sure of the four members for London above all places, and they have lost three in the four. Sir Richard Onslow, we hear, has lost for Surry: and they are overthrown in most places. Lookee, gentlewomen, if I write long letters, I must write you news and stuff, unless I send you my verses; and some I dare not; and those on the Shower in London I have sent to the Tatler, and you may see them in Ireland. I fancy you will smoke me in the Tatler[1] I am going to write; for I believe I have told you the hint. I had a letter sent me to night from sir Matthew Dudley, and found it on my table when I came in. Because it is extraordinary I will transcribe it from beginning to end. It is as follows ["Is the devil in you? Oct. 13, 1710."] I would have answered every particular passage in it, only I wanted time. Here is enough for to night, such as it is, &c.
14. Is that tobacco at the top of the paper[2], or what? I do not remember I slobbered. Lord, I dreamed of Stella, &c. so confusedly last night, and that we saw dean Bolton and Sterne go into a shop; and she bid me call them to her, and they proved to be two parsons I knew not; and I walked without till she was shifting, and such stuff, mixed with much melancholy and uneasiness, and things not as they should be, and I know not how; and it is now an ugly gloomy morning. At night, Mr. Addison and I dined with Ned Southwell, and walked in the Park; and at the coffeehouse I found a letter from
- ↑ Perhaps No. 258; which will be found in vol. XVIII.
- ↑ The upper part of the letter was a little besmeared with some such stuff; the mark is still on it.
