Globe in Moorfields, Sept. 16.

HONOURED SIR,

"I have now finished my almanack for the next year, in all the parts of it, except that which concerns the weather; and you having shown yourself, by some of your late works, more weatherwise than any of our astrologers, I most humbly presume to trouble you upon this head. You know very well, that in our ordinary almanacks the wind and rain, snow and hail, clouds and sunshine, have their proper seasons, and come up as regularly in their several months as the fruits and plants of the earth. As for my own part, I freely own to you, that I generally steal my weather out of some antiquated almanac, that foretold it several years ago. Now, Sir, what I humbly beg of you is, that you would lend me your State weather-glass, in order to fill up this vacant column in my works. This, I know, would sell my almanack beyond any other, and make me a richer man than Poor Robin. If you will not grant me this favour, I must have recourse to my old method, and will copy after an old almanack which I have by me, and which I think was for the year when the great storm was.

I am, Sir,

The most humble of your admirers. T. PHILOMATH.' This gentleman does not consider, what a strange appearance his almanack would make to the ignorant, should he transpose his weather, as he must do, did he follow the dictates of my glass. What would the world say to see summers filled with clouds and storms, and winters with calms and sunshine; according to the variations of the weather, as they might accidentally appear in a State-baro

meter? But let that be as it will, I shall apply my own invention to my own use; and if I do not make my fortune by it, it will be my own fault.

The next letter comes to me from another selfinterested solicitor.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"I am going to set up for a Scrivener, and have thought of a project which may turn both to your account and mine. It came into my head, upon reading that learned and useful paper of yours concerning advertisements. You must understand, I have made myself master in the whole art of advertising, both as to the style and the letter.

Now

if you and I could so manage it, that nobody should write advertisements besides myself, or print them any where but in your paper, we might both of us get estates in a little time. For this end I would likewise propose, that you should enlarge the design of advertisements, and have sent you two or three samples of my work in this kind, which I have made for particular friends, and intend to open shop with. The first is for a gentleman, who would willingly marry, if he could find a wife to his liking; the second is for a poor whig, who is lately turned out of his post; and the third for a person of a contrary party, who is willing to get into one."

"Whereas A. B. next door to the Pestle and Mortar, being about 30 years old, of a spare make, with dark-coloured hair, bright eye, and a long nose, has occasion for a good-humoured, tall, fair, young woman, of about 3000l. fortune: these are to give notice, that if any such young woman has a mind to dispose of herself in marriage to such a person as the abovementioned, she may be pro

vided with a husband, a coach and horses, and 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 feet high, of a black complexion, and sound principles, wants an employ. He is an excellent penman and accomptant, and speaks French."

N° 229. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1710.

Quæsitam meritis sume superbiam.

HOR. 3 Od. xxx. 13

With conscious pride

Assume the honours justly thine.

FRANCIS.

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 trom place to place, and revenge our quarrels upon him. A very ordinary microscope shews 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 that 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 woo! in his mouth, and keeps his body under water until the vermin 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 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.

The same so sore annoyed has the Knight,

That, well nigh choaked 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 encumbred sore, but could not hurt at all.
As gentle shepherd in sweet even tide,
When ruddy Phoebus gins to welk in west,
High on an hill, his flock to viewen wide,
Marks which do bite their hasty supper best;
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him molest,
All st iving 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.

If ever I should want such a fry of little authors to attend me, I shall think my paper in a very decaying 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 con