term it dulness. The difference is, that as the person before mentioned was born blind, your envious men have contracted the distemper themselves, and are troubled with a sort of an acquired blindness. Thus the devil in Milton, though made an angel of light, could see nothing to please him even in Paradise, and hated our first parents, though in their state of innocence.

No. 228. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1710.

- Veniet manus, auxilio quæ

Sit mihi

HOR. SAT. i. 4. 141.

A powerful aid from other hands will come. R. WYNNE.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 22.

A MAN of business, who makes a public entertainment, may sometimes leave his guests, and beg them to divert themselves as well as they can till his return. I shall here make use of the same privilege, being engaged in matters of some importance relating to the family of the Bickerstaffs, and must desire my readers to entertain one another till I can have leisure to attend them. I have therefore furnished out this paper, as I have done some few others, with letters of my ingenious correspondents, which, I have reason to believe, will please the public as much as my own more elaborate Lucubrations.

"SIR,

"I have long been of the number of your admirers, and take this opportunity of telling you so. I know not why a man so famed for astrological observations may not be also a good casuist; upon which presumption it is I ask your advice in an affair, that at present puzzles quite that slender stock of divinity I am master of. I have now been some time in holy orders, and fellow of a certain college in one of the universities; but, weary of that unactive life, I resolve to be doing good in my generation. A worthy gentleman has lately offered me a fat rectory; but means, I perceive, his kinswoman should have the benefit of the clergy. I am a novice in the world, and confess it startles me, how the body of Mrs. Abigail can be annexed to cure of souls. Sir, would you give us, in one of your Tatlers, the original and progress of smocksimony, and show us, that where the laws are silent, men's consciences ought to be so too, you could not more oblige our fraternity of young divines, and among the rest,

"Your humble servant,
"HIGH CHURCH."

"Lincoln, September 9."

I am very proud of having a gentleman of this name for my admirer, and may, some time or other, write such a treatise as he mentions. In the mean time, I do not see why our clergy, who are very frequently men of good families, should be reproached, if any of them chance to espouse a handmaid with a rectory in commendam, since the best of our peers have often joined themselves to the daughters of very ordinary tradesmen, upon the same valuable considerations.

"HONOURED SIR,

"I have now finished my almanac for the next year, in all the parts of it, except that which concerns the weather; and you having shown yourself, by some of your late works, more weatherwise than any of our modern astrologers, I must humbly presume to trouble you upon this head. You know very well, that in our ordinary almanacs the wind and rain, snow and hail, clouds and sunshine, have their proper seasons, and come up as regularly in their several months as the fruits and plants of the earth. As for my own part, I freely own to you, that I generally steal my weather out of some antiquated almanac, that foretold it several years ago. Now, Sir, what I humbly beg of you is, that you would lend me your State weather-glass, in order to fill up this vacant column in my works. This, I know, would sell my almanac beyond any other, and make me a richer man than Poor Robin. you will not grant me this favour, I must have recourse to my old method, and will copy after an almanac which I have by me, and which I think was made for the year when the great storm was. "I am, Sir,

"The most humble of your admirers,
"T. PHILOMATH."

"Globe in Moorfields, September 16."

If

This gentleman does not consider, what a strange appearance his almanac would make to the ignorant, should he transpose his weather, as he must do, did he follow the dictates of my glass. What would the world say to see summers filled with clouds and storms, and winters with calms and sunshine; according to the variations of the weather, as they might accidentally appear in a State-baro

meter? But let that be as it will, I shall apply my own invention to my own use; and if I do not make my fortune by it, it will be my own fault.

The next letter comes to me from another selfinterested solicitor.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"I am going to set up for a scrivener, and have thought of a project which may turn both to your account and mine. It came into my head, upon reading that learned and useful paper of your's concerning advertisements. You must understand, I have made myself master in the whole art of advertising, both as to the style and the letter. Now

if

you and I could so manage it, that nobody should write advertisements besides myself, or print them anywhere but in your paper, we might both of us get estates in a little time. For this end I would likewise propose, that you should enlarge the design of advertisements, and have sent you two or three samples of my work in this kind, which I have made for particular friends, and intend to open shop with. The first is for a gentleman, who would willingly marry, if he could find a wife to his liking; the second is for a poor whig, who is lately turned out of his post; and the third for a person of a contrary party, who is willing to get into one."

"Whereas A. B. next door to the Pestle and Mortar, being about 30 years old, of a spare make, with dark-coloured hair, bright eye, and a long nose, has occasion for a good-humoured, tall, fair, young woman, of about 3000l. fortune: these are to give notice, that if any such young woman has a mind to dispose of herself in marriage to such a person

as the above-mentioned, she may be provided with a husband, a coach and horses, and a proportionable settlement.

"C. D. designing to quit his place, has great quantities of paper, parchment, ink, wax, and wafers, to dispose of, which will be sold at very reasonable rates.

"E. F. a person of good behaviour, six foot high, of a black complexion, and sound principles, wants an employ. He is an excellent penman and accomptant, and speaks French.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 25.

THE whole creation preys upon itself. Every living creature is inhabited. A flea has a thousand invisible insects that tease him as he jumps from place to place, and revenge our quarrels upon him. A very ordinary microscope shows us, that a louse is itself a very lousy creature. A whale, besides those seas and oceans in the several vessels of his body, which are filled with innumerable shoals of little animals, carries about him a whole world of inhabit