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.

13. O Lord, here is but a trifle of my letter written yet; what shall
Presto do for prattle-prattle, to entertain MD? The talk now grows
fresher of the Duke of Ormond for Ireland; though Mr. Addison says he
hears it wil