vice to lady Harvey. She is in a little sort of a miff about a ballad, that was writ on her, to the tune of Molly Mogg, and sent to her in the name of a begging poet. She was bit, and wrote a letter to the begging poet, and desired him to change two double entendres; which the authors, Mr. Pulteney and lord Chesterfield, changed to single entendres. I was against that, though I had a hand in the first. She is not displeased, I believe, with the ballad, but only with being bit.
There has been a comical paper[1] about quadrille describing it in the terms of a lewd debauch among four ladies, meeting four gallants, two of a ruddy and two of a swarthy complexion, talking of their a—es, &c. The riddle is carried on in pretty strong terms: it was not found out a long time. The ladies, imagining it to be a real thing, began to guess who were of the party. A great minister was for hanging the author. In short, it has made very good sport.
Gay has had a little fever, but is pretty well recovered: so is Mr. Pope. We shall meet at lord Bolingbroke's on Thursday, in town, at dinner, and remember you. Gulliver is in every body's hands. Lord Scarborough, who is no inventor of stories, told me, that he fell in company with a master of a ship, who told him, that he was very well acquainted with Gulliver; but that the printer had mistaken, that he lived in Wapping, and not at Rotherhithe. I lent the book to an old gentleman, who went immediately to his map to search for Lilliput.
- ↑ Written by Mr. Congreve; and printed in Almon's Founding Hospital, No. 93.
