they were with him!  I knew the mother; she is the greatest Overdo[3] upon earth; and the sister, they say, is worse; the poor man will relapse again among them.  Here was the scoundrel brother always crying in the outer room till Sir Andrew was in danger; and the dog was to have all his estate if he died; and it is an ignorant, worthless, scoundrel-rake:  and the nurses were comforting him, and desiring he would not take on so.  I dined to-day the first time with Ophy Butler[4] and his wife; and you supped with the Dean, and lost two-and-twenty pence at cards.  And so Mrs. Walls is brought to bed of a girl, who died two days after it was christened; and, betwixt you and me, she is not very sorry:  she loves her ease and diversions too well to be troubled with children.  I will go to bed.

6.  Morning.  I went last night to put some coals on my fire after Patrick was gone to bed; and there I saw in a closet a poor linnet he has bought to bring over to Dingley:  it cost him sixpence, and is as tame as a dormouse.  I believe he does not know he is a bird:  where you put him, there he stands, and seems to have neither hope nor fear; I suppose in a week he will die of the spleen.  Patrick advised with me before he bought him.  I laid fairly before him the greatness of the sum, and the rashness of the attempt; showed how impossible it was to carry him safe over the salt sea:  but he would not take my counsel; and he will repent it.  ’Tis very cold this morning in bed; and I hear there is a good fire in the room without (what do you call it?), the dining-room.  I hope it will be good weather, and so let me rise, sirrahs, do so.—­At night.  I was this morning to visit the Dean,[5] or Mr. Prolocutor, I think you call him, don’t you?  Why should not I go to the Dean’s as well as you?  A little, black man, of pretty near fifty?  Ay, the same.  A good, pleasant man?  Ay, the same.  Cunning enough?  Yes.  One that understands his own interests?  As well as anybody.  How comes it MD and I don’t meet there sometimes?  A very good face, and abundance of wit?  Do you know his lady?  O Lord! whom do you mean?[6] I mean Dr. Atterbury, Dean of Carlisle and Prolocutor.  Pshaw, Presto, you are a fool:  I thought you had meant our Dean of St. Patrick’s.—­Silly, silly, silly, you are silly, both are silly, every kind of thing is silly.  As I walked into the city I was stopped with clusters of boys and wenches buzzing about the cake-shops like flies.[7] There had the fools let out their shops two yards forward into the streets, all spread with great cakes frothed with sugar, and stuck with streamers of tinsel.  And then I went to Bateman’s the bookseller, and laid out eight-and-forty shillings for books.  I bought three little volumes of Lucian in French for our Stella, and so and so.  Then I went to Garraway’s[8] to meet Stratford and dine with him; but it was an idle day with the merchants, and he was gone to our end of the town:  so I dined with Sir Thomas Frankland at the Post Office, and we drank your Manley’s health.  It was in a newspaper that he was turned out; but Secretary St. John told me it was false:  only that newswriter is a plaguy Tory.  I have not seen one bit of Christmas merriment.