Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/370

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362
DR. SWIFT’S

play of What is it like? and you will think it to be mine, and be bit; for I have no hand in these papers at all. I dined with lord treasurer, and shall again to morrow, which is his day when all the ministers dine with him. He calls it whipping day. It is always on Saturday, and we do indeed usually rally him about his faults on that day. I was of the original club, when only poor lord Rivers, lord keeper, and lord Bolingbroke came; but now Ormond, Anglesey, lord steward, Dartmouth, and other rabble intrude, and I scold at it; but now they pretend as good a title as I; and indeed many Saturdays I am not there. The company being too many, I don't love it. Night, MD.

10. At seven this evening, as we sat after dinner at lord treasurer's, a servant said, lord Peterborow was at the door. Lord treasurer and lord Bolingbroke went out to meet him, and brought him in. He was just returned from abroad, where he has been above a year. As soon as he saw me, he left the duke of Ormond and other lords, and ran and kissed me before he spoke to them[1]; but chid me terribly for not writing to him, which I never did this last time he was abroad, not knowing where he was; and he changed places so often, it was impossible a letter should overtake him. He left England with a bruise, by his coach overturning, that made him spit blood, and was so ill, we expected every post to hear of his death; but he outrode it, or outdrank it, or something, and is come home lustier than ever. He is at least sixty, and has more spirits than any young fellow I know of England. He has

  1. The dean had addressed some verses to him in the year 1706. See vol. vii, page 35.

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