LETTER XXXVIII.
I PUT my letter in this evening, after coming from dinner at Ned Southwell's, where I drank very good Irish wine, and we were in great joy at this happy turn of affairs. The queen has been at last persuaded to her own interest and security, and I freely think she must have made both herself and kingdom very unhappy, if she had done otherwise. It is still a mighty secret that Masham is to be one of the new lords; they say he does not yet know it himself; but the queen is to surprise him with it. Mr. secretary will be a lord at the end of the session; but they want him still in parliament. After all, it is a strange unhappy necessity of making so many peers together; but the queen has drawn it upon herself, by her confounded trimming and moderation. Three, as I told you, are of our society.
30. I writ the dean and you a lie yesterday; for the duke of Somerset is not yet turned out. I was to day at court, and resolved to be very civil to the whigs; but saw few there. When I was in the bedchamber talking to lord Rochester, he went up to lady Burlington, who asked him, who I was; and lady Sunderland and she whispered about me: I desired lord Rochester to tell lady Sunderland, I doubted she was not as much in love with me as I was with her; but he would not deliver my message. The duchess of Shrewsbury came running up to me, and
