(with great Respect)

  Your most obedient humble Servant,_ T. W.

The other Lover’s Estate is less than this Gentleman’s, but he express’d himself as follows.

  Madam,

I have given in my Estate to your Counsel, [3] and desired my own Lawyer to insist upon no Terms which your Friends can propose for your certain Ease and Advantage:  For indeed I have no notion of making Difficulties of presenting you with what cannot make me happy without you.

  I am, Madam,

  Your most devoted humble Servant,_ B. T.

You must know the Relations have met upon this, and the Girl being mightily taken with the latter Epistle, she is laugh’d out, and Uncle Edward is to be dealt with to make her a suitable Match to the worthy Gentleman who has told her he does not care a farthing for her.  All I hope for is, that the Lady Fair will make use of the first light Night to show B.  T. she understands a Marriage is not to be considered as a common Bargain.

T.

[Footnote 1:  [an] and in first reprint.]

[Footnote 2:  Spelt Council in the first issue and first reprint.]

[Footnote 3:  Spelt Council in the first issue and first reprint.]

* * * * *

No. 523.  Thursday, October 30, 1712.  Addison.

’—­Nunc augur Apollo, Nunc Lyciae sortes, nunc et Jove missus ab ipso Interpres Divum fert horrida jussa per auras.  Scilicet is superis labor—­’

  Virg.

I am always highly delighted with the discovery of any rising Genius among my Countrymen.  For this reason I have read over, with great pleasure, the late Miscellany published by Mr. Pope, [1] in which there are many excellent Compositions of that ingenious Gentleman.  I have had a pleasure of the same kind, in perusing a Poem that is just publish’d on the Prospect of Peace, and which, I hope, will meet with such a Reward from its Patrons, as so noble a Performance deserves.  I was particularly well pleased to find that the Author had not amused himself with Fables out of the Pagan Theology, and that when he hints at any thing of [this [2]] nature, he alludes to it only as to a Fable.

Many of our Modern Authors, whose Learning very often extends no farther than Ovid’s Metamorphosis, do not know how to celebrate a Great Man, without mixing a parcel of School-Boy Tales with the Recital of his Actions.  If you read a Poem on a fine Woman, among the Authors of this Class, you shall see that it turns more upon Venus or Helen, that on the Party concerned.  I have known a Copy of Verses on a great Hero highly commended; but upon asking to hear some of the beautiful Passages, the Admirer of it has repeated to me a Speech of Apollo, or a Description of Polypheme.  At other times when I have search’d for the Actions of