'P. S. MR. BICKERSTAFF,

You can't imagine how handsome she is: the superscription of my letter will make her recollect the man that gazed at her, Pray put it in.'

I can assure the young lady, the gentleman is in the true trammels of love: how else would he make his superscription so very much longer than his billet? He superscribes:

To the younger of the two ladies in mourning (who sat in the hindmost seat of the middle box at Mr. Winstanley's water-works on Tuesday was fortnight, and had with them a brother, or some acquaintance that was as careless of that pretty creature

e Winstanley's mathematical water-theatre stood at the lower end of Piccadilly distinguishable by a windmill at top. The exhibitions here, between five and six in the evening, were diversified to suit the seasons, and the humours of the company; and the prices, except that of the sixpenny gallery, varied accordingly. Boxes from from four shillings to half a crown, pit from three to two shillings, and a seat in the shilling gallery sometimes cost eighteen-pence. The quantity of water used on extraordinary occasions was from 300 to 800 tuns. Winstanley had another house of this sort at Littleberry in Essex, where there were the same or similar exhibitions. He died soon after this time, and his houses came into the possession of his widow, for whose benefit they were shown in 1715, as appears from the advertisements of that date, in the original Guardian. From these bills of fare we learn, that the mathematical barrel was at times turned into a tavern, and supplied the company with different sorts of wine, biscuits, Spaw-water, and cold-tankards; it was also converted into a coffee-house, and a flying Cupid presented tea, coffee, and newspapers to the gentlemen, fruits, flowers, and sweetmeats to the ladies. In the month of May, there was the addition of a may-pole and garland, a milk-maid, a fiddler, and syllybubs. Soft music was heard at a distance, or Syrens sung on the rocks; Venus appeared with a flaming heart; Polyphemus courted Galatea; and, for a variety, flying dragons emitted fire and flames, water and perfumes; then came a terrible tempest of thunder and lightning,' &c. &c. The tricks of electricity were not as yet known. A writer in the Examiner compares the arguments of the Whigs to the ingenious Winstanley's water-works. Without opening new streams, the same mass of water circulates by their good husbandry, comes round at proper periods as they direct it, and by an artificial flux and reflux, as they manage the cascade, is made to resemble an ever-running stream, and to look like inexhaustible. Examiner, vol, vi. No, 1.

as a brother; which seeming brother ushered 'em to their coach) with great respect. Present.'

6 MADAM,

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I HAVE a very good estate, and wish myself your husband: let me know by this way where you live; for I shall be miserable till we live together.

ALEXANDER LANDLORD'.'

This is the modern way of bargain and sale; a certain short-hand writing, in which laconic elder brothers are very successful. All my fear is, that the nymph's elder sister is unmarried; if she is, we are undone but perhaps the careless fellow was her husband, and then she will let us go on.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 28.

THE following letter has given me a new sense of the nature of my writings. I have the deepest regard to conviction, and shall never act against it. However, I do not yet understand what good man he thinks I have injured: but his epistle has such weight in it, that I shall always have respect for his admonition, and desire the continuance of it. I am not conscious that I have spoke any faults a man may not mend if he pleases.

6 MR. BICKERSTAFF,

WHEN I read your paper of Thursday, I was surprized to find mine of the thirteenth inserted at large; I never intended myself or you a second trouble of this kind, believing I had sufficiently pointed out the man you had injured, and that by this time you were convinced that silence would be

f See Tatler, No. 76.

* See Tatler, No. 71. letter signed A. J. and No. 76. letter.

the best answer: but finding your reflections are such as naturally call for a reply, I take this way of doing it; and, in the first place, return you thanks for the compliment made me of my seeming sense and worth. I do assure you, I shall always endeavour to convince mankind of the latter, though I have no pretence to the former. But to come a little nearer, I observe you put yourself under a very severe restriction, even the laying down the Tatler for ever, if I can give you an instance wherein you have injured any good man, or pointed at any thing which is not the true object of raillery.

