“Yours, &c.

“TOBIAH GREENHAT.”

[Footnote 1:  This letter was introduced: 

“From my own Apartment, September 2.

“The following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for the good of my fellow writers to publish it.” [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2:  The Rev. Paul Lorrain was ordinary of Newgate Prison from 1698 until 1719.  He issued the dying speeches and confessions of the condemned criminals in the form of broadsheets.  In these confessions, the penitence of the criminals was most strongly emphasized, hence the term “Lorrain’s saints.”  Lorrain died in 1719. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3:  Isaac Bickerstaff, commenting on the letter in No. 59, printed above, says:  “I have looked over our pedigree upon the receipt of this epistle, and find the Greenhats are a-kin to the Staffs.  They descend from Maudlin, the left-handed wife of Nehemiah Bickerstaff, in the reign of Harry II.” [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4:  See No. 32 ante. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5:  Mrs. Mary de la Riviere Manley, author of “Memoirs of Europe, towards the Close of the Eighth Century” (1710), which she dedicated to Isaac Bickerstaff, and of “Secret Memoirs and Manners ... from the New Atalantis” (1709).  She was associated with Swift in the writing of several pamphlets In support of the Harley Administration, and in his work on “The Examiner” (see vol. v., pp. 41, 118, and 171 of the present edition of Swift’s works).

Epicene is an allusion to Ben Jonson’s comedy, “Epicoene; or, the Silent Woman” (1609).

Mrs. Manley seems to have credited Steele with this attack on her, for she attacked him, in turn, in her “New Atalantis,” and printed, in her dedication to the “Memoirs of Europe,” Steele’s denial of the authorship of this paper.  This did not, however, prevent her making new charges against him.  “The Narrative of Guiscard’s Examination,” “A Comment on Dr. Hare’s Sermon,” and “The Duke of Marlborough’s Vindication,” were written either by herself, or at the suggestion of, and with instructions from, Swift. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 6:  Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob (1683-1756), a niece of the learned Dr. Hickes, issued, in 1709, “An English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory.”  The work was dedicated to Queen Anne.  She was a friend of Mary Granville, afterwards Mrs. Pendarves, and better known as Mrs. Delany. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 7:  An allusion to “Useful Transactions in Philosophy,” etc., January and February, 1708/9, which commenced with an article entitled “An Essay on the Invention of Samplers,” by Mrs. Arabella Manly (sic).  She had a friend, Mrs. Betty Clavel. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 66.

FROM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 8.  TO SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10. 1709.

Wills Coffee-house, September 9.