LONDON, _Dec._ 29, 1711.
I PUT my letter in this evening, after coming from dinner at Ned
Southwell’s, where I drank very good Irish wine, and we are in great joy
at this happy turn of affairs. The Queen has been at last persuaded to
her own interest and security, and I freely think she must have made both
herself and kingdom very unhappy, if she had done otherwise. It is still
a mighty secret that Masham is to be one of the new lords; they say he
does not yet know it himself; but the Queen is to surprise him with it.
Mr. Secretary will be a lord at the end of the session; but they want him
still in Parliament. After all, it is a strange unhappy necessity of
making so many peers together; but the Queen has drawn it upon herself,
by her confounded trimming and moderation. Three, as I told you, are of
our Society.
30. I writ the Dean and you a lie yesterday; for the Duke of Somerset is
not yet turned out. I was to-day at Court, and resolved to be very civil
to the Whigs; but saw few there. When I was in the bed-chamber talking
to Lord Rochester, he went up to Lady Burlington, {371a} who asked him
who I was; and Lady Sunderland and she whispered about me: I desired Lord
Rochester to tell Lady Sunderland I doubted she was not as much in love
with me as I was with her; but he would not deliver my message. The
Duchess of Shrewsbury came running up to me, and clapped her fan up to
hide us from the company, and we gave one another joy of this change; but
sighed when we reflected on the Somerset family not being out. The
Secretary and I, and brother Bathurst, and Lord Windsor, dined with the
Duke of Ormond. Bathurst and Windsor {371b} are to be two of the new
lords. I desired my Lord Radnor’s brother, {372a} at Court to-day, to
let my lord know I would call on him at six, which I did, and was arguing
with him three hours to bring him over to us, and I spoke so closely that
I believe he will be tractable; but he is a scoundrel, and though I said
I only talked for my love to him, I told a lie; for I did not care if he
were hanged: but everyone gained over is of consequence. The Duke of
Marlborough was at Court to-day, and nobody hardly took notice of him.
Masham’s being a lord begins to take wind: nothing at Court can be kept a
secret. Wednesday will be a great day: you shall know more.
31. Our frost is broken since yesterday, and it is very slabbery; {372b}
yet I walked to the City and dined, and ordered some things with the
printer. I have settled Dr. King in the Gazette; it will be worth two
hundred pounds a year to him. Our new lords’ patents are passed: I don’t
like the expedient, if we could have found any other. I see I have said
this before. I hear the Duke of Marlborough is turned out of all his
employments: I shall know to-morrow when I am to carry Dr. King to dine
with the Secretary.—These are strong remedies; pray God the patient is
able to bear them. The last Ministry people are utterly desperate.
Jan. 1. Now I wish my dearest little MD many happy new years; yes, both
Dingley and Stella, ay and Presto too, many happy new years. I dined
with the Secretary, and it is true that the Duke of Marlborough is turned
out of all. The Duke of Ormond has got his regiment of foot-guards, I
know not who has the rest. If the Ministry be not sure of a peace, I
shall wonder at this step, and do not approve it at best. The Queen and
Lord Treasurer mortally hate the Duke of Marlborough, and to that he owes
his fall, more than to his other faults: unless he has been tampering too
far with his party, of which I have not heard any particulars; however it
be, the world abroad will blame us. I confess my belief that he has not
one good quality in the world beside that of a general, and even that I
have heard denied by several great soldiers. But we have had constant
success in arms while he commanded. Opinion is a mighty matter in war,
and I doubt the French think it impossible to conquer an army that he
leads, and our soldiers think the same; and how far even this step may
encourage the French to play tricks with us, no man knows. I do not love
to see personal resentment mix with public affairs.
2. This being the day the Lords meet, and the new peers to be
introduced, I went to Westminster to see the sight; but the crowd was too
great in the house. So I only went into the robing-room, to give my four
brothers joy, and Sir Thomas Mansel, {373} and Lord Windsor; the other
six I am not acquainted with. It was apprehended the Whigs would have
raised some difficulties, but nothing happened. I went to see Lady
Masham at noon, and wish her joy of her new honour, and a happy new year.
I found her very well pleased; for peerage will be some sort of
protection to her upon any turn of affairs. She engaged me to come at
night, and sup with her and Lord Treasurer: I went at nine, and she was
not at home, so I would not stay.—No, no, I won’t answer your letter yet,
young women. I dined with a friend in the neighbourhood. I see nothing
here like Christmas, except brawn or mince-pies in places where I dine,
and giving away my half-crowns like farthings to great men’s porters and
butlers. Yesterday I paid seven good guineas to the fellow at the tavern
where I treated the Society. I have a great mind to send you the bill.
