10.(11) I made visits this morning to the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, and Lady Betty, and the Duchess of Hamilton. (When I was writing this near twelve o’clock, the Duchess of Hamilton sent to have me dine with her to-morrow.  I am forced to give my answer through the door, for my man has got the key, and is gone to bed; but I cannot obey her, for our Society meets to-morrow.) I stole away from Lord Treasurer by eight, and intended to have passed the evening with Sir Thomas Clarges[26] and his lady; but met them in another place, and have there sat till now.  My head has not been ill to-day.  I was at Court, and made Lord Mansel walk with me in the Park before we went to dinner.—­Yesterday and to-day have been fair, but yet it rained all last night.  I saw Sterne staring at Court to-day.  He has been often to see me, he says:  but my man has not yet let him up.  He is in deep mourning; I hope it is not for his wife.[27] I did not ask him.  Nite MD.

12.[28] I have reckoned days wrong all this while; for this is the twelfth.  I do not know when I lost it.  I dined to-day with our Society, the greatest dinner I have ever seen.  It was at Jack Hill’s, the Governor of Dunkirk.  I gave an account of sixty guineas I had collected, and am to give them away to two authors to-morrow; and Lord Treasurer has promised us a hundred pounds to reward some others.  I found a letter on my table last night to tell me that poor little Harrison, the Queen’s Secretary, that came lately from Utrecht with the Barrier Treaty, was ill, and desired to see me at night; but it was late, and I could not go till to-day.  I have often mentioned him in my letters, you may remember. . . .  I went in the morning, and found him mighty ill, and got thirty guineas for him from Lord Bolingbroke, and an order for a hundred pounds from the Treasury to be paid him to-morrow; and I have got him removed to Knightsbridge for air.  He has a fever and inflammation on his lungs; but I hope will do well.  Nite.

13.  I was to see a poor poet, one Mr. Diaper,[29] in a nasty garret, very sick.  I gave him twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke, and disposed the other sixty to two other authors, and desired a friend to receive the hundred pounds for poor Harrison, and will carry it to him to-morrow morning.  I sent to see how he did, and he is extremely ill; and I very much afflicted for him, for he is my own creature, and in a very honourable post, and very worthy of it.  I dined in the City.  I am in much concern for this poor lad.  His mother and sister attend him, and he wants nothing.  Nite poo dee MD.

14.  I took Parnell this morning, and we walked to see poor Harrison.  I had the hundred pounds in my pocket.  I told Parnell I was afraid to knock at the door; my mind misgave me.  I knocked, and his man in tears told me his master was dead an hour before.  Think what grief this is to me!  I went to his mother, and have been ordering things for his funeral with as little cost as possible, to-morrow at ten at night.  Lord Treasurer was much concerned when I told him.  I could not dine with Lord Treasurer, nor anywhere else; but got a bit of meat toward evening.  No loss ever grieved me so much:  poor creature!  Pray God Almighty bless poor MD.  Adieu.