Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/278

270 great deal; and lord treasurer is not without his share. But pray let us know a little of your life and conversation. Do you play at ombre, or visit the dean, and goody Walls and Stoytes, and Manleys as usual? I must have a letter from you, to fill the other side of this sheet. Let me know what you do? Is my aunt alive yet? O, pray, now I think of it, be so kind to step to my aunt, and take notice of my great grandfather's picture; you know he has a ring on his finger, with a seal of an anchor and dolphin about it; but I think there is besides, at the bottom of the picture, the same coat of arms quartered with another, which I suppose was my great grandmother's. If this be so, it is a stronger argument than the seal. And pray see whether you think that coat of arms was drawn at the same time with the picture, or whether it be of a later hand; and ask my aunt what she knows about it. But perhaps there is no such coat of arms on the picture, and I only dreamed it. My reason is, because I would ask some herald here, whether I should choose that coat, or one in Guillim's large folio of heraldry, where my uncle Godwin is named with another coat of arms of three stags. This is sad stuff to write; so night, MD.

25. I was this morning again with the secretary, and we were two hours busy; and then went together to the park, Hyde park, I mean, and he walked to cure his cold, and we were looking at two Arabian horses sent some time ago to lord treasurer. The duke of Marlborough's coach overtook us, with his grace and lord Godolphin in it; but they did not see us to our great satisfaction; for neither of us desired that