Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/224

216 their reformation too: and I told him he was the only whig in England I loved, or had any good opinion of.

3. This morning Stella's sister came to me with a letter from her mother, who is at Sheen; but will soon be in town, and will call to see me: she gave me a bottle of palsy water, a small one, and desired I would send it you by the first convenience, as I will; and she promises a quart bottle of the same: your sister looked very well, and seems a good modest sort of girl. I went then to Mr. Lewis, first secretary to lord Dartmouth, and favourite to Mr. Harley, who is to introduce me to morrow morning. Lewis had with him one Mr. Dyet, a justice of peace, worth twenty thousand pounds, a commissioner of the stampoffice, and married to a sister of sir Philip Meadows, envoy to the emperor. I tell you this, because it is odds but this Mr. Dyet will be hanged ; for he is discovered to have counterfeited stamp paper, in which he was a commissioner: and, with his accomplices, has cheated the queen of a hundred thousand pounds. You will hear of it before this come to you, but may be not so particularly; and it is a very odd accident in such a man. Smoke Presto writing news to MD. I dined to day with lord Mountjoy at Kensington, and walked from thence this evening to town like an emperor. Remember that yesterday, October 2, was a cruel hard frost, with ice; and six days ago I was dying with heat. As thin as the town is, I have more dinners than ever, and am asked this month by some people, without being able to come for preengagements. Well, but I should