fortune, and able by his countenance to retrieve his loft condition.

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SIR,

IT is in vain to multiply words and make apologies for what is never to be defended by the best advocate in the world, the guilt of being unfortunate. All that a man in my condition can do or fay, will be received with prejudice by the generality of mankind, but I hope not with you: you have been a great inftrument in helping me to get what I have loft, and I know for that reafon, as well as kindness to me, you cannot but be in pain to fee me undone. To fhew you I am not a man incapable of bearing calamity, I will, though a poor man, lay afide the diftinction between us, and talk with the franknefs we did when we were nearer to an equality: as all I do wil be received with prejudice, all you do will be looked upon with partiality. What I defire of you is, that you, who are courted by all, would fmile upon me, who am 'fhunned by all. Let that grace and favour which your fortune throws upon you, be turned to make up the coldness and indifference that is used towards me. All good and generous nien vill have an eye of kindnefs for me for my own fake, and the rest of the world will regard me for yours. There is a happy contagion in riches, as well as a deftructive one in poverty: the rich can make rich without parting with any of their ftore, and the converfation of the poor makes men poor, though they borrow nothing of them. How this is to be accounted for I know not; but mens eftimation follows us according to the company we keep. If you are what you were to me, you can go a great way towards my recovery; if you are not, my good fortune, if ever it returns, will return by flower ap⚫proaches.

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6

This was anfwered with a condefcenfion that did not by long impertinent profeffions of kindness, infult his diftrefs, but was as follows.

"Dear Tom,

"I AM very glad to hear that you have heart enough to begin the world a fecond time. I affure you, I "do not think your numerous family at all diminished, "in the gifts of nature for which I have ever fo much "admired them, by what has fo lately happened to you. "I fhall not only countenance your affairs with my appearance for you, but fhall accommodate you with a "confiderable fum at common intereft for three years. "You know I could make more of it; but I have fo great a love for you, that I can wave opportunities "of gain to help you; for I do not care whether they fay of me after I am dead, that I had an hundred or fifty thousand pounds more than I wanted when I was living.

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T.

"Your obliged humble fervant."

N° 457

Thursday, August 14.

-Multa & præclara minantis.

HOR. Sat. 3. 1. 2. v. 9.

Seeming to promife fomething wondrous great.

I SHA

SHALL this day lay before my reader a letter written by the fame hand with that of laft Friday, which contained propofals for a printed news-paper that should take in the whole circle of the penny-pott.

SIR,

THE kind reception you gave my laft Friday's letter, in which I broached my project of a news-paper, encourages me to lay before you two or three more; < for you must know, fir, that we look upon you to be

the Lowndes of the learned world, and cannot think any fcheme practicable or rational before you have approved of it, though all the money we "raife by it "is on our own funds, and for our private use."

I have often thought that a News-letter of Whispers, written every poft, and fent about the kingdom, after the fame manner as that of Mr. Dyer, Mr. Dawkes, or any other epiflolary hiftorian, might be highly gratifying to the public, as well as beneficial to the author: By whispers. I mean thofe pieces of news which are communicated as fecrets, and which bring a double plea fure to the hearer; first, as they are private history, and in the next place, as they have always in them a dash' of fcandal. Thefe are the two chief qualifications in an article of news, which recommend it, in a more than ordinary manner, to the ears of the curious. Sicknefs of perfons in high pofts, twilight vifits paid and received by minifters of ftate, clandeftine courtships and marriages, fecret amours, loffes at play, applications for places, with their refpective fucceffes or repulfes, are the materials in which I chiefly intend to deal. Í have two perfons, that are each of them the reprefentative of a fpecies, who are to furnish me with those whispers which intend to convey to my correfpond• ents. The first of these is Peter Hufh, defcended from the ancient family of the Hushes: the other is the old lady Blaft, who has a very numerous tribe of daugh⚫ters in the two great cities of London and Westminster. • Peter Hush has a whispering hole in moft of the great coffee-houses about town. If you are alone with him in a wide room, he carries you up into a corner of it, and speaks it in your ear. I have feen Peter feat himself in a company of feven or eight perfons, whom he never faw before in his life; and after having looked aboutto fee there was no one that over-heard him, has.com. municated to them in a low voice, and under the feal of fecrecy, the death of a great man in the country, who was perhaps a fox-hunting the very moment this account was given of him. If upon your entering into a coffee houfe you fee a circle of heads bending over the table, and lying clofe by one another, it is ten to my friend Peter is among them I have known

