Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/382

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
374
DR. SWIFT’S

swer your letter, young women: not yet; it is late now, and I can't find it. Night, dearest MD.

30. I have drank Spa waters these two or three days; but they do not pass, and make me very giddy. I am not well; faith, I will take them no more. I sauntered after church with the provost to day, to see a library to be sold, and dined at five with lord Orkney. We still think there was malice in burning d'Aumont's house. I hear little Harrison is come over; it was he I sent to Utrecht. He is now queen's secretary to the embassy, and has brought with him the Barrier Treaty, as it is now corrected by us, and yielded to by the Dutch, which was the greatest difficulty to retard the peace. I hope he will bring over the peace a month hence, for we will send him back as soon as possible. I long to see the little brat, my own creature. His pay is in all a thousand pounds a year, and they have never paid him a groat, though I have teased their hearts out. He must be three or four hundred pounds in debt at least. Poor brat! Let me go to bed, sirrahs. Night, dear MD.

31. Harrison was with me this morning; we talked three hours, and then I carried him to court. When we went down to the door of my lodging, I found a coach waited for him. I chid him for it; but he whispered me, it was impossible to do otherwise; and in the coach he told me, he had not one farthing in his pocket to pay it; and therefore took the coach for the whole day, and intended to borrow money somewhere or other. So there was the queen's minister intrusted in affairs of the greatest importance, without a shilling in his pocket to pay a coach. I paid him while he was with me seven guineas, in part

of