But tho’ there is so little Care, as I have observed, taken, or Observation made of the natural Strain of Men, it is no small Comfort to me, as a SPECTATOR, that there is any right Value set upon the bona Indoles of other Animals; as appears by the following Advertisement handed about the County of Lincoln , and subscribed by Enos Thomas, a Person whom I have not the Honour to know, but suppose to be profoundly learned in Horse-flesh.

A Chesnut Horse called Caesar, bred by James Darcy, Esq., at Sedbury, near Richmond in the County of York; his Grandam was his old royal Mare, and got by Blunderbuss, which was got by Hemsly Turk, and he got Mr. Courand’s Arabian, which got Mr. Minshul’s Jews-trump. Mr. Caesar sold him to a Nobleman (coming five Years old, when he had but one Sweat) for three hundred Guineas.  A Guinea a Leap and Trial, and a Shilling the Man.

   T. Enos Thomas.

 [Footnote 1:  Epist. 95.]

* * * * *

 No. 158.  Friday, August 31, 1711.  Steele.

      ‘Nos hoec novimus esse nihil.’

      Martial.

Out of a firm Regard to Impartiality, I print these Letters, let them make for me or not.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

I have observed through the whole Course of your Rhapsodies, (as you once very well called them) you are very industrious to overthrow all that many your Superiors who have gone before you have made their Rule of writing.  I am now between fifty and sixty, and had the Honour to be well with the first Men of Taste and Gallantry in the joyous Reign of Charles the Second:  We then had, I humbly presume, as good Understandings among us as any now can pretend to.  As for yourself, Mr.  SPECTATOR, you seem with the utmost Arrogance to undermine the very Fundamentals upon which we conducted our selves.  It is monstrous to set up for a Man of Wit, and yet deny that Honour in a Woman is any thing else but Peevishness, that Inclination [is [1]] the best Rule of Life, or Virtue and Vice any thing else but Health and Disease.  We had no more to do but to put a Lady into good Humour, and all we could wish followed of Course.  Then again, your Tully, and your Discourses of another Life, are the very Bane of Mirth and good Humour.  Pr’ythee don’t value thyself on thy Reason at that exorbitant Rate, and the Dignity of human Nature; take my Word for it, a Setting-dog has as good Reason as any Man in England.  Had you (as by your Diurnals one would think you do) set up for being in vogue in Town, you should have fallen in with the Bent of Passion and Appetite; your Songs had then been in every pretty Mouth in England, and your little Distichs had been the Maxims of the Fair and the Witty to walk by:  But alas, Sir, what can you hope for from entertaining