accordingly: however, he shall wait on you and know. So, ladies, enough of
business for one night. Paaaaast twelvvve o'clock. I must only add, that,
after a long fit of rainy weather, it has been fair two or three days, and is
this day grown cold and frosty; so that you must give poor little Presto leave
to have a fire in his chamber morning and evening too; and he will do as much
for you.

14. What, has your Chancellor[10] lost his senses, like Will Crowe?[11] I
forgot to tell Dingley that I was yesterday at Ludgate, bespeaking the
spectacles at the great shop there, and shall have them in a day or two. This
has been an insipid day. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and came gravely home,
after just visiting the Coffee-house. Sir Richard Cox,[12] they say, is sure
of going over Lord Chancellor, who is as arrant a puppy as ever ate bread:
but the Duke of Ormond has a natural affection to puppies; which is a thousand
pities, being none himself. I have been amusing myself at home till now, and
in bed bid you good-night.

15. I have been visiting this morning, but nobody was at home, Secretary St.
John, Sir Thomas Hanmer,[13] Sir Chancellor Cox-comb, etc. I attended the
Duke of Ormond with about fifty other Irish gentlemen at Skinners' Hall, where
the Londonderry Society laid out three hundred pounds to treat us and his
Grace with a dinner. Three great tables with the dessert laid in mighty
figure. Sir Richard Levinge and I got discreetly to the head of the second
table, to avoid the crowd at the first: but it was so cold, and so confounded
a noise with the trumpets and hautboys, that I grew weary, and stole away
before the second course came on; so I can give you no account of it, which is
a thousand pities. I called at Ludgate for Dingley's glasses, and shall have
them in a day or two; and I doubt it will cost me thirty shillings for a
microscope, but not without Stella's permission; for I remember she is a
virtuoso. Shall I buy it or no? 'Tis not the great bulky ones, nor the