e with him to-day; and there I found three persons I
never saw, two I had no acquaintance with, and one I did not care for:
so I left them early and came home, it being no day to walk, but scurvy
rain and wind. The Secretary tells me he has put a cheat on me; for Lord
Peterborow sent him twelve dozen flasks of burgundy, on condition that I
should have my share; but he never was quiet till they were all gone,
so I reckon he owes me thirty-six pounds. Lord Peterborow is now got
to Vienna, and I must write to him to-morrow. I begin now to be towards
looking for a letter from some certain ladies of Presto's acquaintance,
that live at St. Mary's,(18) and are called in a certain language, our
little MD. No, stay, I don't expect one these six days, that will be
just three weeks; an't I a reasonable creature? We are plagued here with
an October Club, that is, a set of above a hundred Parliament men of
the country, who drink October beer at home, and meet every evening at
a tavern near the Parliament to consult affairs, and drive things on to
extremes against the Whigs, to call the old Ministry to account, and get
off five or six heads.(19) The Ministry seem not to regard them; yet one
of them in confidence told me that there must be something thought
on, to settle things better. I'll tell you one great State secret: the
Queen, sensible how much she was governed by the late Ministry, runs a
little into t'other extreme, and is jealous in that point, even of
those who got her out of the others' hands. The Ministry is for gentler
measures, and the other Tories for more violent. Lord Rivers, talking
to me the other day, cursed the paper called the Examiner, for speaking
civilly of the Duke of Marlborough; this I happened to talk of to the
Secretary, who blamed the warmth of that lord and some others, and swore
that if their advice were followed they would be blown up in twenty-four
hours. And I have reason to think that they will endeavour to prevail
on the Queen to put her affairs more in the hands of a Ministry than she
does at present; and there are, I believe, two men thought on, one
of them you have often met the name of in my letters. But so much for
politics.

19. This proved a terrible rainy day, which prevented my walk into the
City, and I was only able to run and dine with my neighbour Vanhomrigh,
where Sir Andrew Fountaine dined too, who has just began to sally out,
and has shipped his mother and sister, who were his nurse