I think I told you some articles. I have not heard whether anything was
done in the House of Lords after introducing the new ones. Ford has been
sitting with me till peeast tweeleve a clock.
3. This was our Society day: Lord Dupplin was President; we choose every
week; the last President treats and chooses his successor. I believe our
dinner cost fifteen pounds beside wine. The Secretary grew brisk, and
would not let me go, nor Lord Lansdowne, {374a} who would fain have gone
home to his lady, being newly married to Lady Mary Thynne. It was near
one when we parted, so you must think I cannot write much to-night. The
adjourning of the House of Lords yesterday, as the Queen desired, was
just carried by the twelve new lords, and one more. Lord Radnor was not
there: I hope I have cured him. Did I tell you that I have brought Dr.
King in to be Gazetteer? It will be worth above two hundred pounds a
year to him: I believe I told you so before, but I am forgetful. Go, get
you gone to ombre, and claret, and toasted oranges. I’ll go sleep.
4. I cannot get rid of the leavings of my cold. I was in the City
to-day, and dined with my printer, and gave him a ballad made by several
hands, I know not whom. I believe Lord Treasurer had a finger in it; I
added three stanzas; I suppose Dr. Arbuthnot had the greatest share. I
had been overseeing some other little prints, and a pamphlet made by one
of my under-strappers. Somerset is not out yet. I doubt not but you
will have the _Prophecy_ in Ireland, although it is not published here,
only printed copies given to friends. Tell me, do you understand it?
No, faith, not without help. Tell me what you stick at, and I’ll
explain. We turned out a member of our Society yesterday for gross
neglect and non-attendance. I writ to him by order to give him notice of
it. It is Tom Harley, {374b} secretary to the Treasurer, and
cousin-german to Lord Treasurer. He is going to Hanover from the Queen.
I am to give the Duke of Ormond notice of his election as soon as I can
see him.
5. I went this morning with a parishioner of mine, one Nuttal, who came
over here for a legacy of one hundred pounds, and a roguish lawyer had
refused to pay him, and would not believe he was the man. I writ to the
lawyer a sharp letter, that I had taken Nuttal into my protection, and
was resolved to stand by him, and the next news was, that the lawyer
desired I would meet him, and attest he was the man, which I did, and his
money was paid upon the spot. I then visited Lord Treasurer, who is now
right again, and all well, only that the Somerset family is not out yet.
I hate that; I don’t like it, as the man said, by, etc. Then I went and
visited poor Will Congreve, who had a French fellow tampering with one of
his eyes; he is almost blind of both. I dined with some merchants in the
City, but could not see Stratford, with whom I had business. Presto,
leave off your impertinence, and answer our letter, saith MD. Yes, yes,
one of these days, when I have nothing else to do. O, faith, this letter
is a week written, and not one side done yet. These ugly spots are not
tobacco, but this is the last gilt sheet I have of large paper, therefore
hold your tongue. Nuttal was surprised when they gave him bits of paper
instead of money, but I made Ben Tooke put him in his geers: {375} he
could not reckon ten pounds, but was puzzled with the Irish way. Ben
Tooke and my printer have desired me to make them stationers to the
Ordnance, of which Lord Rivers is Master, instead of the Duke of
Marlborough. It will be a hundred pounds a year apiece to them, if I can
get it. I will try to-morrow.
6. I went this morning to Earl Rivers, gave him joy of his new
employment, and desired him to prefer my printer and bookseller to be
stationers to his office. He immediately granted it me; but, like an old
courtier, told me it was wholly on my account, but that he heard I had
intended to engage Mr. Secretary to speak to him, and desired I would
engage him to do so, but that, however, he did it only for my sake. This
is a Court trick, to oblige as many as you can at once. I read prayers
to poor Mrs. Wesley, who is very much out of order, instead of going to
church; and then I went to Court, which I found very full, in expectation
of seeing Prince Eugene, who landed last night, and lies at Leicester
House; he was not to see the Queen till six this evening. I hope and
believe he comes too late to do the Whigs any good. I refused dining
with the Secretary, and was like to lose my dinner, which was at a
private acquaintance’s. I went at six to see the Prince at Court, but he
was gone in to the Queen; and when he came out, Mr. Secretary, who
introduced him, walked so near him that he quite screened me from him
with his great periwig. I’ll tell you a good passage: as Prince Eugene
was going with Mr. Secretary to Court, he told the Secretary that
Hoffman, the Emperor’s Resident, said to His Highness that it was not
proper to go to Court without a long wig, and his was a tied-up one:
“Now,” says the Prince, “I knew not what to do, for I never had a long
periwig in my life; and I have sent to all my valets and footmen, to see
whether any of them have one, that I might borrow it, but none of them
has any.”—Was not this spoken very greatly with some sort of contempt?
But the Secretary said it was a thing of no consequence, and only
observed by gentlemen ushers. I supped with Lord Masham, where Lord
Treasurer and Mr. Secretary supped with us: the first left us at twelve,
but the rest did not part till two, yet I have written all this, because
it is fresh: and now I’ll go sleep if I can; that is, I believe I shall,
because I have drank a little.
7. I was this morning to give the Duke of Ormond notice of the honour
done him to make him one of our Society, and to invite him on Thursday
next to the Thatched House: he has accepted it with the gratitude and
humility such a preferment deserves, but cannot come till the next
meeting, because Prince Eugene is to dine with him that day, which I
allowed for: a good excuse, and will report accordingly. I dined with
Lord Masham, and sat there till eight this evening, and came home,
because I was not very well, but a little griped; but now I am well
again, I will not go, at least but very seldom, to Lord Masham’s suppers.
Lord Treasurer is generally there, and that tempts me, but late sitting
up does not agree with me: there’s the short and the long, and I won’t do
it; so take your answer, dear little young women; and I have no more to
say to you to-night, because of the Archbishop, for I am going to write a
long letter to him, but not so politely as formerly: I won’t trust him.
8. Well, then, come, let us see this letter; if I must answer it, I
must. What’s here now? yes, faith, I lamented my birthday {377a} two
days after, and that’s all: and you rhyme, Madam Stella; were those
verses made upon my birthday? faith, when I read them, I had them running
in my head all the day, and said them over a thousand times; they drank
your health in all their glasses, and wished, etc. I could not get them
out of my head. What? no, I believe it was not; what do I say upon the
eighth of December? Compare, and see whether I say so. I am glad of
Mrs. Stoyte’s recovery, heartily glad; your Dolly Manley’s and Bishop of
Cloyne’s {377b} child I have no concern about: I am sorry in a civil way,
that’s all. Yes, yes, Sir George St. George dead. {377c}—Go, cry, Madam
Dingley; I have written to the Dean. Raymond will be rich, for he has
the building itch. I wish all he has got may put him out of debt. Poh,
I have fires like lightning; they cost me twelvepence a week, beside
small coal. I have got four new caps, madam, very fine and convenient,
with striped cambric, instead of muslin; so Patrick need not mend them,
but take the old ones. Stella snatched Dingley’s word out of her pen;
Presto a cold? Why, all the world here is dead with them: I never had
anything like it in my life; ’tis not gone in five weeks. I hope Leigh
is with you before this, and has brought your box. How do you like the
ivory rasp? Stella is angry; but I’ll have a finer thing for her. Is
not the apron as good? I’m sure I shall never be paid it; so all’s well
again.—What? the quarrel with Sir John Walter? {378a} Why, we had not
one word of quarrel; only he railed at me when I was gone: and Lord
Keeper and Treasurer teased me for a week. It was nuts to them; a
serious thing with a vengeance.—The Whigs may sell their estates then, or
hang themselves, as they are disposed; for a peace there will be. Lord
Treasurer told me that Connolly {378b} was going to Hanover. Your
Provost {378c} is a coxcomb. Stella is a good girl for not being angry
when I tell her of spelling; I see none wrong in this. God Almighty be
praised that your disorder lessens; it increases my hopes mightily that
they will go off. And have you been plagued with the fear of the plague?
never mind those reports; I have heard them five hundred times. Replevi?
