Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/234

226 but I picked off the coals before I went to bed. It is a sign London is now an empty place, when it will not furnish me with matter for above five or six lines in a day. Did you smoke in my last how I told you the very day and the place you were playing ombre? But I interlined and altered a little, after I had received a letter from Mr. Manley, that said you were at it in his house, while he was writing to me; but without his help I guessed within one day. Your town is certainly much more sociable than ours. I have not seen your mother yet, &c.

12. I dined to day with Dr. Garth and Mr. Addison, at the Devil tavern by Temple Bar, and Garth treated; and it is well I dine ever day, else I should be longer making out my letters: for we are yet in a very dull state, only inquiring every day after new elections, where the tories carry it among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed; and I believe, if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be refused. An odd accident has happened at Colchester: one captain Lavallin coming from Flanders or Spain, found his wife with child by a clerk of Doctor's Commons, whose trade, you know, it is to prevent fornication: and this clerk was the very same fellow that made the discovery of Dyet's counterfeiting the stamp paper. Lavallin has been this fortnight hunting after the clerk to kill him; but the fellow was constantly employed at the Treasury about the discovery he made: the wife had made a shift to patch up the business, alleging that the clerk had told her her husband was dead, and other excuses; but the other day somebody told Lavallin his wife had intrigues before he married her: