Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/363

Rh Grace will please to take Mr. Bernage into his protection; and if he finds Bernage answers my character, to give him all encouragement. Colonel Masham and colonel Hill (Mrs. Masham's brother) tell me my request is reasonable, and they will second it heartily to the duke too: so I reckon Bernage is on a very good foot when he goes to Spain. Pray tell him this, though perhaps I will write to him before he goes; yet where shall I direct? for I suppose he has left Conolly's.

13. I have left off lady Kerry's bitter, and got another box of pills. I have no fits of giddiness, but only some little disorders toward it: and I walk as much as I can. Lady Kerry is just as I am, only a great deal worse: I dined to day at lord Shelburn's, where she is, and we con ailments, which makes us very fond of each other. I have taken Mr Harley into favour again, and called to see him, but he was not within; I will use to visit him after dinner, for he dines too late for my head: then I went to visit poor Congreve, who is just getting out of a severe fit of the gout, and I sat with him till near nine o'clock. He gave me a Tatler he had written out, as blind as he is, for little Harrison. It is about a scoundrel that was grown rich, and went and bought a coat of arms at the Herald's, and a set of ancestors at Fleet ditch; it is well enough, and shall be printed in two or three days, and if you read those kind of things, this will divert you. It is now between ten and eleven, and I am going to bed.

14. This was Mrs. Vanhomrigh's daughter's birthday, and Mr. Ford and I were invited to dinner to keep it, and we spent the evening there drinking Rh