Replevin, simpleton, ’tis Dingley I mean; but it is a hard word, and so
I’ll excuse it. I stated Dingley’s accounts in my last. I forgot
Catherine’s sevenpenny dinner. I hope it was the beef-steaks; I’ll call
and eat them in spring; but Goody Stoyte must give me coffee, or green
tea, for I drink no bohea. Well, ay, the pamphlet; but there are some
additions to the fourth edition; the fifth edition was of four thousand,
in a smaller print, sold for sixpence. Yes, I had the twenty-pound bill
from Parvisol: and what then? Pray now eat the Laracor apples; I beg you
not to keep them, but tell me what they are. You have had Tooke’s bill
in my last. And so there now, your whole letter is answered. I tell you
what I do; I lay your letter before me, and take it in order, and answer
what is necessary; and so and so. Well, when I expected we were all
undone, I designed to retire for six months, and then steal over to
Laracor; and I had in my mouth a thousand times two lines of Shakespeare,
where Cardinal Wolsey says,
“A weak old man, battered with storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among you.” {378d}
I beg your pardon; I have cheated you all this margin, I did not perceive
it; and I went on wider and wider like Stella; awkward sluts; _she writes
so so_, _there_: {379} that’s as like as two eggs a penny.—“A weak old
man,” now I am saying it, and shall till to-morrow.—The Duke of
Marlborough says there is nothing he now desires so much as to contrive
some way how to soften Dr. Swift. He is mistaken; for those things that
have been hardest against him were not written by me. Mr. Secretary told
me this from a friend of the Duke’s; and I’m sure now he is down, I shall
not trample on him; although I love him not, I dislike his being
out.—Bernage was to see me this morning, and gave some very indifferent
excuses for not calling here so long. I care not twopence. Prince
Eugene did not dine with the Duke of Marlborough on Sunday, but was last
night at Lady Betty Germaine’s assemblee, and a vast number of ladies to
see him. Mr. Lewis and I dined with a private friend. I was this
morning to see the Duke of Ormond, who appointed me to meet him at the
Cockpit at one, but never came. I sat too some time with the Duchess.
We don’t like things very well yet. I am come home early, and going to
be busy. I’ll go write.
9. I could not go sleep last night till past two, and was waked before
three by a noise of people endeavouring to break open my window. For a
while I would not stir, thinking it might be my imagination; but hearing
the noise continued, I rose and went to the window, and then it ceased.
I went to bed again, and heard it repeated more violently; then I rose
and called up the house, and got a candle: the rogues had lifted up the
sash a yard; there are great sheds before my windows, although my
lodgings be a storey high; and if they get upon the sheds they are almost
even with my window. We observed their track, and panes of glass fresh
broken. The watchmen told us to-day they saw them, but could not catch
them. They attacked others in the neighbourhood about the same time, and
actually robbed a house in Suffolk Street, which is the next street but
one to us. It is said they are seamen discharged from service. I went
up to call my man, and found his bed empty; it seems he often lies
abroad. I challenged him this morning as one of the robbers. He is a
sad dog; and the minute I come to Ireland I will discard him. I have
this day got double iron bars to every window in my dining-room and
bed-chamber; and I hide my purse in my thread stocking between the bed’s
head and the wainscot. Lewis and I dined with an old Scotch friend, who
brought the Duke of Douglas {380a} and three or four more Scots upon us.
10. This was our Society day, you know; but the Duke of Ormond could not
be with us, because he dined with Prince Eugene. It cost me a guinea
contribution to a poet, who had made a copy of verses upon monkeys,
applying the story to the Duke of Marlborough; the rest gave two guineas,
except the two physicians, {380b} who followed my example. I don’t like
this custom: the next time I will give nothing. I sat this evening at
Lord Masham’s with Lord Treasurer: I don’t like his countenance; nor I
don’t like the posture of things well.
We cannot be stout,
Till Somerset’s out:
as the old saying is.
11. Mr. Lewis and I dined with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who eats
the most elegantly of any man I know in town. I walked lustily in the
Park by moonshine till eight, to shake off my dinner and wine; and then
went to sup at Mr. Domville’s with Ford, and stayed till twelve. It is
told me to-day as a great secret that the Duke of Somerset will be out
soon, that the thing is fixed; but what shall we do with the Duchess?
They say the Duke will make her leave the Queen out of spite, if he be
out. It has stuck upon that fear a good while already. Well, but Lewis
gave me a letter from MD, N. 25. O Lord, I did not expect one this
fortnight, faith. You are mighty good, that’s certain: but I won’t
answer it, because this goes to-morrow, only what you say of the printer
being taken up; I value it not; all’s safe there; nor do I fear anything,
unless the Ministry be changed: I hope that danger is over. However, I
shall be in Ireland before such a change; which could not be, I think,
till the end of the session, if the Whigs’ designs had gone on.—Have not
you an apron by Leigh, Madam Stella? have you all I mentioned in a former
letter?
12. Morning. This goes to-day as usual. I think of going into the
City; but of that at night. ’Tis fine moderate weather these two or
three days last. Farewell, etc. etc.