Imatges de pàgina
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fashion with parents (how justly I leave you to judge) to make all regards give way to the article of wealth. From this one consideration it is, that I have concealed the ardent love I have for her; but I am beholden to the force of my love for many advantages which I reaped from it towards the better conduct of my life. A certain complacency to all the world, a strong desire to oblige wherever it lay in my power, and a circumspect behaviour in all my words and actions, have rendered me more particularly acceptable to all my friends and acquaintance. Love has had the same good effect upon my fortune, and I have increased in riches, in proportion to my advancement in those arts, which make a man agreeable and amiable. There is a certain sympathy which will tell my mistress from these circumstances, that it is I who writ this for her reading, if you will please to insert it. There is not a downright enmity, but a great coldness between our parents; so that if either of us declared any kind sentiments for each other, her friends would be very backward to lay an obligation upon our family, and mine to receive it from hers. Under these delicate circumstances it is no easy matter to act with safety. I have no reason to fancy my mistress has any regard for me, but from a very disinterested value which I have for her. If from any hint in any future paper of yours she gives me the least encouragement, I doubt not but I shall surmount all other difficulties; and inspired by so noble a motive for the care of my fortune, as the belief she is to be concerned in it, I will not despair of receiving her one day from her father's own hand.

I am, SIR,

Your most obedient ·

humble servant,

CLYTANDER."

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'TO HIS WORSHIP THE SPECTATOR.

'The humble petition of Anthony Titlepage, sta ́tioner, in the centre of Lincoln's-inn-fields,

SHEWETH,

THAT your petitioner, and his forefathers, have been sellers of books for time immemorial: that your petitioner's ancestor, Crouch-back Titlepage, was the first of that vocation in Britain; who keeping his station (in fair weather) at the corner of Lothbury, was, by way of eminency, called "The Stationer," a name which from him all succeeding booksellers have affected to bear: that the station of your petitioner and his father has been in the place of his present settlement ever since that square has been built that your petitioner has formerly had the honour of your worship's custom, and hopes you never had reason to complain of your penny-worths: that particularly he sold you your first Lilly's Grammar, and at the same time a Wit's Commonwealth, almost as good as new: moreover, that your first rudimental essays in spectatorship, were made in your petitioner's shop, where you often practised for hours together, sometimes on the little hieroglyphics either gilt, silvered, or plain, which the Egyptian woman on the other side of the shop had wrought in gingerbread, and sometimes on the English youths who in sundry places there were exercising themselves in the traditional sports of the field.

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From these considerations it is, that your petitioner is encouraged to apply himself to you, and to proceed humbly to acquaint your worship, that he has certain intelligence that you receive great numbers of defamatory letters designed by their authors to be published, which you throw aside and

totally neglect: Your petitioner therefore prays, that you will please to bestow on him those refuse letters, and he hopes by printing them to get a more plentiful provision for his family; or, at the worst, he may be allowed to sell them by the pound weight to his good customers the pastry-cooks of London and Westminster.

'And your petitioner shall ever pray, &c.'

'TO THE SPECTATOR.

"The humble petition of Bartholomew Ladylove, of Round-court, in the parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, in behalf of himself and neighbours,

SHEWETH,

THAT your petitioners have, with great industry and application, arrived at the most exact art of invitation or entreaty: that by a beseeching air and persuasive address, they have for many years last past peaceably drawn in every tenth passenger, whether they intended or not to call at their shops, to come in and buy; and from that softness of beliaviour have arrived, among tradesmen, at the gentle appellation of "The Fawners."

That there have of late set up amongst us certain persons from Monmouth-street and Long-lane, who by the strength of their arms, and loudness of their throats, draw off the regard of all passengers from your said petitioners; from which violence they are distinguished by the name of "The Worriers."

That while your petitioners stand ready to receive passengers with a submissive bow, and repeat with a gentle voice, "Ladies, what do you want? pray look in here;" the worriers reach out their hands at pistol-shot, and seize the customers at arms length.

That while the fawners strain and relax the muscles of their faces, in making distinction between a spinster in a coloured scarf and an handmaid in a straw hat, the worriers use the same roughness to both, and prevail upon the easiness of the passengers, to the impoverishment of your petitioners.

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Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that the worriers may not be permitted to inhabit the politer parts of the town; and that Round-court may remain a receptacle for buyers of a more soft education.

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** The petition of the New-Exchange, concerning the arts of buying and selling, and particularly valuing goods by the complexion of the seller, will be considered on another occasion.

T.

1711-12.

N° 305. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1711-12.

Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget

These times want other aids.

VIRG. En. ii. 521.

DRYDEN.

OUR late news-papers being full of the project now on foot in the court of France, for establishing a political academy, and I myself having received letters from several virtuosos among my foreign correspondents, which give some light into that affair, I intend to make it the subject of this day's speculation. A general account of this project may be met with

in the Daily Courant of last Friday in the following words, translated from the Gazette of Amsterdam.

Paris, February 12. It is confirmed that the king has resolved to establish a new academy for politics, of which the Marquis de Torcy, minister and secretary of state, is to be protector. Six academicians are to be chosen, endowed with proper talents, for beginning to form this academy, into which no person is to be admitted under twentyfive years of age; they must likewise have each an estate of two thousand livres a year, either in possession, or to come to them by inheritance. The king will allow to each a pension of a thousand livres. They are likewise to have able masters to teach them the necessary sciences, and to instruct them in all the treaties of peace, alliance, and others, which have been made in several ages past. These members are to meet twice a week at the Louvre. From this seminary are to be chosen secretaries to embassies, who by degrees may advance to higher employments.'

Cardinal Richelieu's politics made France the terror of Europe. The statesmen who have appeared in that nation of late years have, on the contrary, rendered it either the pity or contempt of its neighbours. The cardinal erected that famous academy which has carried all the parts of polite learning to the greatest height. His chief design in that institution was to divert the men of genius from meddling with politics, a province in which he did not care to have any one else interfere with him. On the contrary, the Marquis de Torcy seems resolved to make several young men in France as wise as himself, and is therefore taken up at present in establishing a nursery of statesmen.

Some private letters add, that there will also be erected a seminary of petticoat politicians, who are

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