13.  I went this morning to the city, to see Mr. Stratford the Hamburg merchant, my old schoolfellow;[13] but calling at Bull’s[14] on Ludgate Hill, he forced me to his house at Hampstead to dinner among a great deal of ill company; among the rest Mr. Hoadley,[15] the Whig clergyman, so famous for acting the contrary part to Sacheverell:[16] but tomorrow I design again to see Stratford.  I was glad, however, to be at Hampstead, where I saw Lady Lucy[17] and Moll Stanhope.  I hear very unfortunate news of Mrs. Long;[18] she and her comrade[19] have broke up house, and she is broke for good and all, and is gone to the country:  I should be extremely sorry if this be true.

14.  To-day, I saw Patty Rolt,[20] who heard I was in town; and I dined with Stratford at a merchant’s in the city, where I drank the first Tokay wine I ever saw; and it is admirable, yet not to the degree I expected.  Stratford is worth a plum,[21] and is now lending the Government forty thousand pounds; yet we were educated together at the same school and university.[22] We hear the Chancellor[23] is to be suddenly out, and Sir Simon Harcourt[24] to succeed him:  I am come early home, not caring for the Coffee-house.

15.  To-day Mr. Addison, Colonel Freind,[25] and I, went to see the million lottery[26] drawn at Guildhall.  The jackanapes of bluecoat boys gave themselves such airs in pulling out the tickets, and showed white hands open to the company, to let us see there was no cheat.  We dined at a country-house near Chelsea, where Mr. Addison often retires; and to-night, at the Coffee-house, we hear Sir Simon Harcourt is made Lord Keeper; so that now we expect every moment the Parliament will be dissolved; but I forgot that this letter will not go in three or four days, and that my news will be stale, which I should therefore put in the last paragraph.  Shall I send this letter before I hear from MD, or shall I keep it to lengthen?  I have not yet seen Stella’s mother, because I will not see Lady Giffard; but I will contrive to go there when Lady Giffard is abroad.  I forgot to mark my two former letters; but I remember this is Number 3, and I have not yet had Number 1 from MD; but I shall by Monday, which I reckon will be just a fortnight after you had my first.  I am resolved to bring over a great deal of china.  I loved it mightily to-day.[27] What shall I bring?

16.  Morning.  Sir John Holland,[28] Comptroller of the Household, has sent to desire my acquaintance:  I have a mind to refuse him, because he is a Whig, and will, I suppose, be out among the rest; but he is a man of worth and learning.  Tell me, do you like this journal way of writing?  Is it not tedious and dull?

Night.  I dined to-day with a cousin, a printer,[29] where Patty Rolt lodges, and then came home, after a visit or two; and it has been a very insipid day.  Mrs. Long’s misfortune is confirmed to me; bailiffs were in her house; she retired to private lodgings; thence to the country, nobody knows where:  her friends leave letters at some inn, and they are carried to her; and she writes answers without dating them from any place.  I swear, it grieves me to the soul.