a letter was not upon the
road going or coming to or from PMD. If the Queen knew it, she would
give us a pension; for it is we bring good luck to their post-boys and
their packets; else they would break their necks and sink. But, an old
saying and a true one:

Be it snow, or storm, or hail,
PMD's letters never fail;
Cross winds may sometimes make them tarry,
But PMD's letters can't miscarry.

Terrible rain to-day, but it cleared up at night enough to save my
twelvepence coming home. Lord Treasurer is much better this evening.
I hate to have him ill, he is so confoundedly careless. I won't answer
your letter yet, so be satisfied.

24. I called at Lord Treasurer's to-day at noon: he was eating some
broth in his bed-chamber, undressed, with a thousand papers about him.
He has a little fever upon him, and his eye terribly bloodshot; yet he
dressed himself and went out to the Treasury. He told me he had a letter
from a lady with a complaint against me; it was from Mrs. Cutts, a
sister of Lord Cutts, who writ to him that I had abused her brother:(1)
you remember the "Salamander," it is printed in the Miscellany. I told
my lord that I would never regard complaints, and that I expected,
whenever he received any against me, he would immediately put them into
the fire, and forget them, else I should have no quiet. I had a little
turn in my head this morning; which, though it did not last above a
moment, yet being of the true sort, has made me as weak as a dog all
this day. 'Tis the first I have had this half-year. I shall take my
pills if I hear of it again. I dined at Lady Mountjoy's with Harry
Coote,(2) and went to see Lord Pembroke upon his coming to town.--The
Whig party are furious against a peace, and every day some ballad comes
out reflecting on the Ministry on that account. The Secretary St. John
has seized on a dozen booksellers and publishers into his messengers'
hands.(3) Some of the foreign Ministers have published the preliminaries
agreed on here between France and England; and people rail at them as
insufficient to treat a peace upon; but the secret is, that the French
have agreed to articles much more important, which our Ministers
have not communicated, and the people, who think they know all, are
discontented that there is no more. This was an inconvenience I foretold
to the Secretary, but we could contrive no way to fence against it. So
there's politics for you.

25. The Queen is at Ha