dle of March, and I do not love you much when you are there: and I expect to find you are altered by flattery or ill company. I am glad to tell you now, that I honour you with my esteem; because, when the princess grows a crowned head, you shall have no more such compliments; and it is a hundred to one whether you will deserve them. I do not approve of your advice to bring over pumps for myself, but will rather provide another shoe for his royal highness[1], against there shall be occasion. I will tell you an odd accident that happened this night: — While I was caressing one of my Houhynhnms, he bit my little finger so cruelly, that I am hardly able to write; and I impute the cause to some foreknowledge in him, that I was going to write to a Sieve Yahoo[2], for so you are pleased to call yourself. Pray tell sir Robert Walpole, that if he does not use me better next summer than he did last, I will study revenge, and it shall be vengeance ecclésiastique. I hope you will get your house and wine ready, to which Mr. Gay and I are to have free access when you are at court; for, as to Mr. Pope, he is not worth considering on such occasions. I am sorry I have no complaints to make of her royal highness; therefore, I think, I may let you tell her, "That every grain of virtue and good sense, in one of her rank, considering the bad education among flatterers and adorers, is worth a dozen in any inferiour person." Now, if what the world says be true, that she excels all other ladies at least a dozen times; then, multiply one dozen by the other, you
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