You have given us in your Spectator of Saturday last, a very excellent Discourse upon the Force of Custom, and its wonderful Efficacy in making every thing pleasant to us.  I cannot deny but that I received above Two penny-worth of Instruction from your Paper, and in the general was very well pleased with it; but I am, without a Compliment, sincerely troubled that I cannot exactly be of your Opinion, That it makes every thing pleasing to us.  In short, I have the Honour to be yoked to a young Lady, who is, in plain English, for her Standing, a very eminent Scold.  She began to break her Mind very freely both to me and to her Servants about two Months after our Nuptials; and tho’ I have been accustomed to this Humour of hers this three Years, yet, I do not know what’s the Matter with me, but I am no more delighted with it than I was at the very first.  I have advised with her Relations about her, and they all tell me that her Mother and her Grandmother before her were both taken much after the same Manner; so that since it runs in the Blood, I have but small Hopes of her Recovery.  I should be glad to have a little of your Advice in this Matter:  I would not willingly trouble you to contrive how it may be a Pleasure to me; if you will but put me in a Way that I may bear it with Indifference, I shall rest satisfied.

  Dear SPEC,

  Your very humble Servant.

P. S. I must do the poor Girl the Justice to let you know, that this Match was none of her own chusing, (or indeed of mine either;) in Consideration of which I avoid giving her the least Provocation; and indeed we live better together than usually Folks do who hated one another when they were first joined:  To evade the Sin against Parents, or at least to extenuate it, my Dear rails at my Father and Mother, and I curse hers for making the Match.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

I like the Theme you lately gave out extremely, and should be as glad to handle it as any Man living:  But I find myself no better qualified to write about Money, than about my Wife; for, to tell you a Secret which I desire may go no further, I am Master of neither of those Subjects.

  Yours,

  Pill Garlick.

  Aug. 8, 1712.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

I desire you would print this in Italick, so as it may be generally taken Notice of.  It is designed only to admonish all Persons, who speak either at the Bar, Pulpit, or any publick Assembly whatsoever, how they discover their Ignorance in the Use of Similes.  There are in the Pulpit it self, as well as other Places, such gross Abuses in this Kind, that I give this Warning to all I know, I shall bring them for the Future before your Spectatorial Authority.  On Sunday last, one, who shall be nameless, reproving several of his Congregation for standing at Prayers, was pleased to say, One would think, like the Elephant, you had no Knees.  Now I my self saw an Elephant in Bartholomew-Fair kneel down to take on his Back the ingenious Mr. William Penkethman.

  Your most humble Servant.