to another, is what makes a whole City to an unprejudiced Eye a Den of Thieves.  It was no small pleasure to me for this reason to remark, as I passed by Cornhill, that the Shop of that worthy, honest, tho’ lately unfortunate, Citizen, Mr. John Moreton, [2] so well known in the Linnen Trade, is fitting up a-new.  Since a Man has been in a distressed Condition, it ought to be a great Satisfaction to have passed thro’ it in such a Manner as not to have lost the Friendship of those who suffered with him, but to receive an honourable Acknowledgment of his Honesty from those very Persons to whom the Law had consigned his Estate.

The Misfortune of this Citizen is like to prove of a very general Advantage to those who shall deal with him hereafter:  For the Stock with which he now sets up being the Loan of his Friends, he cannot expose that to the Hazard of giving Credit, but enters into a Ready-Money Trade, by which Means he will both buy and sell the best and cheapest.  He imposes upon himself a Rule of affixing the Value of each Piece he sells to the Piece it self; so that the most ignorant Servant or Child will be as good a Buyer at his Shop as the most skilful in the Trade.  For all which, you have all his Hopes and Fortune for your Security.  To encourage Dealing after this Way, there is not only the avoiding the most infamous Guilt in ordinary Bartering; but this Observation, That he who buys with ready Money saves as much to his Family, as the State exacts out of his Land for the Security and Service of his Country; that is to say, in plain English, Sixteen will do as much as Twenty Shillings.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

’My Heart is so swelled with grateful Sentiments on account of some Favours which I have lately received, that I must beg leave to give them Utterance amongst the Croud of other anonymous Correspondents; and writing, I hope, will be as great a Relief to my forced Silence, as it is to your natural Taciturnity—­My generous Benefactor will not suffer me to speak to him in any Terms of Acknowledgment, but ever treats me as if he had the greatest Obligations, and uses me with a Distinction that is not to be expected from one so much my Superiour in Fortune, Years, and Understanding.  He insinuates, as if I had a certain Right to his Favours from some Merit, which his particular Indulgence to me has discovered but that is only a beautiful Artifice to lessen the Pain an honest Mind feels in receiving Obligations, when there is no probability of returning them.

’A gift is doubled when accompanied with such a Delicacy of Address; but what to me gives it an inexpressible Value, is its coming from the Man I most esteem in the World.  It pleases me indeed, as it is an Advantage and Addition to my Fortune; but when I consider it is an Instance of that good Man’s Friendship, it overjoys, it transports me; I look on it with a Lover’s Eye, and no longer regard the Gift, but the Hand