landlady, and have not a rag to put on to-morrow: faith,
it gives me the spleen.

23. Morning. It is a terrible rainy day, and rained prodigiously on
Saturday night. Patrick lay out last night, and is not yet returned:
faith, poor Presto is a desolate creature; neither servant, nor linen,
nor anything.--Night. Lord Forbes's man has brought back my portmantua,
and Patrick is come; so I am in Christian circumstances: I shall hardly
commit such a frolic again. I just crept out to Mrs. Van's, and dined,
and stayed there the afternoon: it has rained all this day. Windsor is
a delicious place: I never saw it before, except for an hour about
seventeen years ago. Walls has been here in my absence, I suppose, to
take his leave; for he designed not to stay above five days in London.
He says he and his wife will come here for some months next year; and,
in short, he dares not stay now for fear of her.

24. I dined to-day with a hedge(2) friend in the City; and Walls
overtook me in the street, and told me he was just getting on horseback
for Chester. He has as much curiosity as a cow: he lodged with his horse
in Aldersgate Street: he has bought his wife a silk gown, and himself a
hat. And what are you doing? what is poor MD doing now? how do you pass
your time at Wexford? how do the waters agree with you? Let Presto
know soon; for Presto longs to know, and must know. Is not Madam Proby
curious company? I am afraid this rainy weather will spoil your waters.
We have had a great deal of wet these three days. Tell me all the
particulars of Wexford: the place, the company, the diversions, the
victuals, the wants, the vexations. Poor Dingley never saw such a place
in her life; sent all over the town for a little parsley to a boiled
chicken, and it was not to be had; the butter is stark naught, except an
old English woman's; and it is such a favour to get a pound from her now
and then! I am glad you carried down your sheets with you, else you must
have lain in sackcloth. O Lord!

25. I was this forenoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped
to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The Under
Secretary was willing to save him, upon an old notion that a woman
cannot be ravished; but I told the Secretary he could not pardon him
without a favourable report from the judge; besides, he was a fiddler,
and consequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for some thing else; and
so he shall swing. What, I must stand up for t