10.  Poor MD’s letter was lying so huddled up among papers, I could not find it:  I mean poor Presto’s letter.  Well, I dined with Mr. Harley to-day, and hope some things will be done; but I must say no more:  and this letter must be sent to the post-house, and not by the bellman.[52] I am to dine again there on Sunday next; I hope to some good issue.  And so now, soon as ever I can in bed, I must begin my 6th to MD as gravely as if I had not written a word this month:  fine doings, faith!  Methinks I don’t write as I should, because I am not in bed:  see the ugly wide lines.  God Almighty ever bless you, etc.

Faith, this is a whole treatise; I’ll go reckon the lines on the other sides.  I’ve reckoned them.[53]

LETTER 6.

London, Oct. 10, 1710.

So, as I told you just now in the letter I sent half an hour ago, I dined with Mr. Harley to-day, who presented me to the Attorney-General, Sir Simon Harcourt, with much compliment on all sides, etc.  Harley told me he had shown my memorial to the Queen, and seconded it very heartily; and he desires me to dine with him again on Sunday, when he promises to settle it with Her Majesty, before she names a Governor:[1] and I protest I am in hopes it will be done, all but the forms, by that time; for he loves the Church.  This is a popular thing, and he would not have a Governor share in it; and, besides, I am told by all hands, he has a mind to gain me over.  But in the letter I writ last post (yesterday) to the Archbishop, I did not tell him a syllable of what Mr. Harley said to me last night, because he charged me to keep it secret; so I would not tell it to you, but that, before this goes, I hope the secret will be over.  I am now writing my poetical “Description of a Shower in London,” and will send it to the Tatler.[2] This is the last sheet of a whole quire I have written since I came to town.  Pray, now it comes into my head, will you, when you go to Mrs. Walls, contrive to know whether Mrs. Wesley[3] be in town, and still at her brother’s, and how she is in health, and whether she stays in town.  I writ to her from Chester, to know what I should do with her note; and I believe the poor woman is afraid to write to me:  so I must go to my business, etc.

11.  To-day at last I dined with Lord Mountrath,[4] and carried Lord Mountjoy, and Sir Andrew Fountaine with me; and was looking over them at ombre till eleven this evening like a fool:  they played running ombre half-crowns; and Sir Andrew Fountaine won eight guineas of Mr. Coote;[5] so I am come home late, and will say but little to MD this night.  I have gotten half a bushel of coals, and Patrick, the extravagant whelp, had a fire ready for me; but I picked off the coals before I went to bed.  It is a sign London is now an empty place, when it will not furnish me with matter for above five or six lines in a day.  Did you smoke in my last how I told you the very day and the place you were playing at ombre?  But I interlined and altered a little, after I had received a letter from Mr. Manley, that said you were at it in his house, while he was writing to me; but without his help I guessed within one day.  Your town is certainly much more sociable than ours.  I have not seen your mother yet, etc.