ing, my man and the people of the house telling me of a great fire in the Haymarket. I slept again[1], and two hours after my man came in again, and told me it was my poor brother sir William Wyndham's house burnt; and that two maids leaping out of an upper room to avoid the fire, both fell on their heads, one of them upon the iron spikes before the door, and both lay dead in the streets. It is supposed to have been some carelessness of one or both those maids. The duke of Ormond was there helping to put out the fire. Brother Wyndham gave 6000l. but a few months ago for that house, as he told me, and it was very richly furnished. I shall know more particulars at night. He married lady Catherine Seymour, the duke of Somerset's daughter; you know her, I believe. At night. Wyndham's young child escaped very narrowly; lady Catherine escaped barefoot; they all went to Northumberland house. Mr. Bridges's house next door is damaged much, and was like to be burnt. Wyndham has lost above 10000l. by this accident. His lady above a thousand pounds worth of clothes. It was a terrible accident. He was not at court to day. I dined with lord Masham. The queen was not at church. Nighty MD.
3. Pray tell Walls, that I spoke to the duke of Ormond and Mr. Southwell about his friend's affair, who, I find, needed not me for a solicitor: for they both told me the thing would be done. I likewise mentioned his own affair to Mr. Southwell, and I
- ↑ It is not much to Swift's credit that he went quietly to sleep, after he had been told there was a great fire in a street where he knew that an intimate friend had a house and family; yet he had a quick and strong sense of the calamities of others. See this Journal, Nov. 15, and Dec. 18, 1712.
