I have his name) pays you in your money, let me know, and I will direct Parvisol accordingly:  however, he shall wait on you and know.  So, ladies, enough of business for one night.  Paaaaast twelvvve o’clock.  I must only add, that, after a long fit of rainy weather, it has been fair two or three days, and is this day grown cold and frosty; so that you must give poor little Presto leave to have a fire in his chamber morning and evening too; and he will do as much for you.

14.  What, has your Chancellor[10] lost his senses, like Will Crowe?[11] I forgot to tell Dingley that I was yesterday at Ludgate, bespeaking the spectacles at the great shop there, and shall have them in a day or two.  This has been an insipid day.  I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and came gravely home, after just visiting the Coffee-house.  Sir Richard Cox,[12] they say, is sure of going over Lord Chancellor, who is as arrant a puppy as ever ate bread:  but the Duke of Ormond has a natural affection to puppies; which is a thousand pities, being none himself.  I have been amusing myself at home till now, and in bed bid you good-night.

15.  I have been visiting this morning, but nobody was at home, Secretary St. John, Sir Thomas Hanmer,[13] Sir Chancellor Cox-comb, etc.  I attended the Duke of Ormond with about fifty other Irish gentlemen at Skinners’ Hall, where the Londonderry Society laid out three hundred pounds to treat us and his Grace with a dinner.  Three great tables with the dessert laid in mighty figure.  Sir Richard Levinge and I got discreetly to the head of the second table, to avoid the crowd at the first:  but it was so cold, and so confounded a noise with the trumpets and hautboys, that I grew weary, and stole away before the second course came on; so I can give you no account of it, which is a thousand pities.  I called at Ludgate for Dingley’s glasses, and shall have them in a day or two; and I doubt it will cost me thirty shillings for a microscope, but not without Stella’s permission; for I remember she is a virtuoso.  Shall I buy it or no?  ’Tis not the great bulky ones, nor the common little ones, to impale a louse (saving your presence) upon a needle’s point; but of a more exact sort, and clearer to the sight, with all its equipage in a little trunk that you may carry in your pocket.  Tell me, sirrah, shall I buy it or not for you?  I came home straight, etc.

16.  I dined to-day in the city with Mr. Manley,[14] who invited Mr. Addison and me, and some other friends, to his lodging, and entertained us very handsomely.  I returned with Mr. Addison, and loitered till nine in the Coffee-house, where I am hardly known, by going so seldom.  I am here soliciting for Trounce; you know him:  he was gunner in the former yacht, and would fain be so in the present one if you remember him, a good, lusty, fresh-coloured fellow.  Shall I stay till I get another letter from MD before I close up this?  Mr. Addison and I meet a little seldomer than formerly, although we are still at bottom as good friends as ever, but differ a little about party.