12.  I dined to-day with Dr. Garth and Mr. Addison, at the Devil Tavern[6] by Temple Bar, and Garth treated; and ’tis well I dine every day, else I should be longer making out my letters:  for we are yet in a very dull state, only inquiring every day after new elections, where the Tories carry it among the new members six to one.  Mr. Addison’s election[7] has passed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be refused.  An odd accident has happened at Colchester:  one Captain Lavallin,[8] coming from Flanders or Spain, found his wife with child by a clerk of Doctors’ Commons, whose trade, you know, it is to prevent fornications:  and this clerk was the very same fellow that made the discovery of Dyot’s[9] counterfeiting the stamp-paper.  Lavallin has been this fortnight hunting after the clerk, to kill him; but the fellow was constantly employed at the Treasury, about the discovery he made:  the wife had made a shift to patch up the business, alleging that the clerk had told her her husband was dead and other excuses; but t’other day somebody told Lavallin his wife had intrigues before he married her:  upon which he goes down in a rage, shoots his wife through the head, then falls on his sword; and, to make the matter sure, at the same time discharges a pistol through his own head, and died on the spot, his wife surviving him about two hours, but in what circumstances of mind and body is terrible to imagine.  I have finished my poem on the “Shower,” all but the beginning; and am going on with my Tatler.  They have fixed about fifty things on me since I came:  I have printed but three.[10] One advantage I get by writing to you daily, or rather you get, is, that I shall remember not to write the same things twice; and yet, I fear, I have done it often already:  but I will mind and confine myself to the accidents of the day; and so get you gone to ombre, and be good girls, and save your money, and be rich against Presto comes, and write to me now and then:  I am thinking it would be a pretty thing to hear sometimes from saucy MD; but do not hurt your eyes, Stella, I charge you.

13.  O Lord, here is but a trifle of my letter written yet; what shall Presto do for prattle-prattle, to entertain MD?  The talk now grows fresher of the Duke of Ormond for Ireland; though Mr. Addison says he hears it will be in commission, and Lord Galway[11] one.  These letters of mine are a sort of journal, where matters open by degrees; and, as I tell true or false, you will find by the event whether my intelligence be good; but I do not care twopence whether it be or no.—­At night.  To-day I was all about St. Paul’s, and up at the top like a fool, with Sir Andrew Fountaine and two more; and spent seven shillings for my dinner like a puppy:  this is the second time he has served me so; but I will never do it again, though all mankind should persuade me, unconsidering puppies!  There is a young fellow