pounds in two months is nine score pounds a year;
a matter of nothing in Stella’s purse!
I dreamed Billy Swift was alive, and that I told him
you writ me word he was dead, and that you had been
at his funeral; and I admired at your impudence, and
was in mighty haste to run and let you know what lying
rogues you were. Poor lad! he is dead of his
mother’s former folly and fondness; and yet now
I believe, as you say, that her grief will soon wear
off.—O yes, Madam Dingley, mightily tired
of the company, no doubt of it, at Wexford! And
your description of it is excellent; clean sheets,
but bare walls; I suppose then you lay upon the walls.—Mrs.
Walls has got her tea; but who pays me the money?
Come, I shall never get it; so I make a present of
it, to stop some gaps, etc. Where’s
the thanks of the house? So, that’s well;
why, it cost four-and-thirty shillings English—you
must adjust that with Mrs. Walls; I think that is
so many pence more with you.—No, Leigh and
Sterne, I suppose, were not at the water-side:
I fear Sterne’s business will not be done; I
have not seen him this good while. I hate him,
for the management of that box; and I was the greatest
fool in nature for trusting to such a young jackanapes;
I will speak to him once more about it, when I see
him. Mr. Addison and I met once more since,
and I supped with him; I believe I told you so somewhere
in this letter. The Archbishop chose an admirable
messenger in Walls, to send to me; yet I think him
fitter for a messenger than anything.—The
D—— she has! I did not observe
her looks. Will she rot out of modesty with Lady
Giffard? I pity poor Jenny[18]—but
her husband is a dunce, and with respect to him she
loses little by her deafness. I believe, Madam
Stella, in your accounts you mistook one liquor for
another, and it was an hundred and forty quarts of
wine, and thirty-two of water.—This is all
written in the morning before I go to the Secretary,
as I am now doing. I have answered your letter
a little shorter than ordinary; but I have a mind
it should go to-day, and I will give you my journal
at night in my next; for I’m so afraid of another
letter before this goes: I will never have two
together again unanswered.—What care I for
Dr. Tisdall and Dr. Raymond, or how many children they
have! I wish they had a hundred apiece.—Lord
Treasurer promises me to answer the bishops’
letter to-morrow, and show it me; and I believe it
will confirm all I said, and mortify those that threw
the merit on the Duke of Ormond; for I have made him
jealous of it; and t’other day, talking of the
matter, he said, “I am your witness, you got
it for them before the Duke was Lord Lieutenant.”
My humble service to Mrs. Walls, Mrs. Stoyte, and
Catherine. Farewell, etc.
What do you do when you see any literal mistakes in my letters? how do you set them right? for I never read them over to correct them. Farewell, again.
Pray send this note to Mrs. Brent, to get the money when Parvisol comes to town, or she can send to him.