of mirth at the fire-side, and agreed nemine contradicente, to get them transcribed, and sent to the Spectator. The gentleman who made the proposal entered the following advertisement before the title page, after which the rest succeeded in order.

'Remedium efficax et universum ; or, an effectual remedy adapted to all capacities, showing how any person may cure himself of ill-nature, pride, party-spleen, or any other distemper incident to the human system, with an easy way to know when the infection is upon him. The panacea is as innocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, and requires no confinement. It has not its equal in the universe, as abundance of the nobility and gentry throughout the kingdom have experienced.

'N. B. No family ought to be without it."

Over the two Spectators on jealousy, being the two first in the third volume. No. 170, 171.

'I William Crazy, aged threescore and seven, having been for several years afflicted with uneasy doubts, fears, and vapours, occasioned by the youth and beauty of Mary my wife, aged twenty-five, do hereby, for the benefit of the public, give notice, that I have found great relief from the two following doses, having taken them two mornings together with a dish of chocolate. Witness my hand, &c.

For the Benefit of the Poor.

'In charity to such as are troubled with the disease of levee-hunting, and are forced to seek their bread every morning at the chamber-doors of great men, I, A. B. do testify, that for many years

past I laboured under this fashionable distemper, but was cured of it by a remedy which I bought of Mrs. Baldwin, contained in a half sheet of paper, marked No. 193, where any one may be provided with the same remedy at the price of a single penny.'

'An infallible cure for hypochondriac melancholy, Nos. 173, 184, 191, 203, 209, 221, 233, 235, 239, 245, 247, 251.

Probatum est.

CHARLES EASY.'

'I Christopher Query, having been troubled with a certain distemper in my tongue, which showed itself in impertinent and superfluous interrogatories, have not asked one unnecessary question since my perusal of the prescription marked No. 228.'

'The Britannic Beautifier,* being an essay on modesty, No. 231, which gives such a delightful blushing colour to the cheeks of those that are white or pale, that it is not to be distinguished from a natural fine complexion, nor perceived to be artificial by the nearest friend, is nothing of paint, or in the least hurtful. It renders the face delightfully handsome; is not subject to be rubbed off, and cannot be paralleled by either wash, powder, cosmetic, &c. It is certainly the best beautifier in the world.

MARTHA GLOWORM.'

'I Samuel Self, of the parish of St. James, having a constitution which naturally abounds with

* Translated from the advertisement of the Red Bavarian Liquor. Spec. in folio, No. 545.

acids, made use of a paper of directions marked No. 177, recommending a healthful exercise called good-nature, and have found it a most excellent sweetener of the blood.'

'Whereas I, Elizabeth Rainbow, was troubled with that distemper in my head, which about a year ago was pretty epidemical among the ladies, and discovered itself in the colour of their hoods; having made use of the doctor's cephalic tincture, which he exhibited to the public in one of his last year's papers, I recovered in a very few days.'

'I George Gloom, having for a long time been troubled with the spleen, and being advised by my friends to put myself into a course of Steele, did for that end make use of remedies conveyed to me several mornings, in short letters, from the hands of the invisible doctor. They were marked at the bottom Nathaniel Henroost, Alice Threadneedle, Rebecca Nettletoy, Tom Loveless, Mary Meanwell, Thomas Smoaky, Anthony Freeman, Tom Meggot, Rustick Sprightly, &c. which have had so good an effect upon me, that I now find myself cheerful, lightsome, and easy; and therefore do recommend them to all such as labour under the same distemper.'

Not having room to insert all the advertisements which were sent me, I have only picked out some few from the third volume, reserving the fourth for another opportunity.

O

No. 548. FRIDAY, NOV. 28, 1712.

-Vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille

Qui minimis urgetur.

HOR. 1. Sat. iii. 68,

There's none but has some fault; and he's the best,
Most virtuous he, that's spotted with the least.

MR. SPECTATOR,

CREECH.

Nov. 27, 1712.

"I HAVE read this day's paper with a great deal of pleasure, and could send you an account of several elixirs and antidotes in your third volume, which your correspondents have not taken notice of in their advertisements; and at the same time must own to you, that I have seldom seen a shop furnished with such a variety of medicaments, and in which there are fewer soporifics. The several vehicles you have invented for conveying your unacceptable truths to us, are what I most particularly admire, as I am afraid they are secrets which will die with you. I do not find that any of your critical essays are taken notice of in this paper, notwithstanding I look upon them to be excellent cleansers of the brain, and could venture to superscribe them with an advertisement which I have lately seen in one of your newspapers, wherein there is an account given of a sovereign remedy for restoring the taste to all such persons whose palates have been vitiated by distempers, unwholesome food, or any the like occasions. But to let fall the allusion, notwithstanding your criticisms, and particularly the candour which you have discovered in them, are not the least taking part of your works, I find your opinion concerning poetical justice, as it is expressed in the first part

of your fortieth Spectator, is controverted by some eminent critics; and as you now seem, to our great grief of heart, to be winding up your bottoms, I hoped you would have enlarged a little upon that subject. It is indeed but a single paragraph in your works, and I believe those who have read it with the same attention I have done, will think there is nothing to be objected against it. I have however drawn up some additional arguments to strengthen the opinion which you have there delivered, having endeavoured to go to the bottom of the matter, which you may either publish or suppress as you think fit.

'Horace in my motto says, that all men are vicious, and that they differ from one another only as they are more or less so. Boileau has given the same account of our wisdom, as Horace has of our virtue.

"Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgré tous leurs soins, Ne différent entre eux, que de plus et du moins."

"All men," says he, "are fools, and, in spite of their endeavours to the contrary, differ from one another only as they are more or less so."

'Two or three of the old Greek poets have given the same turn to a sentence which describes. the happiness of man in this life; .

Τὸ ζῆν ἀλύπως, ἀνδρῶν ἐστὶν εὐτυχῶς.

That man is most happy who is the least miserable. It will not perhaps be unentertaining to the polite reader to observe how these three beautiful sentences are formed upon different subjects by the same way of thinking; but I shall return to the first of them.

Our goodness being of a comparative and not