am, with the most inviolable sincerity and esteem,

dear Sir,

Your most faithful, most humble,

and most obedient servant,

J. ADDISON.

a

FROM SIR ANDREW FOUNTAINE.

June 27, 1710.

I NEITHER can nor will have patience any longer; and, Swift, you are a confounded son of May your half acre turn to a bog, and may your willows perish; may the worms eat your Plato, and may Parviso!* break your snuff-box. What! because there is never a bishop in England with half the wit of St George Ashe, nor ever a secretary of state with a quarter of Addison's good sense; therefore you cannot write to those that love you, as well as any Clogher or Addison of them all. You have lost your reputation here, and that of your bastard the Tatler is going too; and there is no way left to recover either, but your writing. Well! 'tis no matter; I'll e'en leave London. Kingsmill is dead, and you don't write to me. Adieu.

* The Dean's steward, repeatedly mentioned.

FROM MR HENLEY.*

Εὐδαιμονεῖν καὶ Εὐπραττειν.

REVEREND SIR,

[About 1709 or 1710.]

It is reported of the famous Regiomontanus, that he framed an eagle so artfully of a certain wood, that upon the approach of the Emperor Maximilian to the opulent city of Nuremberg, it took wing, and flew out of the gates to meet him, and (as my author has it) appeared as though alive. Give me leave to attribute this excellent invention to the vehement desire he had to entertain his master with something extraordinary, and to say with the poet,

Amor addidit alas.

I am trying a like experiment, whether I cannot make this composition of old rags, gall, and vitriol fly to Dublin; and if (as the moving lion, which was composed by an Italian chemist, and opened his breast, and showed the imperial arms painted on its heart) this could disclose itself, and discover to you the high esteem and affection I have for you, I should attain my end, and not only sacrifice a hecatomb, but cry out, with extatic Archimedes, Εύρηκα.

I should not have presumed to imagine, that you

*This is one of the most conceited letters in the collection, being upon the very false gallop of wit, or rather smartness, from beginning to the end.

would deign to cast an eye on any thing proceeding from so mean a hand as mine, had I not been encouraged by that character of candour and sweetness of temper for which you are so justly celebrated and esteemed by all good men, as the delicia humani generis; and I make no question, but like your predecessor [an emperor again*] you reckon every day as lost, in which you have not an opportunity of doing some act of beneficence. I was moreover emboldened by the adage, which does not stick to affirm, that one of the most despicable of animals may look upon the greatest of queens, as it has been proved to a demonstration by a late most judicious author, whom (as I take it) you have vouchsafed to immortalize by your learned lucubrations. † And as proverbs are the wisdom of a nation, so I take the naturalizing such a quantity of very expressive ones, as we did by the act of union, to be one of the considerablest advantages we shall reap from it; and I do not question but the nation will be the wiser for the future.

But I have digressed too far, and therefore resume my thread. I know my own unworthiness to deserve your favour, but let this attempt pass on any account for some merit.

In magnis voluisse sat est.

And though all cannot be sprightly like F―d, wise like T- -rs, agreeable like Bth, polite like Pr -de, or, to sum up all, though there be but one phoenix, and one lepidissimus homuncio, T-p-m; yet since a cup of cold water was not an

Those words are crossed over in the original.-N. + The Tatler, conducted under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff.

unacceptable present to a thirsty emperor, I may flatter myself, that this tender of my services (how mean soever) may not be contemned; and though I fall from my great attempt,

Spero trovar pieta non che perdono;

as that mellifluous ornament of Italy, Franciscus Petrarch, sweetly has it.

Mr Crowder I have often heard affirm, and the fine thinkers of all ages have constantly held, that much good may be attained by reading of history. And Dr Sloane is of opinion, that modern travels are very behoveful toward forming the mind, and enlarging the thoughts of the curious part of mankind. Give me leave to speak a little from both these topics.

In the Roman triumphs, which were doubtless the most august spectacles that were ever seen, it was the constant custom, that the public executioner should be behind the conqueror, to remind him (says my author) from time to time, that these honours were transitory, and could not secure him from the severity of the laws.

Col. Morrison of the guards [he lives next door to Tart-Hall] his father was in Virginia, and being like to be starved, the company had recourse to a learned master of arts; his name was Venter: he advised them to eat one another pour passer le tems, and to begin with a fat cook-maid. She had certainly gone to pot, had not a ship arrived just in the nick with a quantity of pork, which appeased their hunger, and saved the wench's bacon.

To apply these: Did you never (when rioting in the costly dainties of my lord-high-admiral's* table,

*Thomas, Earl of Pembroke.-H.

when the polytasted wine excited jovial thoughts, and banished serious reflections) forget your frail mortal condition? Or when, at another time, you have wiped the point of a knife, or perhaps with a little spoon taken some Attic salt out of Mrs F-'s* cadenat; and, as the poet sings,

Qui sedens adversus identidem

Spectat et audit.

Did you not think yourself par Deo? Pray God you did not; pray God you did not think yourself superare divos.

Confess the truth, doctor, you did; confess it, and repent of it, if it be not too late but, alas! I fear it is.

And now, methinks, I look down into that bog all flaming with bonnyclabber, and usquebaugh; and hear you gnashing your teeth and crying, "Oh! what would I give now for a glass of that small beer I used to say was sour! or a pinch of that snuff, which I used to say was the cursed'st stuff in the world; and borrow as much as would lie on a shilling the minute after. Oh! what would I give to have had a monitor in those moments to have put me in mind of the sword hanging by a twine-thread over my head, and to have cried in a voice as loud as Southwell's, Memento, doctor, quia Hibernus es, et in Hiberniam reverteris!"

Every man in the midst of his pleasures should remember the Roman executioner: and I have been assured, that had it not been for the unfortunate loss of his royal highness the prince, † Sir Charles

*Floyd's.

+ Of Denmark, who died Oct. 28, 1708.-H.