one but

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Peter publishing the whisper of the day by eight of the 'clock in the morning at Garraway's, by twelve at Will's, and before two at Smyrna. When Peter had thus effectually launched a fecret, I have been very 'well pleased to hear people whispering it to one another at fecond-hand, and spreading it about as their 6 own; for you must know, fir, the great incentive to whispering is the ambition which every one has of being thought in the fecret, and being looked upon as 1 a man who has accefs to greater people than one would imagine. After having given you this account ' of Peter Huth, I proceed to that virtuous lady, the old lady Blaft, who is to communicate to me the private tranfactions of the crimp-table, with all the arcana of the fair fex. The lady Blaft, you must understand has fuch a particular malignity in her whisper, that it blights like an easterly wind, and withers every repu tation that it breathes upon. She has a particular knack at making private weddings, and laft winter • married above five women of quality to their footmen. Her whisper can make an innocent young woman big with child, or fill an healthy young fellow with dittempers that are not to be named. She can turn a visit into an intrigue, and a distant falute into an affignation. She can beggar the wealthy, and degrade the noble. In fhort, the can whifper nien bafe or foolish, jealous or ill-natured, or, if occafion requires, can tell you the flips of their great grandmothers, and traduce the memory of honeft coachmen that have been in their graves above thefe hundred years. By thefe and the like helps, I queftion not but I fhall furnish out a very handfome news-letter. If you approve my project, I fhall begin to whifper by the very next poft, and quef⚫tion not but every one of my customers will be very 'well pleased with me, when he confiders that every piece of news I send him is a word in his ear, and lets him into a fecret.

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Having given you a fketch of this project, I fhall, in the next place, fuggeft to you another for a monthly pamphlet, which I hall likewife fubmit to your spectatorial wisdom. I need not tell you, fir, that there are feveral authors in France, Germany, and Holland, as VOL. VI. L

66

well as in our own country, who publish every month, what they call, "An Account of the Works of the "Learned," in which they give us an abstract of all fuch books as are printed in any part of Europe. Now, fir, it is my defign to publish every month, An Ac"count of the Works of the Unlearned." Several late productions of my own countrymen, who many of them make a very eminent figure in the illiterate world, encourage me in this undertaking. I may, in this work, poffibly make a review of feveral pieces which have appeared in the foreign accounts above-mentioned, though they ought not to have been taken notice of in works which bear fuch a title. I may, likewife, take. into confideration fuch pieces as appear, from time to time, under the names of thofe gentlemen who compliment one another in public affemblies, by the title of "The Learned Gentlemen." Our party-authors will alfo afford me a great variety of fubjects, not to ' mention editors, commentators, and others, who are often men of no learning, or what is as bad, of no knowledge. I fhall not enlarge upon this hint; but if you think any thing can be made of it, I fhall fet about it with all the pains and application that so useful a work deferves. I am ever,

C.

Moft worthy Sir, &c."

N° 458.

Friday, August 15.

I

*Αίδως ἐκ ἀγάπη.

-Pudor malus

Falle modefty.

HES.

HOR.

COULD not but fmile at the account that was yesterday given me of a modeft young gentleman, who being invited to an entertainment, though he was not ufed to drink, had not the confidence to refuse his glafs in his turn, when on a fudden he grew fo flustered that