[Footnote 7:  This and subsequent vital statistics as to Baker’s university and clerical career are from the account of him in J. and J.A.  Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, 1922 et sq.]

[Footnote 8:  British Apollo, No. 49, Sept. 14, 1709.]

[Footnote 9:  Ibid.]

[Footnote 10:  Both Paul Bunyan Anderson, “The history and authorship of Mrs. Crackenthorpe’s Female Tatler,” MP, XXVIII (1931), 354-60, and Walter Graham, “Thomas Baker, Mrs. Manley, and The Female Tatler,” MP, XXXIV (1937), 267-72, think that some, at least, of the F.T. is from Baker’s pen, but they disagree as to what part and how much.  I am considering the matter and may have an opinion to express in future.]

[Footnote 11:  Victoria History of Bedfordshire, II, 181 n.; III, 128.]

THE
Fine Lady’s Airs: 
OR, AN
EQUIPAGE of LOVERS. 
A
COMEDY.

As it is Acted at the
THEATRE-ROYAL IN DRURY-LANE.

Written by the Author of the Yeoman of Kent.

LONDON: 

Printed for BERNARD LINTOTT at the Cross-Keys, between
the Two Temple Gates in Fleetstreet.

Price 1_s._ 6_d_.

TO

Sir ANDREW FONTAINE

To Address a Man of your Character, gives me greater Concern than to finish the most Elaborate Play, and support the various Conflicts which naturally attend ev’ry Author; how the Town in general will receive it.

To harangue some of the First Quality, whose Titles are the greatest Illustration we can give ’em, is a sort of Common-Place Oratory; which Poets may easily vary in copying from one another; but, when I’m speaking to the most finish’d young Gentleman any Age has produced, whose distinguish’d Merits exact the nicest Relation, I feel my inability, and want a Genius barely to touch on those extraordinary Accomplishments, which You so early, and with so much ease, have made Your self perfect Master of.

But, when I reflect on the Affability of Your Temper, the generous and obliging Reception, You always gave me, and the ingaging Sweetness of Your Conversation, I’m the more incourag’d to pay my Duty to You in this Nature, fully persuading my self, You’ll lay aside the Critick, by considering, in how many Respects, Your condescending Goodness has shown You are my Friend.

The vast stock of Learning You acquir’d in Your Non-age, has manifested to the World, that a Scholar, and a fine Gentleman are not Inconsistent, and rendered You so matchless an Ornament to the University of Oxford, particularly to Christ-Church-College, where You imbib’d it.

’Tis a Misfortune that attends many of our English Gentlemen to set out for Travel without any Foundation; and wanting a Tast of Letters, and the Knowledge of their own Country, the Observations they make Abroad, to reflect no further, are generally useless and impertinent.