As he had nothing to detain him in Dublin, Mrs. Johnson being to all appearance in a tolerable state of health, he set out for London early in March. But first gave notice to Mrs. Howard of his intended journey. From the following paragraph in this letter, we may judge on what free terms he lived with the princess, and may form some idea of the familiar manner of his conversing with her. "I desire you will order her royal highness to go to Richmond as soon as she can this summer, because she will have the pleasure of my neighbourhood; for I hope to be in London by the middle of March, and I do not love you much when you are there." Accordingly, on his arrival in London, he never saw the princess till she removed to Richmond; of which he gives this account in a letter to Dr. Sheridan, May 13: "I have at last seen the princess twice this week by her own command: she retains her old civility, and I, my old freedom." But Walpole and his party kept no farther measures with him, of which he makes the following mention in the same letter. "I am in high displeasure with Walpole, and his partisans. A great man, who was very kind to me last year, doth not take the least notice of me at the prince's court, and there has not been one of them to see me." Perhaps the consciousness of the base means they used to wound his character, might have occasioned this change in their behaviour. For had the charge laid against him been founded, it would have been a most unaccountable cause of quarrel to Swift on the side of Walpole's partisans, that he had offered his service to that party, though its being rejected, might be a just foundation of resentment on his side.
