larger promises, when he invites people to his dramatic representations, than he is able to perform: but I am credibly informed, that he makes a prophane, lewd jester, whom he calls Punch, speak to the dishonour of Isaac Bickerstaff with great familiarity; and, before all my learned friends in that place, takes upon him to dispute my title to the appellation of esquire. I think I need not say much to convince all the world, that this Mr. Powel, for that is his name, is a pragmatical and vain person, to pretend to argue with me on any subject. Mecum certasse feretur; that is to say, 'It will be an honour to him to have it said he contended with me:' but I would have him to know, that I can look beyond his wires, and know very well the whole trick of his art; and that it is only by these wires that the eye of the spectator is cheated, and hindered from seeing that there is a thread on one of Punch's chops, which draws it up, and lets it fall at the discretion of the said Powel, who stands behind and plays him, and makes him speak saucily of his betters. He! to pretend to make prologues against me!- -But a man never behaves him

self with decency in his own case; therefore I shall command myself, and never trouble me further with this little fellow, who is himself but a tall puppet, and has not brains enough to make even wood speak as it ought to do: and I, that have heard the groaning board', can despise all that his puppets shall be able to speak

8 The answer of Ajax to Ulysses, on their contesting for the arms of Achilles. See Ovid. Metam. lib. xiii. ver. 20. 9 This passage may be explained by the following Advertisement:

tst At the sign of the Wool-sack in Newgate-market, is to be seen a strange and wonderful elm board; which,

as long as they live. But, Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius, 'Every log of wood will not make a Mercury.' He has pretended to write to me also from the Bath", and says, he thought to have deferred giving me an answer until he came to his books; but that my writings might do well with the waters: which are pert expressions, that become a school-boy better than one that is to teach others: and when I have said a civil thing to him, he cries, 'Oh! I thank you for thatI am your humble servant for that"? Ah! Mr. Powel, these smart civilities will never run down men of learning: I know well enough your design is to have all men automata, like your puppets; but the world is grown too wise, and can look through these thin devices. I know your design to make a reply to this; but be sure you stick close to my words; for if

being touched with a hot iron, doth express itself as if it were a man dying with groans, &c. It hath been presented before the king and his nobles, and hath given great satisfaction.'

10 In the bishop of Exeter's answer to Hoadly's letter, 1709, there is this passage, p. 2. 'I have no books here; and, being under these circumstances, I hope I may be excused if, in citing scripture, I should not always name chapter and verse, nor hit exactly upon the very words of the translation.'-Dr. John Hoadly writes thus: As to the Tatlers relating to Powel's puppets, and the doctrines of passive obedience and absolute non-resistance, and to bishop Blackall, I know it gave my father some uneasiness, that there is a reference to a fact, which, as he resolved himself never to take notice of, thinking it ungenerous, so he was sorry to see any friend of the cause had; which is, that the bishop had said inadvertently, he was at Bath, and had not a Bible in his family.'

"The bishop, after quoting a respectful expression of Hoadly, says, 'Your servant, Sir, for that.'

you bring me into discourses concerning the government of your puppets, I must tell you", "I neither am, nor have been, nor will be, at leisure to answer you.' It is really a burning shame this man should. be tolerated in abusing the world with such representations of things: but his parts decay, and he is not much more alive than Partridge 13.

From my own Apartment, July 14.

I MUST beg pardon of my readers, that for this time I have, I fear, huddled up my discourse, having been very busy in helping an old friend of mine out of town. He has a very good estate, and is a man of wit; but he has been three years absent from town, and cannot bear a jest; for which reason I have, with some pains, convinced him, that he can no more live here than if he were a downright bankrupt. He was so fond of dear London, that he began to fret, only inwardly; but being unable to laugh and be laughed at, I took a place in the northern coach for him and his family; and hope he is got to-night safe from all sneerers in his own parlour.

STEELE.

12 The bishop's own words retorted.

13. See No 1, 7, 11, and 45. See also No 50, art. From my own Apartment.

N° 45. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1709.

Credo pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam

In terris

JUV. Sat. vi. 1.

In Saturn's reign, at nature's early birth,
There was that thing called Chastity on earth.'
DRYDEN.

White's Chocolate-house, July 22.

THE other day I took a walk a mile or two out of town, and, strolling wherever chance led me, I was insensibly carried into a by-road, along which was a very agreeable quickset, of an extraordinary height, which surrounded a very delicious seat and garden. From one angle of the hedge I heard a voice cry, Sir, Sir!'—This raised my curiosity, and I heard the same voice say, but in a gentle tone, 'Come forward, come forward!' I did so, and one through the hedge called me by my name, and bid me go on to the left, and I should be admitted to visit an old acquaintance in distress. The laws of knight-errantry made me obey the summons without hesitation; and I was let in at the back-gate of a lovely house by a maid-servant, who carried me from room to room until I came into a gallery; at the end of which I saw a fine lady, dressed in the most sumptuous habit, as if she were going to a ball, but with the most abject and disconsolate sorrow in her face that I ever beheld. As I came near, she burst into tears, and cried, 'Sir, do not you know the unhappy Teraminta'?' I soon re

collected her whole person: 'But,' said I, 'madam, the simplicity of dress, in which I have ever seen you at your good father's house, and the cheerfulness of countenance with which you always appeared, are so unlike the fashion and temper you are now in, that I did not easily recover the memory of you. Your habit was then decent and modest, your looks serene and beautiful: whence then this unaccountable change? Nothing can speak so deep a sorrow as your present aspect; yet your dress is made for jollity and revelling!'—' It is,' said she, an unspeakable pleasure to meet with one I know, and to bewail myself to any that is not an utter stranger to humanity.

• When your friend, my father, died, he left me to a wide world, with no defence against the insults of fortune; but rather a thousand snares to intrap me in the dangers to which youth and innocence are exposed, in an age wherein honour and virtue are become mere words, and used only as they serve to betray those who understand them in their native sense, and obey them as the guides and motives of their being. The wickedest of all men living, the abandoned Decius, who has no knowledge of any good art or purpose of human life, but as it tends to the satisfaction of his appetites, had opportunities of frequently seeing and entertaining me at a house where mixed company boarded, and where he placed himself for the base intention which he has since brought to pass. Decius saw enough in me to raise his brutal desires, and my circumstances gave him hopes of accomplishing them. But all the glittering expectations he could lay before me, joined by my private terrors of poverty itself, could not for some months prevail upon me; yet, however I hated his intention, I still had a secret satisfaction in his courtship, and