11.  Morning by candlelight.  You must know that I am in my nightgown every morning between six and seven, and Patrick is forced to ply me fifty times before I can get on my nightgown; and so now I will take my leave of my own dear MD for this letter, and begin my next when I come home at night.  God Almighty bless and protect dearest MD.  Farewell, etc.

This letter’s as long as a sermon, faith.

LETTER 9.

London, Nov. 11, 1710.

I dined to-day, by invitation, with the Secretary of State, Mr. St. John.  Mr. Harley came in to us before dinner, and made me his excuses for not dining with us, because he was to receive people who came to propose advancing money to the Government:  there dined with us only Mr. Lewis, and Dr. Freind[1] (that writ “Lord Peterborow’s Actions in Spain").  I stayed with them till just now between ten and eleven, and was forced again to give my eighth to the bellman, which I did with my own hands, rather than keep it till next post.  The Secretary used me with all the kindness in the world.  Prior came in after dinner; and, upon an occasion, he (the Secretary) said, “The best thing I ever read is not yours, but Dr. Swift’s on Vanbrugh”; which I do not reckon so very good neither.[2] But Prior was damped, until I stuffed him with two or three compliments.  I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple, because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and here is a young fellow, hardly thirty, in that employment.[3] His father is a man of pleasure,[4] that walks the Mall, and frequents St. James’s Coffee-house, and the chocolate-houses; and the young son is principal Secretary of State.  Is there not something very odd in that?  He told me, among other things, that Mr. Harley complained he could keep nothing from me, I had the way so much of getting into him.  I knew that was a refinement; and so I told him, and it was so:  indeed, it is hard to see these great men use me like one who was their betters, and the puppies with you in Ireland hardly regarding me:  but there are some reasons for all this, which I will tell you when we meet.  At coming home, I saw a letter from your mother, in answer to one I sent her two days ago.  It seems she is in town; but cannot come out in a morning, just as you said; and God knows when I shall be at leisure in an afternoon:  for if I should send her a penny-post letter, and afterwards not be able to meet her, it would vex me; and, besides, the days are short, and why she cannot come early in a morning, before she is wanted, I cannot imagine.  I will desire her to let Lady Giffard know that she hears I am in town; and that she would go to see me, to inquire after you.  I wonder she will confine herself so much to that old beast’s humour.  You know I cannot in honour see Lady Giffard, and consequently not go into her house.  This I think is enough for the first time.