14. I went to town to-day by water. The hail quite discouraged me from walking, and there is no shade in the greatest part of the way. I took the first boat, and had a footman my companion; then I went again by water, and dined in the City with a printer, to whom I carried a pamphlet in manuscript, that Mr. Secretary gave me. The printer sent it to the Secretary for his approbation, and he desired me to look it over, which I did, and found it a very scurvy piece. The reason I tell you so, is because it was done by your parson Slap, Scrap, Flap (what d’ye call him), Trapp, { 215d} your Chancellor’s chaplain. ’Tis called _A Character of the Present Set of Whigs_, and is going to be printed, and no doubt the author will take care to produce it in Ireland. Dr. Freind was with me, and pulled out a twopenny pamphlet just published, called _The State of Wit_, { 216a} giving a character of all the papers that have come out of late. The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of a paper called the _Examiner_, and says the supposed author of it is Dr. Swift. But above all things he praises the _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_; and I believe Steele and Addison were privy to the printing of it. Thus is one treated by these impudent dogs. And that villain Curll { 216b} has scraped up some trash, and calls it Dr. Swift’s _Miscellanies_, with the name at large: and I can get no satisfaction of him. Nay, Mr. Harley told me he had read it, and only laughed at me before Lord Keeper and the rest. Since I came home, I have been sitting with the Prolocutor, Dean Atterbury, who is my neighbour over the way, but generally keeps in town with his Convocation. ’Tis late, etc.
15. My walk to town to-day was after ten, and prodigiously hot. I dined with Lord Shelburne, and have desired Mrs. Pratt, who lodges there, to carry over Mrs. Walls’s tea; I hope she will do it, and they talk of going in a fortnight. My way is this: I leave my best gown and periwig at Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s, then walk up the Pall Mall, through the Park, out at Buckingham House, and so to Chelsea a little beyond the church: I set out about sunset, and get here in something less than an hour; it is two good miles, and just five thousand seven hundred and forty-eight steps; so there is four miles a day walking, without reckoning what I walk while I stay in town. When I pass the Mall in the evening, it is prodigious to see the number of ladies walking there; and I always cry shame at the ladies of Ireland, who never walk at all, as if their legs were of no use, but to be laid aside. I have been now almost three weeks here, and I thank God, am much better in my head, if it does but continue. I tell you what, if I was with you, when we went to Stoyte at Donnybrook, we would only take a coach to the hither end of Stephen’s Green, and from thence go every step on foot, yes, faith, every step; it would do DD { 217a} good as well as Presto. { 217b} Everybody tells me I look better already; for, faith, I looked sadly, that is certain. My breakfast is milk porridge: I do not love it; faith, I hate it, but it is cheap and wholesome; and I hate to be obliged to either of those qualities for anything. { 217c}