasurer with the proposals of it, and publish it;[6] and so I told my lord, and he approves it.  Yesterday’s[7] was a sad Examiner, and last week was very indifferent, though some little scraps of the old spirit, as if he had given some hints; but yesterday’s is all trash.  It is plain the hand is changed.

23.  I have not been in London to-day:  for Dr. Gastrell[8] and I dined, by invitation, with the Dean of Carlisle, my neighbour; so I know not what they are doing in the world, a mere country gentleman.  And are not you ashamed both to go into the country just when I did, and stay ten days, just as I did, saucy monkeys?  But I never rode; I had no horses, and our coach was out of order, and we went and came in a hired one.  Do you keep your lodgings when you go to Wexford?  I suppose you do; for you will hardly stay above two months.  I have been walking about our town to-night, and it is a very scurvy place for walking.  I am thinking to leave it, and return to town, now the Irish folks are gone.  Ford goes in three days.  How does Dingley divert herself while Stella is riding? work, or read, or walk?  Does Dingley ever read to you?  Had you ever a book with you in the country?  Is all that left off?  Confess.  Well, I’ll go sleep; ’tis past eleven, and I go early to sleep:  I write nothing at night but to MD.