Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 15.djvu/71

Rh be frighted I have been swimming this half hour and more; and when I was coming out I dived, to make my head and all through wet, like a cold bath; but as I dived, the napkin fell off and is lost, and I have that to pay for. O faith, the great stones were so sharp, I could hardly set my feet on them as I came out. It was pure and warm. I got to bed, and will now go sleep.

6. Morning. This letter shall go to morrow; so I will answer yours when I come home to night. I feel no hurt from last night's swimming. I lie with nothing but the sheet over me, and my feet quite bare. I must rise and go to town before the tide is against me. Morrow, sirrahs; dear sirrahs. morrow. At night. I never felt so hot a day as this since I was born. I dined with lady Betty Germain, and there was the young earl of Berkeley and his fine lady. I never saw her before, nor think her near so handsome as she passes for. After dinner Mr. Bertue would not let me put ice in my wine; but said my lord Dorchester got the bloody flux with it, and that it was the worst thing in the world. Thus are we plagued, thus are we plagued; yet I have done it five or six times this summer, and was but the drier and the hotter for it. Nothing makes me so excessively peevish as hot weather. Lady Berkeley after dinner clapped my hat on another lady's head, and she in roguery put it upon the rails. I minded them not; but in two minuses they called me to the window, and lady Carteret showed me my hat out of her window five doors off, where I was forced to walk to it, and pay her and old lady Weymouth a visit, with some more bell-dames. Then I went and drank coffee, and made one or two puns with lord Pembroke, and signed