vided you live in the country. — Have you no scheme either in verse or prose? The duchess should keep you at hard meat, and by that means force you to write; and so I have done with you.
Since I began to grow old, I have found all ladies become inconstant, without any reproach from their conscience. If I wait on you, I declare that one of your women (which ever it is that has designs upon a chaplain) must be my nurse, if I happen to be sick or peevish at your house, and in that case you must suspend your domineering claim till I recover. Your omitting the usual appendix to Mr. Gay's letters has done me infinite mischief here; for while you continued them, you would wonder how civil the ladies here were to me, and how much they have altered since. I dare not confess that I have descended so low as to write to your grace, after the abominable neglect you have been guilty of; for if they but suspected it, I should lose them all. One of them, who had but an inklin of the matter (your grace will hardly believe it) refused to beg my pardon upon her knees, for once neglecting to make my ricemilk. Pray, consider this, and do your duty, or dread the consequence. I promise you shall have your will six minutes every hour at Amesbury, and seven in London, while I am in health: but if I happen to be sick, I must govern to a second. Yet properly speaking, there is no man alive with so much truth and respect your grace's most obedient and devoted servant.
