what could I do?  I fairly ventured my life.  There is a particular account of it in the Postboy, and Evening Post of that day.  Lord Treasurer has had the seal sent him that sealed the box, and directions where to find the other pistol in a tree in St. James’s Park, which Lord Bolingbroke’s messenger found accordingly; but who sent the present is not yet known.  The Duke of Hamilton avoided the quarrel as much as possible, according to the foppish rules of honour in practice.  What signified your writing angry to Filby?  I hope you said nothing of hearing anything from me.  Heigh! do oo write by sandlelight! nauti, nauti, nauti dallar, a hundred times, fol doing so.  O, fais, DD, I’ll take care of myself!  The Queen is in town, and Lady Masham’s month of lying-in is within two days of being out.  I was at the christening on Monday.  I could not get the child named Robin, after Lord Treasurer; it is Samuel, after the father.  My brother Ormond sent me some chocolate to-day.  I wish you had share of it:  but they say ’tis good for me, and I design to drink some in a morning.  Our Society meets next Thursday, now the Queen is in town; and Lord Treasurer assures me that the Society for reforming the language shall soon be established.  I have given away ten shillings to-day to servants; ’tan’t be help if one should cry one’s eyes out.[14] Hot a stir is here about your company and visits!  Charming company, no doubt; now I keep no company at all, nor have I any desire to keep any.  I never go to a coffee-house nor a tavern, nor have touched a card since I left Windsor.  I make few visits, nor go to levees; my only debauching is sitting late where I dine, if I like the company.  I have almost dropped the Duchesses of Shrewsbury and Hamilton, and several others.  Lord Treasurer, the Duke of Ormond, and Lady Orkney are all that I see very often.  Oh yes, and Lady Masham and Lord Bolingbroke, and one or two private friends.  I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintance, and I love to go there on Sundays to see the world.  But, to say the truth, I am growing weary of it.  I dislike a million of things in the course of public affairs; and if I were to stay here much longer, I am sure I should ruin myself with endeavouring to mend them.  I am every day invited into schemes of doing this, but I cannot find any that will probably succeed.  It is impossible to save people against their own will; and I have been too much engaged in patchwork already.  Do you understand all this stuff?  No.  Well zen, you are now returned to ombre and the Dean, and Christmas; I wish oo a very merry one; and pray don’t lose oo money, nor play upon Watt Welch’s game.  Nite, sollahs, ’tis rate I’ll go to seep; I don’t seep well, and therefore never dare to drink coffee or tea after dinner:  but I am very seepy in a molning.  This is the effect of time and years.  Nite deelest MD.