I must confess, Mr. Bickerstaff, if the making a man guilty of vices that would shame the gallows, be the best methods to point at the true object of raillery, I have till this time been very ignorant ; but if it be so, I will venture to assert one thing, and lay it down as a maxim, even to the Staffian race, viz. That that method of pointing ought no more to be pursued, than those people ought to cut your throat who suffer by it; because I take both to be murder, and the law is not in every private man's hands to execute but indeed, sir, were you the only person would suffer by the Tatler's discontinuance, I have malice enough to punish you in the manner you prescribe: but I am not so great an enemy to the town or my own pleasures as to wish it; nor that you would lay aside lashing the reigning vices, so long as you keep to the true spirit of satire, without descending to rake into characters below its dignity; for, as you well observe, there is something very terrible in unjustly attacking men in a way that may prejudice their honour or fortune; and indeed where crimes are enormous, the delinquent deserves little pity, yet the reporter may deserve less: and here I am naturally led to that celebrated author of

The whole Duty of Man",' who hath set this matter in a true light in his treatise Of the Government of the Tongue';' where, speaking of uncharitable truths, he says, a discovery of this kind serves not to reclaim, but enrage the offender, and precipitate him into farther degrees of ill. of shame is one of those natural

Modesty and fear restraints which the

wisdom of heaven has put upon mankind; and he that once stumbles, may yet by a check of that bridle recover again: but, when by a public detection he is fallen under that infamy he feared, he will then be apt to discard all caution, and to think he owes himself the utmost pleasures of vice, as the price of his reputation. Nay, perhaps he advances farther, and sets up for a reversed sort of fame, by being eminently wicked, and he who before was but a clandestine disciple becomes a doctor of impiety,' &c.' This sort of reasoning, Sir, most certainly induced our wise legislators very lately to repeal that law which put the stamp of infamy in the face of felons: therefore, you had better give an act of oblivion to your delinquents, at least for transportation, than continue to mark them in so notorious a manner. can't but applaud your designed attempt of raising merit from obscurity, celebating virtue in distress, and attacking vice in another method, by setting inno

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h Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire,' vol. i. p. 352, has taken much pains to discover the author of this celebrated book; which has been ascribed to no less than eight different writers; viz. to Abraham Woodhead, Obadiah Walker, Bp. Fell, Bp. Chapple, Dr. Allestree, Dr. Henchman, Mr. Fullman, and lady Packington. See The Gentleman's Magazine, 1754,' p. 26; and Bp. Atterbury's Sermon on 1 Tim. vi. 1. On the whole, Dr. Nash inclines to ascribe the book to lady Packington, though amply and materially corrected by Bp. Fell, between whom and that lady there subsisted a long and uninterrupted correspondence. The first edition of it appeared in 1654. It has been supposed, that the grandson of lady Packington was the original of the character of sir Roger de Coverley, in the Spectator. N.

i First printed in 1674.

cence in a proper light.' Your pursuing these noble themes will make a greater advance to the reformation you seem to aim at, than the method you have hitherto taken, by putting mankind beyond the power of retrieving themselves, or indeed to think it possible. But if, after all your endeavours in this new way, there should then remain any hardened impenitents, you must e'en give them up to the rigour of the law, as delinquents not within the benefit of their clergy. Pardon me, good Mr. Bickerstaff, for the tediousness of this epistle, and believe it is not from any self-conviction I have taken up so much of your time, or my own; but supposing you mean all your lucubrations should tend to the good of mankind, may the easier hope your pardon, being, 'Sept. 25.

I

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SIR, yours, &c.'

GRECIAN COFFEE-HOUSE, SEPTEMBER 29*.

THIS evening I thought fit to notify to the literati of this house, and by that means to all the world, that on Saturday the fifteenth of October next ensuing, I design to fix my first table of fame'; and desire

* SWIFT'S. See Tatler, No. 65. note; and Swift's Works,' vol. xix. page 40; and note. The assignment of this article from the Grecian coffee-house to Swift is moreover supported by the authority of a valuable paper obligingly communicated by J—n H- -y of Manchester, Jan 15 1784. The notes contained in it were transcribed by this gentleman many years ago, when he had access to the library of the late Christopher Byron, esq. who communicated so liberally to Dr. Grey's edition of Hudibras, and whose communications are there marked with a B. From this schedule, the writer has learnt with pleasure several things of which he had no knowledge or suspicion before; it has satisfied him in many particulars about which he had his doubts; and enabled him to mention others with more confidence, which he could only have offered as mere conjectures. Proper notice shall be taken of such of the notes as came too late to be inserted in their respective places; and such future illustrations as may rest hereafter on the authority of this paper, as he is a stranger even to the name of the generous contributor, the annotator shall mark, salvis titulis, with the signature of Jn Hy, M.; and a reference to this note. C.

1 See Tatler, Nos. 67. and 81.