FROM SATURD.  JAN. 13.  TO TUESDAY JAN, l6. 1710.[2]

I remember Menage,[3] tells a story of Monsieur Racan, who had appointed a day and hour to meet a certain lady of great wit whom he had never seen, in order to make an acquaintance between them.  “Two of Racan’s friends, who had heard of the appointment, resolved to play him a trick.  The first went to the lady two hours before the time, said his name was Racan, and talked with her an hour; they were both mightily pleased, began a great friendship, and parted with much satisfaction.  A few minutes after comes the second, and sends up the same name; the lady wonders at the meaning, and tells him, Mr. Racan had just left her.  The gentleman says it was some rascally impostor, and that he had been frequently used in that manner.  The lady is convinced, and they laugh at the oddness of the adventure.  She now calls to mind several passages, which confirm her that the former was a cheat.  He appoints a second meeting, and takes his leave.  He was no sooner gone, but the true Racan comes to the door, and desires, under that name, to see the lady.  She was out of all patience, sends for him up, rates him for an impostor, and, after a thousand injuries, flings a slipper at his head.  It was impossible to pacify or disabuse her; he was forced to retire, and it was not without some time, and the intervention of friends, that they could come to an eclaircissement.”  This, as I take it, is exactly the case with Mr. S[tee]le, the pretended “TATLER” from Morphew, and myself, only (I presume) the world will be sooner undeceived than the lady in Menage.  The very day my last paper came out, my printer brought me another of the same date, called “The Tatler,” by Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; and, which was still more pleasant, with an advertisement[4] at the end, calling me the “Female TATLER”:  it is not enough to rob me of my name, but now they must impose a sex on me, when my years have long since determined me to be of none at all.  There is only one thing wanting in the operation, that they would renew my age, and then I will heartily forgive them all the rest.  In the mean time, whatever uneasiness I have suffered from the little malice of these men, and my retirement in the country, the pleasures I have received from the same occasion, will fairly balance the account.  On the one hand, I have been highly delighted to see my name and character assumed by the scribblers of the age, in order to recommend themselves to it; and on the other, to observe the good taste of the town, in distinguishing and exploding them through every disguise, and sacrificing their trifles to the supposed manes of Isaac Bickerstaff Esquire.  But the greatest merit of my journey into Staffordshire, is, that it has opened to me a new fund of unreproved follies and errors that have hitherto lain out of my view, and, by their situation, escaped my censure.  For, as I have lived generally in town, the images I had of the country were such only as my senses received very early, and my memory has since preserved with all the advantages they first appeared in.