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.
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.