10.  Why, if you must have it out, something is to be published of great moment,[11] and three or four great people are to see there are no mistakes in point of fact:  and ’tis so troublesome to send it among them, and get their corrections, that I am weary as a dog.  I dined to-day with the printer, and was there all the afternoon; and it plagues me, and there’s an end, and what would you have?  Lady Dupplin, Lord Treasurer’s daughter,[12] is brought to bed of a son.  Lord Treasurer has had an ugly return of his gravel.  ’Tis good for us to live in gravel pits,[13] but not for gravel pits to live in us; a man in this case should leave no stone unturned.  Lord Treasurer’s sickness, the Queen’s gout, the forwarding the peace, occasion putting off the Parliament a fortnight longer.  My head has had no ill returns.  I had good walking to-day in the City, and take all opportunities of it on purpose for my health; but I can’t walk in the Park, because that is only for walking’s sake, and loses time, so I mix it with business.  I wish MD walked half as much as Presto.  If I was with you, I’d make you walk; I would walk behind or before you, and you should have masks on, and be tucked up like anything; and Stella is naturally a stout walker, and carries herself firm; methinks I see her strut, and step clever over a kennel; and Dingley would do well enough if her petticoats were pinned up; but she is so embroiled, and so fearful, and then Stella scolds, and Dingley stumbles, and is so daggled.[14] Have you got the whalebone petticoats among you yet?  I hate them; a woman here may hide a moderate gallant under them.  Pshaw, what’s all this I’m saying?  Methinks I am talking to MD face to face.

11.  Did I tell you that old Frowde,[15] the old fool, is selling his estate at Pepperhara, and is skulking about the town nobody knows where? and who do you think manages all this for him, but that rogue Child,[16] the double squire of Farnham?  I have put Mrs. Masham, the Queen’s favourite, upon buying it, but that is yet a great secret; and I have employed Lady Oglethorpe to inquire about it.  I was with Lady Oglethorpe to-day, who is come to town for a week or two, and to-morrow I will see to hunt out the old fool:  he is utterly ruined, and at this present in some blind alley with some dirty wench.  He has two sons that must starve, and he never gives them a farthing.  If Mrs. Masham buys the land, I will desire her to get the Queen to give some pension to the old fool, to keep him from absolutely starving.  What do you meddle with other people’s affairs for? says Stella.  Oh, but Mr. Masham and his wife are very urgent with me, since I first put them in the head of it.  I dined with Sir Matthew Dudley, who, I doubt, will soon lose his employment.

12.  Morning.  I am going to hunt out old Frowde, and to do some business in the City.  I have not yet called to Patrick to know whether it be fair.—­It has been past dropping these two days.  Rainy weather hurts my pate and my purse.  He tells me ’tis very windy, and begins to look dark; woe be to my shillings! an old saying and a true,