It need not be explained that it is here intimated, that I had not sufficiently acknowledged what was due to Mr. ADDISON in these Writings.  I shall make a full Answer to what seems intended by the words, He was too delicate to take any part of that which belonged to others; if I can recite out of my own Papers, anything that may make it appear groundless.

The subsequent [following] encomiums bestowed by me on Mr. ADDISON will, I hope, be of service to me in this particular.

But I have only one Gentleman, who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me:  which indeed it would have been barbarous in him, to have denied in one with whom he has lived in an intimacy from childhood; considering the great Ease with which he is able to despatch the most entertaining Pieces of this nature.  This good office he performed with such force of Genius, Humour, Wit, and Learning, that I fared like a distressed Prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary!  When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.

The same Hand wrote the distinguishing Characters of Men and Women under the names of Musical Instruments, the Distress of the News-Writers, the Inventory of the Play House, and the Description of the Thermometer; which I cannot but look upon, as the greatest embellishments of this Work.  Pref. to the 4th Vol. of the Tatlers.

As to the Work itself, the acceptance it has met with is the best proof of its value:  but I should err against that candour which an honest man should always carry about him, if I did not own that the most approved Pieces in it were written by others; and those, which have been most excepted against by myself.  The Hand that has assisted me in those noble Discourses upon the Immortality of the Soul, the Glorious Prospects of another Life, and the most sublime ideas of Religion and Virtue, is a person, who is too fondly my friend ever to own them:  but I should little deserve to be his, if I usurped the glory of them.  I must acknowledge, at the same time, that I think the finest strokes of Wit and Humour in all Mr.  BICKERSTAFF’s Lucubrations, are those for which he is also beholden to him.  Tatler, No. 271.

I hope the Apology I have made as to the license allowable to a feigned Character may excuse anything which has been said in these Discourses of the Spectator and his Works.  But the imputation of the grossest vanity would still dwell upon me, if I did not give some account by what means I was enabled to keep up the Spirit of so long and approved a performance.  All the Papers marked with a C, L, I, or O—­that is to say, all the Papers which I have distinguished by any letter in the name of the Muse CLIO—­were given me by the Gentleman, of whose assistance I formerly boasted in the Preface and concluding Leaf of the Tatler. I am indeed much more proud of his long-continued friendship, than I should be of the fame of being thought the Author of any Writings which he himself is capable of producing.