Page images
PDF
EPUB

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.

[blocks in formation]

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 teaze 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 inhabitants; insomuch that, if we believe the calculations some

have made, there are more living creatures, which are too small for the naked eye to behold, about the Leviathan, than there are of visible creatures upon the face of the whole earth. Thus every nobler creature is, as it were, the basis and support of multitudes than are his inferiors.

This consideration very much comforts me, when I think on those numberless vermin that feed upon this paper, and find their sustenance out of it; I mean the small wits and scribblers, that every day turn a penny by nibbling at my Lucubrations. This has been so advantageous to this little species of writers, that, if they do me justice, I may expect to have my statue erected in Grub-street, as being a common benefactor to that quarter.

They say, 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 till the vermin get into it; after which he quits the wool, and, diving, leaves his tormenters to shift for themselves, and get their livelihood where they can. I would have these gentlemen take care that I do not serve them after the same manner; for though I have hitherto kept my temper pretty well, it is not impossible but I may some time or other disappear; and what will then become of them? Should I lay down my paper, what a famine would there be among the hawkers, printers, booksellers, and authors! It would be like Doctor Burgess's dropping his cloak, with the whole congregation hanging upon the skirts of it. To enumerate some of these my doughty antagonists; I was threatened to be answered weekly Tit for Tat; I was undermined by the Whisperer; haunted by Tom Brown's Ghost; scolded at by a Female Tatler; and slandered by another of the same character, under the title of Atalantis. I have been annotated, retattled, examined,

and condoled; but it being my standing maxim never to speak ill of the dead, I shall let these authors rest in peace, and take great pleasure in thinking, that I have sometimes been the means of their getting a belly-full. When I see myself thus surrounded by such formidable enemies, I often think of the Knight of the Red Cross in Spenser's Den of Error,' who, after he has cut off the dragon's head, and left it wallowing in a flood of ink, sees a thousand monstrous reptiles making their attempts upon him, one with many heads, another with none, and all of them without eyes.

[ocr errors]

The same so sore annoyed has the Knight,
That, well nigh choked with the deadly stink,
His forces fail, he can no longer fight;

Whose courage when the fiend perceiv'd to shrink,
She poured forth out of her hellish sink
Her fruitful cursed spawn of serpents small,
Deformed monsters, foul, and black as ink;
Which swarming all about his legs did crawl,
And him encumbered sore, but could not hurt at all.

As gentle shepherd in sweet even tide,
When ruddy Phoebus 'gins to welk in west,
High on a hill, his flock to viewen wide,
Marks which do bite their hasty supper best:
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him molest,
All striving to infix their feeble stings,

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

de

If ever I should want such a fry of little authors to attend me, I shall think my paper in a very caying condition. They are like ivy about an oak, which adorns the tree at the same time that it eats into it; or like a great man's equipage, that do honour to the person on whom they feed. For my part, when I see myself thus attacked, I do not

consider my antagonists as malicious, but hungry; and therefore am resolved never to take any notice of them.

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

Give me leave to conclude, like an old man, and a moralist, with a fable.

The owls, bats, and several other birds of night, were one day got together in a thick shade, where they abused their neighbours in a very sociable manner. Their satire at last fell upon the sun, whom they all agreed to be very troublesome, impertinent, and inquisitive. Upon which the sun, who overheard them, spoke to them after this manner. ‹ Gentlemen, I wonder how you dare abuse one that, you know, could in an instant scorch you up, and burn every mother's son of you; but the only answer I shall give you, or the revenge I shall take of you, is, to shine on.

No. 230. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1710.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 27.

THE following letter has laid before me many great and manifest evils in the world of letters, which I had overlooked; but they open to me a very busy scene, and it will require no small care and application to amend errors which are become so universal.

The affectation of politeness is exposed in this epistle with a great deal of wit and discernment; so that whatever discourses I may fall into hereafter upon the subjects the writer treats of, I shall at present lay the matter before the world, without the least alteration from the words of my correspondent.

[ocr errors]

"SIR,

TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQUIRE.

"There are some abuses among us of great consequence, the reformation of which is properly your province; though as far as I have been conversant in your papers, you have not yet considered them. These are, the deplorable ignorance that for some years hath reigned among our English writers, the great depravity of our taste, and the continual corruption of our style. I say nothing here of those who handle particular sciences, Divinity, Law, Physic, and the like; I mean the traders in history, politics, and the Belles Lettres; together with those by whom books are not translated, but, as the common expressions are, done out of French, Latin, or other language, and made English. I cannot but observe to you, that till of late years a Grub-street book was always bound in sheep-skin, with suitable print and paper, the price never above a shilling, and taken off wholly by common tradesmen or country pedlers; but now they appear in all sizes and shapes, and in all places. They are handed about from lapfuls in every coffee-house to persons of quality; are shown in Westminster-hall and the Court of Requests. You may see them gilt, and in royal paper of five or six hundred pages, and rated accordingly. I would engage to furnish you with a catalogue of English books, published within the compass of seven years past, which at the first hand

« PreviousContinue »