almost compleated my Design, and shall be ready in a short Time to furnish the Publick with what Number of these Instruments they please, either to lodge at Coffee-houses, or carry for their own private Use.  In the mean time I shall pay that Respect to several Gentlemen, who I know will be in Danger of offending against this Instrument, to give them notice of it by private Letters, in which I shall only write, Get a Licinius.

I should now trouble you no longer, but that I must not conclude without desiring you to accept one of these Pipes, which shall be left for you with Buckley; and which I hope will be serviceable to you, since as you are silent yourself you are most open to the Insults of the Noisy.

  I am, SIR, &c.

  W.B.

I had almost forgot to inform you, that as an Improvement in this Instrument, there will be a particular Note, which I call a Hush-Note; and this is to be made use of against a long Story, Swearing, Obsceneness, and the like.

* * * * *

No. 229.  Thursday, Nov. 22, 1711.  Addison.

 —­Spirat adhuc amor,
  Vivuntque commissi calores
  AEoliae fidibus puellae.

  Hor.

Among the many famous Pieces of Antiquity which are still to be seen at Rome, there is the Trunk of a Statue [1] which has lost the Arms, Legs, and Head; but discovers such an exquisite Workmanship in what remains of it, that Michael Angelo declared he had learned his whole Art from it.  Indeed he studied it so attentively, that he made most of his Statues, and even his Pictures in that Gusto, to make use of the Italian Phrase; for which Reason this maimed Statue is still called Michael Angelo’s School.

A Fragment of Sappho, which I design for the Subject of this Paper, [2] is in as great Reputation among the Poets and Criticks, as the mutilated Figure above-mentioned is among the Statuaries and Painters.  Several of our Countrymen, and Mr. Dryden in particular, seem very often to have copied after it in their Dramatick Writings; and in their Poems upon Love.

Whatever might have been the Occasion of this Ode, the English Reader will enter into the Beauties of it, if he supposes it to have been written in the Person of a Lover sitting by his Mistress.  I shall set to View three different Copies of this beautiful Original:  The first is a Translation by Catullus, the second by Monsieur Boileau, and the last by a Gentleman whose Translation of the Hymn to Venus has been so deservedly admired.

  Ad LESBIAM.

  Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
  Ille, si fas est, superare divos,
  Qui sedens adversus identidem te,
       Spectat, et audit.

  Dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis
  Eripit sensus mihi:  nam simul te,
  Lesbia, adspexi, nihil est super mi_
       Quod loquar amens.