"When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business, and acted as master of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a chaplain's place established in the garrison of Hull for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighbourhood, who had lately been in jail, and published sermons to pay the fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my lord-treasurer that, according to his petition, he should obtain a salary of 200_l._ per annum as minister of the English church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in with the red bag to the Queen, and told him aloud he had something to say to him from my lord-treasurer. He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant, to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket-book, and wrote down several things as _memoranda_ to do for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and, telling him the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman said he was too fast. 'How can I help it,' says the Doctor, 'if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?' Then he instructed a young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which he must have them all subscribe; 'for,' says he, 'the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' Lord-treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him: both went off just before prayers." Let us see, by a few pickings from the journal to Stella, in what manner the black-browed Irish vicar, who was thus figuring in the mornings at Court as the friend and confidant of Ministers, and almost as their domineering colleague, was writing home from his lodging in the evenings to the "dear girls" at Laracor. _Dec. 3, 1710._ "Pshaw, I must be writing to those dear saucy brats every night whether I will or no, let me have what business I will, or come home ever so late, or be ever so sleepy; but it is an old saying and a true one, 'Be you lords or be you earls, you must write to naughty girls.' I was to-day at Court, and saw Raymond [an Irish friend] among the beefeaters, staying to see the Queen; so I put him in a better station, made two or three dozen bows, and went to church, and then to Court again to pick up a dinner, as I did with Sir John Stanley: and then we went to visit Lord Mountjoy, and just left him; and 'tis near eleven at night, young women, and methinks this letter comes very near to the bottom," &c. &c.