greatest punner of this town next myself. Have you smoked the Tatler that I
writ?[4] It is much liked here, and I think it a pure[5] one. To-morrow I go
with Delaval,[6] the Portugal Envoy, to dine with Lord Halifax near Hampton
Court.[7] Your Manley's brother, a Parliament-man here, has gotten an
employment;[8] and I am informed uses much interest to preserve his brother:
and, to-day, I spoke to the elder Frankland to engage his father (Postmaster
here); and I hope he will be safe, although he is cruelly hated by all the
Tories of Ireland. I have almost finished my lampoon, and will print it for
revenge on a certain great person.[9] It has cost me but three shillings in
meat and drink since I came here, as thin as the town is. I laugh to see
myself so disengaged in these revolutions. Well, I must leave off, and go
write to Sir John Stanley,[10] to desire him to engage Lady Hyde as my
mistress to engage Lord Hyde[11] in favour of Mr. Pratt.[12]

2. Lord Halifax was at Hampton Court at his lodgings, and I dined with him
there with Methuen,[13] and Delaval, and the late Attorney-General.[14] I went
to the Drawing-room before dinner (for the Queen was at Hampton Court), and
expected to see nobody; but I met acquaintance enough. I walked in the
gardens, saw the cartoons of Raphael, and other things; and with great
difficulty got from Lord Halifax, who would have kept me to-morrow to show me
his house and park, and improvements. We left Hampton Court at sunset, and
got here in a chariot and two horses time enough by starlight. That's
something charms me mightily about London; that you go dine a dozen miles off
in October, stay all day, and return so quickly: you cannot do anything like
this in Dublin.[15] I writ a second penny post letter to your mother, and hear
nothing of her. Did I tell you that Earl Berkeley died last Sunday was
se'nnight, at Berkeley Castle, of a dropsy? Lord Halifax began a health to me
to-day; it was the Resurrection of the Whigs, which I refused unless he would
add their Reformation too and I told him he was the only Whig in England I
loved, or had any good opinion of.