thatched, yet if you and I match, it shall go hard but I will have one half of it slated. If you shall think well of this motion, I will wait upon you as soon as my new clothes is made, and hay-harvest is in. I could, though I say it, have good matches in our town; but my mother (God's peace be with her) charged me upon her deathbed to marry a gentlewoman, one who had been well trained up in sewing and cookery. I do not think but that if you and I can agree to marry, and lay our means together, I shall be made grand juryman ere two or three years come about, and that will be a great credit to us. If I could have got a messenger for sixpence, I would have sent one on purpose, and some trifle or other for a token of my love; but I hope there is nothing lost for that neither. So hoping you will take this letter in good part, and answer it with what care and speed you can, I rest and remain,

Yours, if my own, Mr. GABRIEL BULLOCK, now my father is dead.

"SWEPSTON, LEICESTERSHIRE.

"When the coal carts come, I shall send oftener; and may come in one of them myself."

""For sir William to go to london at westminster, remember a parlement.

"SIR

"WILLIAM, i hope that you are well. i write to let you know that i am in troubel abbut a lady you nease; and I do desire that you will be my frend; for when i did com to see her at your

hall, i was mighty Abuesed: i would fain a see you at topecliff, and thay would not let me go to you; but i desire that you will be our frends, for it is no dishonor neither for you nor she, for God did make us all. i wish that i might see you, for thay say that you are a good man: and many doth wounder at it, but madam norton is abuesed and ceated two i beleive. i might a had many a lady, but i con have none but her with a good consons, for there is a God that know our harts. if you and madam norton will come to York, there i shill meet you if God be willing and if you pleased. so be not angterie till you know the trutes of things.

I give my to me lady, and to Mr. GEORGE NELSON. Aysenby, and to madam norton, March, the 19th; 1706."

""This is for madam mary norton disforth Lady she went to York.

““MADAM MARY. Deare loving sweet lady, i hope you are well. Do not go to london, for they will put you in the nunnery; and heed not Mrs. Lucy what she saith to you, for she will ly and ceat you. go from to another Place, and we will gate wed so with speed. mind what i write to you, for if they gate you to london they will keep you there; and so let us gate wed, and we will both go. so if you go to london, you rueing your self. heed not what none of them saith to you. let us gate wed, and we shall lie to gader any time. i will do any thing for you to my poore. i hope the devill will faile them all, for a hellish Company there be.

SO

from there cursed trick and mischiefus ways good lord bless and deliver both you and me.

I think to be at york the 24 day."

""This is for madam mary norton to go to london for a lady that belongs to dishforth.

deare

'MADAM MARY, i hope you are well. i am soary that you went away from York. loving sweet lady, i writt to let you know that i do remain faithful; and if can let me know where i can meet you, i will wed you, and I will do any thing to my poor; for you are a good woman, and will be a loving Misteris. i am in troubel for you, so if you will come to york i will wed you. so with speed come, and i will have none but you. so, sweet love, heed not what to say to me, and with speed come: heed not what none of them say to you; your maid makes believe ought.

you

་ "So deare love think of Mr. george Nillson with speed; i sent you 2 or 3 letters before.

"I gave misteris elcock some nots, and thay put me in pruson all the night for me pains, and non new whear i was, and i did gat cold.

"But it is for mrs. Lucy to go a good way from home, for in york and round about she is known; to writ any more her deeds, the same will tell hor soul is black within, hor corkis stinks of hell.

"March 19, 1706."'

R.

No.

No. 329. Tuesday, March 18, 1712

[ADDISON.

Ire tamen restat, Numa quo devenit et Ancus.

-HOR., 1 Ep. vi. 27.

MY, friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me

t'other night, that he had been reading my

paper upon Westminster Abbey,' in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me at the same time that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the abbey.

I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed, than he called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water, which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down I found it very unpalatable, upon which the knight observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first,

1 No. 26.

2 Strong waters, electuaries, and elixirs were often advertised in the Spectator.

2

but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel.

I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic; when of a sudden turning short to one of his servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call an hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it.

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that the widow Trueby was one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people: to which the knight added, that she had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; and truly,' says Sir Roger, if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better.'

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axle-tree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without further ceremony.

We had not gone far when Sir Roger, popping

1 Forty thousand persons died of the plague at Dantzic in 1709. In the Tatler (No. 97) Addison said that idleness destroyed 'more in every great town than the plague has done at Dantzic.