“That your said poor petitioners, did humbly offer your Honours to write in defence of the late change of ministry and Parliament, much cheaper than they did for your predecessors, which your Honours were pleased to refuse.

“Notwithstanding which offer, your petitioners are under daily apprehension, that your Honours will forbid them to follow the said trade any longer; by which your petitioners, to the number of fourscore, with their wives and families, will inevitably starve, having been bound to no other calling._

“Your petitioners desire your Honours will tenderly consider the premisses, and suffer your said petitioners to continue their trade (those who set them at work, being still willing to employ them, though at lower rates) and your said petitioners will give security to make use of the same stuff, and dress it in the same manner, as they always did, and no other. And your petitioners” &c.

[Footnote 1:  No. 45 in the reprint. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2:  In his “Journal to Stella,” under date June 22nd, 1711, Swift writes:  “Yesterday’s was a sad ‘Examiner,’ and last week was very indifferent, though, some little scraps of the old spirit, as if he had given some hints; but yesterday’s is all trash.  It is plain the hand is changed.” (vol. ii., p, 195).

On November 2nd he gives the following account:  “I have sent to Leigh the set of ‘Examiners’; the first thirteen were written by several hands; some good, some bad; the next three-and-thirty were all by one hand, that makes forty-six:  then that author, whoever he was, laid it down on purpose to confound guessers; and the last six were written by a woman” (vol. ii., p. 273). [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3:  Horace, “Satires,” II. i. 45.  “‘Better not touch me, friend,’ I loud exclaim.”—­P.  FRANCIS. [T.S.]]

CONTRIBUTION TO “THE SPECTATOR.”

NOTE.

“THE SPECTATOR,” projected by Steele, assisted and made famous by Addison, was first started on March 1st, 1710/1, and continued to be issued daily until December 6th, 1712.  An interval of eighteen months then occurred, during six of which these two writers were busy with “The Guardian.”  On June 18th, 1714, however, “The Spectator” was resumed, and appeared daily until its final number on December 20th of that year.  As with “The Tatler,” so with “The Spectator,” its success proved too great a temptation to be resisted; so that we find a spurious “Spectator” also.  This was begun on Monday, January 3rd, 1714/5, and concluded August 3rd of the same year.  Its sixty numbers (for it was issued twice a week) were afterwards published as “The Spectator, volume ninth and last.”  The principal writer to this spurious edition was said to be Dr. George Sewell.

Of the contributions to Steele’s “Spectator,” by far the greater number were written by the projector and Addison.  The other contributors were Eustace Budgell, John Hughes, John Byrom, Henry Grove, Thomas Parnell, “Orator” Henley, Dr. Zachary Pearce, Philip Yorke, and a few others whose identity is doubtful.  Swift’s contribution consisted of one paper only, and (probably) a single paragraph in another. [T.S.]