concerns us in the Poetical World, to make you my judge whether I am not injured in the highest manner! for with men of your taste and delicacy, it is a high crime and misdemeanour to be guilty of anything that is disingenuous.  But I will go into my matter.

Upon my return from Scotland, I visited Mr. TONSON’s shop, and thanked him for his care in sending to my house, the Volumes of my dear and honoured friend Mr. ADDISON; which are, at last, published by his Secretary, Mr. TICKELL:  but took occasion to observe, that I had not seen the Work before it came out; which he did not think fit to excuse any otherwise than by a recrimination, that I had put into his hands, at a high price, a Comedy called The Drummer; which, by my zeal for it, he took to be written by Mr. ADDISON, and of which, after his [ADDISON’s] death, he said, I directly acknowleged he was the author.

    To urge this hardship still more home, he produced a receipt under
    my hand, in these words—­

    March 12, 1715 [-16].

    Received then, the sum of Fifty Guineas for the Copy [copyright]
    of the Comedy called, The Drummer or the Haunted House. I say,
    received by order of the Author of the said Comedy,

    RICHARD STEELE.

and added, at the same time, that since Mr. TICKELL had not thought fit to make that play a part of Mr. ADDISON’s Works; he would sell the Copy to any bookseller that would give most for it [i.e., TONSON threw the onus of the authenticity of the Drummer on STEELE].

This is represented thus circumstantially, to shew how incumbent it is upon me, as well in justice to the bookseller, as for many other considerations, to produce this Comedy a second time [It was first printed in 1716]; and take this occasion to vindicate myself against certain insinuations thrown out by the Publisher [THOMAS TICKELL] of Mr. ADDISON’s Writings, concerning my behaviour in the nicest circumstance—­that of doing justice to the Merit of my Friend.

I shall take the liberty, before I have ended this Letter, to say why I believe the Drummer a performance of Mr. ADDISON:  and after I have declared this, any surviving writer may be at ease; if there be any one who has hitherto been vain enough to hope, or silly enough to fear, it may be given to himself.

Before I go any further, I must make my Public Appeal to you and all the Learned World, and humbly demand, Whether it was a decent and reasonable thing, that Works written, as a great part of Mr. ADDISON’s were, in correspondence [coadjutorship] with me, ought to have been published without my review of the Catalogue of them; or if there were any exception to be made against any circumstance in my conduct, Whether an opportunity to explain myself should not have been allowed me, before any Reflections were made on me in print.