'MR. SPECTATOR,

• My heart is so swelled with grateful sentiments on account of some favours which I have lately received, that I must beg leave to give them utterance amongst the crowd of other anonymous correspondents; and writing, I hope, will be as great a relief to my forced silence, as it is to your natural taciturnity. My generous benefactor will not suffer me to speak to him in any terms of ac knowledgement, but ever treats me as if he had the greatest obligations, and uses me with a distinction that is not to be expected from one so much my superior in fortune, years, and understanding. He insinuates, as if I had a certain right to his favours from some merit, which his particular indulgence to me has discovered; but that is only a beautiful artifice to lessen the pain an honest mind feels in receiving obligations when there is no probability of returning them.

A gift is doubled when accompanied with such a delicacy of address: but what to me gives it an inexpressible value, is its coming from the man I most esteem in the world. It pleases me indeed, as it is an advantage and addition to my fortune; but when I consider it as an instance of that good man's friendship, it overjoys, it transports me: I look on it with a lover's eye, and no longer regard the gift, but the hand that gave it. For my friendship is so entirely void of any gainful views, that it often gives me pain to think it should have been chargeable to him; and I cannot at some melancholy hours help doing his generosity the injury of fearing it should cool on this account, and that the last favour might be a sort of legacy of a departing friendship.

I confess these fears seem very groundless and unjust, but you must forgive them to the apprehen

sion of one possessed of a great treasure, who is frighted at the most distant shadow of danger.

Since I have thus far opened my heart to you, I will not conceal the secret satisfaction I feel there, of knowing the goodness of my friend will not be unrewarded. I am pleased with thinking the providence of the Almighty hath sufficient blessings in store for him, and will certainly discharge the debt, though I am not made the happy instrument of doing it.

'However, nothing in my power shall be wanting to show my gratitude; I will make it the busi, ness of my life to thank him; and shall esteem (next to him) those my best friends, who give me the greatest assistance in this good work. Printing this letter would be some little instance of my gratitude; and your favour herein will very much oblige Your most humble servant, &c.

Nov. 24:

W. C.

N° 547. THURSDAY, NOV. 27, 1712.

Si vulnus tibi, monstratâ radice vel herba,
Non fieret levius, fugeres rudice vel herbá
Proficiente nihil curarier.

HOR. 2. Ep. ii. 149.

Suppose you had a wound, and one that show'd
An herb, which you apply'd, but found no good;
Would you be fond of this, increase your pain,
And use the fruitless remedy again?

CREECH.

Ir is very difficult to praise a man without putting him out of countenance. My following correspondent has found out this uncommon art, and, together with his friends, has celebrated some of my speculations after such a concealed but diverting manner, that if any of my readers think I am to blame in publishing my own commendations, they will allow I should have deserved their censure as much, had I suppressed the humour in which they are conveyed

to me.

SIR,

I AM often in a private assembly of wits of both sexes, where we generally descant upon your speculations, or upon the subjects on which you have treated. We were last Tuesday talking of those two volumes which you have lately published. Some were commending one of your papers, and some another; and there was scarce a single person in the company that had not a favourite speculation. Upon this a man of wit and learning told us, he thought it would not be amiss if we paid the

Spectator the same compliment that is often made in our public prints to Sir William Read, Dr. Grant, Mr. Moor the apothecary, and other eminent physicians, where it is usual for the patients to publish the cures which have been made upon them, and the several distempers under which they laboured. The proposal took; and the lady where we visited having the two last volumes in large paper interleaved for her own private use, ordered them to be brought down, and laid in the window, whither every one in the company retired, and writ down a particular advertisement in the style and phrase of the like ingenious compositions which we frequently meet with at the end of our newspapers. When we had finished our work, we read them with a great deal of mirth at the fire-side, and agreed nemine contradicente, to get them transcribed, and sent to the Spectator. The gentleman who made the proposal entered the following advertisement before the title page, after which the rest succeeded in

order.

'Remedium efficax et universum; or, an effectual: remedy adapted to all capacities; showing how any person may cure himself of ill-nature, pride, partyspleen, or any other distemper incident to the human system, with an easy way to know when the infection is upon him. The panacea is as innocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, and requires no confinement. It has not its equal in the universe, as abundance of the nobility and gentry throughout the kingdom have experienced.

'N. B. No family ought to be without it."

Over the two Spectators on jealousy, being the two first in the third volume. N° 170, 171. 'I William Crazy, aged threescore and seven, having been for several years afflicted with uneasy

doubts, fears, and vapours, occasioned by the youth and beauty of Mary my wife, aged twenty-five, do hereby, for the benefit of the public, give notice, that I have found great relief from the two following doses, having taken them two mornings together with a dish of chocolate. Witness my hand, &c.'

For the Benefit of the Poor.

In charity to such as are troubled with the disease of levee-hunting, and are forced to seek their bread every morning at the chamber-doors of great men, I, A. B. do testify, that for many years past I laboured under this fashionable distemper, but was cured of it by a remedy which I bought of Mrs. Baldwin, contained in a half sheet of paper, marked No. 193, where any one may be provided with the same remedy at the price of a single penny.'

An infallible cure for hypochondriac melancholy, Nos. 173, 184, 191, 203, 209, 221, 233, 235, 239, 245, 247, 251.

Probatum est.

CHARLES EASY.

I Christopher Query, having been troubled with a certain distemper in my tongue, which showed itself in impertinent and superfluous interrogatories, have not asked one unnecessary question since my perusal of the prescription marked No. 228.'

• The Britannic Beautifier, being an essay on modesty, No. 231, which gives such a delightful blushing colour to the cheeks of those that are

* Translated from the advertisement of the Red Bavarian Liquor. Spec, in folio, No. 545.