2.  Sterne came to me this morning, and tells me he has yet some hopes of compassing his business:  he was with Tom Harley, the secretary of the Treasury, and made him doubt a little he was in the wrong; the poor man tells me it will almost undo him if he fails.  I called this morning to see Will Congreve, who lives much by himself, is forced to read for amusement, and cannot do it without a magnifying-glass.  I have set him very well with the Ministry, and I hope he is in no danger of losing his place.  I dined in the City with Dr. Freind, not among my merchants, but with a scrub instrument of mischief of mine, whom I never mentioned to you, nor am like to do.  You two little saucy Wexfordians, you are now drinking waters.  You drink waters! you go fiddlestick.  Pray God send them to do you good; if not, faith, next summer you shall come to the Bath.

3.  Lord Peterborow desired to see me this morning at nine; I had not seen him before since he came home.  I met Mrs. Manley[4] there, who was soliciting him to get some pension or reward for her service in the cause, by writing her Atalantis, and prosecution, etc., upon it.  I seconded her, and hope they will do something for the poor woman.  My lord kept me two hours upon politics:  he comes home very sanguine; he has certainly done great things at Savoy and Vienna, by his negotiations:  he is violent against a peace, and finds true what I writ to him, that the Ministry seems for it.  He reasons well; yet I am for a peace.  I took leave of Lady Kerry, who goes to-morrow for Ireland; she picks up Lord Shelburne and Mrs. Pratt at Lord Shelburne’s house.  I was this evening with Lord Treasurer:  Tom Harley was there, and whispered me that he began to doubt about Sterne’s business; I told him he would find he was in the wrong.  I sat two or three hours at Lord Treasurer’s; he rallied me sufficiently upon my refusing to take him into our Club, and told a judge who was with us that my name was Thomas Swift.  I had a mind to prevent Sir H. Belasyse[5] going to Spain, who is a most covetous cur, and I fell a railing against avarice, and turned it so that he smoked me, and named Belasyse.  I went on, and said it was a shame to send him; to which he agreed, but desired I would name some who understood business, and do not love money, for he could not find them.  I said there was something in a Treasurer different from other men; that we ought not to make a man a Bishop who does not love divinity, or a General who does not love war; and I wondered why the Queen would make a man Lord Treasurer who does not love money.  He was mightily pleased with what I said.  He was talking of the First-Fruits of England, and I took occasion to tell him that I would not for a thousand pounds anybody but he had got them for Ireland, who got them for England too.  He bid me consider what a thousand pounds was; I said I would have him to know I valued a thousand pounds as little as he valued a million.—­Is