them in Ireland. I fancy you will smoke me in the Tatler I am going to write;
for I believe I have told you the hint. I had a letter sent me tonight from
Sir Matthew Dudley, and found it on my table when I came in. Because it is
extraordinary, I will transcribe it from beginning to end. It is as follows:
"Is the Devil in you? Oct. 13, 1710." I would have answered every particular
passage in it, only I wanted time. Here is enough for to-night, such as it
is, etc.

14. Is that tobacco at the top of the paper,[18] or what? I do not remember
I slobbered. Lord, I dreamt of Stella, etc., so confusedly last night, and
that we saw Dean Bolton[19] and Sterne[20] go into a shop: and she bid me
call them to her, and they proved to be two parsons I know not; and I walked
without till she was shifting, and such stuff, mixed with much melancholy and
uneasiness, and things not as they should be, and I know not how: and it is
now an ugly gloomy morning.--At night. Mr. Addison and I dined with Ned
Southwell, and walked in the Park; and at the Coffee-house I found a letter
from the Bishop of Clogher, and a packet from MD. I opened the Bishop's
letter; but put up MD's, and visited a lady just come to town; and am now got
into bed, and going to open your little letter: and God send I may find MD
well, and happy, and merry, and that they love Presto as they do fires. Oh, I
will not open it yet! yes I will! no I will not! I am going; I cannot stay
till I turn over.[21] What shall I do? My fingers itch; and now I have it in
my left hand; and now I will open it this very moment.--I have just got it,
and am cracking the seal, and cannot imagine what is in it; I fear only some
letter from a bishop, and it comes too late; I shall employ nobody's credit
but my own. Well, I see though-- Pshaw, 'tis from Sir Andrew Fountaine.
What, another! I fancy that's from Mrs. Barton;[22] she told me she would
write to me; but she writes a better hand than this: I wish you would
inquire; it must be at Dawson's[23] office at the Castle. I fear this is from
Patty Rolt, by the scrawl. Well, I will read MD's letter. Ah, no; it is from