NO. 229. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1710.

Quæfitam meritis fume fuperbiam.

HOR. Od. 30. lib. 3. ver. 13.

With confcious pride

Affume the honours justly thine.

FRANCIS.

From my own Apartment, September 25.

THE whole creation preys upon itfelf: every living creature is inhabited. A flea has a thousand invifible infects that tease him as he jumps from place to place, and revenge our quarrels upon him. A very ordinary microfcope fhews us, that a louse is itself a very lousy creature. A whale, befides those seas and oceans in the feveral veffels of his body, which are filled with innumerable fhoals of little animals, carries about him a whole world of inhabitants; infomuch that, if we believe the calculations fome have made, there are more living creatures, which are too small for the naked eye to behold, about the leviathan, than there are of vifible creatures upon the face of the whole earth. Thus every nobler creature is, as it were, the basis and support of multitudes that are his inferiors.

This confideration very much comforts me, when I think on those numberlefs vermin that feed upon this paper, and find their fuftenance out of it; I mean the fmall wits and fcribblers that every day turn a penny by nibbling at my Lucubrations. This has been fo advantageous to this little fpecies of writers, that, if they do me juftice, I may expect to have my statue erected in Grub-street, as being a common benefactor to that quarter.

They fay, when a fox is very much troubled with fleas, he goes into the next pool with a little lock of wool in his mouth, and keeps his body under water until the ver

min get into it; after which he quits the wool, and diving, leaves his tormentors to shift for themselves, and get their livelihood where they can. I would have these gentlemen.

take care that I do not ferve them after the fame manner; for though I have hitherto kept my temper pretty well, it is not impoffible but I may fome time or other difappear; and what will then become of them? Should I lay down my paper, what a famine would there be among the hawkers, printers, bookfellers, and autho:s? It would be like doctor Burgefs's dropping his cloke, with the whole congregation hanging to the skirts of it. To enumerate some of thefe my doughty antagonifts; I was threatened to be anfwered weekly tit. for tat; I was undermined by thewhisperer, haunted by Tom Brown's ghoft, fcolded at by a Female Tatler, and flandered by another of the same eharacter, under the title of Atalantis. I have been annotated, retattled, examined, and condoled: but it being my ftanding maxim never to speak ill of the dead, I fhall let thefe authors reft in peace; and take great pleasure in thinking, that I have fometimes been the means of their getting a belly-full. When I fee myself thus furrounded by fuch formidable enemies, I often think of the Knight of the Red Cross in Spenfer's Den of Error, who, after he has cut off the dragon's head, and left it wallowing in a flood of ink, fees a thousand monftrous reptiles making their attempts upon him, one with many heads, another with none, and all of them without eyes..

The fame fo fore annoyed has the knight,

That, well nigh choaked with the deadly ftink,,
His forces fail, he can no longer fight;

Whofe courage when the fiend perceiv'd to fhrink,,
She poured forth out of her hellish fink
Her fruitful curfed fpawn of ferpents small,
Deformed monfters, foul and black as ink;
Which fwarming all about his legs did crawl,,
And him encumb'red fore, but could not hurt at all..

As gentle fhepherd in fweet even-tide,
When ruddy Phoebus 'gins to welk in west,
AS

High

High on an hill, his flock to viewen wide,
Marks which do bite their hafty fupper beft;
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him moleft,
All ftriving to infix their feeble ftings,

That from their noyance he no where can reft; But with his clownish hands their tender wings. He brufheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.

If ever I fhould want fuch a fry of little authors to attend me, I fhall think my paper in a very decaying condition. They are like ivy about an oak, which adorns the tree at the fame time that it eats into it; or like a great man's equipage, that do honour to the perfon on whom they feed. For my part, when I fee myself thus attacked, I do not confider my antagonists as malicious, but hungry; and therefore am refolved never take any notice of them.

As for those who detract from my labours, without being prompted to it by an empty ftomach, in return to their cenfures, I fhall take pains to excel, and never fail to perfuade myself, that their enmity is nothing but their envy or ignorance.

Give me leave to conclude, like an old man, and a moralift, with a fable:

The owls, bats, and feveral other birds of night, were one day got together in a thick fhade, where they abufed their neighbours in a very fociable manner. Their fatire at laft fell upon the fun, whom they all agreed to be very troublesome, impertinent, and inquifitive. Upon which the Sun, who overheard them, fpoke to them after this manner: 'Gentlemen, I wonder how you dare abuse one that, you know, could in an inftant fcorch you up, and burn every mother's fon of you: but the only anfwer I fhall give you, or the revenge I fhall take of you, is, to 'fhine on.'

No.

NO. 230.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1710.

From my own Apartment, September 27.

THE following letter has laid before me many great and manifeft evils in the world of letters, which I had overlooked; but they open to me a very bufy fcene, and it will require no fmall care and application to amend errors which are become fo univerfal. The affectation of politenefs is expofed in this epiftle with a great deal of wit and difcernment; fo that whatever difcourfes I may fall into hereafter upon the fubjects the writer treats of, I shall at prefent lay the matter before the world, without the least alteration from the words of my correfpondent.

• SIR,

TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Efquire.

< THERE are fome abuses among us of great confequence, the reformation of which is properly your province; though, as far as I have been converfant in your papers, you have not yet confidered them. These are, the deplorable ignorance that for fome years hath reigned among our English writers, the great depravity of our tafte, and the continual corruption of our style. I fay nothing here of those who handle particular sciences, divinity, law, phyfic, and the like; I mean the traders in hiftory and politics, and the belles lettres; together with those by whom books are not tranflated, but, as the common expreffions are, done out of French, Latin, or other language, and made English. I cannot but observe to you, that until of late years a Grub-street book was always bound in fheep-fkin, with fuitable print and paper, the price never above a fhilling, and taken off wholly by common tradesmen or country pedlars; but now they appear in all fizes and fhapes, and in all places: they are handed about from lapfulls in every coffee-houfe to perfons of quality; are fhewn in Weftminifter-hall and the court

H 6

of

No. 239. of requests. You may fee them gilt, and in royal paper of five or fix hundred pages, and rated accordingly. I would engage to furnish you with a catalogue of English books, published within the compafs of feven years paft, which at the firft hand would cost you a hundred pounds, wherein you fhall not be able to find ten lines together of common grammar or common sense.

Thefe two evils, ignorance, and want of tafte, have produced a third; I mean the continual corruption of our English tongue, which, without fome timely remedy, will fuffer more by the falfe refinements of twenty years paft, than it hath been improved in the foregoing hundred. And this is what I defign chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to your animadverfion,

But instead of giving you a lift of the late refinements crept into our language, I here fend you the copy of a let-` ter I received, fome time ago, from a most accomplished person in this way of writing; upon which I fhall make fome remarks. It is in these terms:

"SIR,

"I cou❜DN'T get the things you fent for all about Town- I thôt to ha come down myself, and then I'd h' brôt 'um; but I ha'nt don't, and I believe I can't do't, that's Pozz Tom begins to gi'mfelf airs, because he's going with the Plenipo'stis faid the French king will bamboozle us agen, which caufes many fpeculations. The Jacks and others of that Kidney are very uppifh, and alert upon't, as you may fee by their Phizz's -Will Hazard has got the Hipps, having loft to the Tune of five hundr’d pound, tho' he understands play very well, no Body better. He has promis't me upon Rep, to leave off play: but you know 'tis a weakness he's too apt to give into, tho' he has as much wit as any man, no Body more. He has lain incog ever fince The Mobb's very quiet with us now is on I believe you thôt I banter'd you in my laft, like a Country Put I fhan't leave town this month, &c."