[Footnote 4:  [Not being yet determined with whose Name to fill up the Gap in this Dissertation which is marked with——­, I shall defer it till this Paper appears with others in a Volume.  L.]]

* * * * *

No. 362.  Friday, April 25, 1712.  Steele.

  Laudibus arguitur Vini vinosus—­

  Hor.

  Temple, Apr. 24.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

Several of my Friends were this Morning got together over a Dish of Tea in very good Health, though we had celebrated Yesterday with more Glasses than we could have dispensed with, had we not been beholden to Brooke and Hillier.  In Gratitude therefore to those good Citizens, I am, in the Name of the Company, to accuse you of great Negligence in overlooking their Merit, who have imported true and generous Wine, and taken care that it should not be adulterated by the Retailers before it comes to the Tables of private Families, or the Clubs of honest Fellows.  I cannot imagine how a SPECTATOR can be supposed to do his Duty, without frequent Resumption of such Subjects as concern our Health, the first thing to be regarded, if we have a mind to relish anything else.  It would therefore very well become your Spectatorial Vigilance, to give it in Orders to your Officer for inspecting Signs, that in his March he would look into the Itinerants who deal in Provisions, and enquire where they buy their several Wares.  Ever since the Decease of [Cully [1]]- Mully-Puff [2] of agreeable and noisy Memory, I cannot say I have observed any thing sold in Carts, or carried by Horse or Ass, or in fine, in any moving Market, which is not perished or putrified; witness the Wheel-barrows of rotten Raisins, Almonds, Figs, and Currants, which you see vended by a Merchant dressed in a second-hand Suit of a Foot Soldier.  You should consider that a Child may be poisoned for the Worth of a Farthing; but except his poor Parents send to one certain Doctor in Town, [3] they can have no advice for him under a Guinea.  When Poisons are thus cheap, and Medicines thus dear, how can you be negligent in inspecting what we eat and drink, or take no Notice of such as the above-mentioned Citizens, who have been so serviceable to us of late in that particular?  It was a Custom among the old Romans, to do him particular Honours who had saved the Life of a Citizen, how much more does the World owe to those who prevent the Death of Multitudes?  As these Men deserve well of your Office, so such as act to the Detriment of our Health, you ought to represent to themselves and their Fellow-Subjects in the Colours which they deserve to wear.  I think it would be for the publick Good, that all who vend Wines should be under oaths in that behalf.  The Chairman at a Quarter Sessions should inform the Country, that the Vintner who mixes Wine to his Customers, shall (upon proof that the Drinker thereof died within a Year and a Day after taking it) be deemed