25.  I was this forenoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape.  The Under Secretary was willing to save him, upon an old notion that a woman cannot be ravished; but I told the Secretary he could not pardon him without a favourable report from the judge; besides, he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for some thing else; and so he shall swing.  What, I must stand up for the honour of the fair sex!  ’Tis true the fellow had lain with her a hundred times before, but what care I for that!  What, must a woman be ravished because she is a whore?—­The Secretary and I go on Saturday to Windsor for a week.  I dined with Lord Treasurer, and stayed with him till past ten.  I was to-day at his levee, where I went against my custom, because I had a mind to do a good office for a gentleman:  so I talked with him before my lord, that he might see me, and then found occasion to recommend him this afternoon.  I was forced to excuse my coming to the levee, that I did it to see the sight; for he was going to chide me away:  I had never been there but once, and that was long before he was Treasurer.  The rooms were all full, and as many Whigs as Tories.  He whispered me a jest or two, and bid me come to dinner.  I left him but just now; and ’tis late.

26.  Mr. Addison and I have at last met again.  I dined with him and Steele to-day at young Jacob Tonson’s.  The two Jacobs[3] think it is I who have made the Secretary take from them the printing of the Gazette, which they are going to lose, and Ben Tooke and another[4] are to have it.  Jacob came to me the other day, to make his court; but I told him it was too late, and that it was not my doing.  I reckon they will lose it in a week or two.  Mr. Addison and I talked as usual, and as if we had seen one another yesterday; and Steele and I were very easy, though I writ him lately a biting letter, in answer to one of his, where he desired me to recommend a friend of his to Lord Treasurer.  Go, get you gone to your waters, sirrah.  Do they give you a stomach?  Do you eat heartily?—­We have had much rain to-day and yesterday.

27.  I dined to-day in the City, and saw poor Patty Rolt, and gave her a pistole to help her a little forward against she goes to board in the country.  She has but eighteen pounds a year to live on, and is forced to seek out for cheap places.  Sometimes they raise their price, and sometimes they starve her, and then she is forced to shift.  Patrick the puppy put too much ink in my standish,[5] and, carrying too many things together, I spilled it on my paper and floor.  The town is dull, wet, and empty; Wexford is worth two of it; I hope so at least, and that poor little MD finds it so.  I reckon upon going to Windsor to-morrow with Mr. Secretary, unless he changes his mind, or some other business prevents him.  I shall stay there a week, I hope.