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not a man incapable of bearing calamity, I will, though a poor man, lay aside the distinction between us, and talk with the frankness we did when we were nearer to an equality: as all I do will be received with prejudice, all you do will be looked upon with partiality. What I desire of you is,that you,who are courted by all, would smile upon me, who am shunned by all. Let that grace and favour which your fortune throws upon you, be turned to make up the coldness and indifference that is used towards me. All good and generous men will have an eye of kindness for me for my own sake, and the rest of the world will regard me for yours. There is a happy contagion in riches, as well as a destructive one in poverty: the rich can make rich without parting with any of their store, and the conversation of the poor makes men poor, though they borrow nothing of them. How this is to be accounted for I know not; but men's estimation follows us according to the company we keep. If you are what you were to me, you can go a great way towards my recovery; if you are not, my good fortune, if ever it returns, will return by slower approaches.

'I am, Sir,

Your affectionate friend,
' and humble servant.'

This was answered with a condescension that did not, by long impertinent professions of kindness, insult his distress, but was as follows.

"Dear Tom,

"I AM very glad to hear that you have heart enough to begin the world a second time. I assure you, I do not think your numerous family at all diminished, in the gifts of nature for which I have ever so much admired them, by what has so lately happened to you. I shall not only countenance your affairs with my appearance for you, but shall accom

modate you with a considerable sum at common interest for three years. You know I could make more of it; but I have so great a love for you, that I can wave opportunities of gain to help you; for I do not care whether they say of me after I am dead, that I had an hundred or fifty thousand pounds more than I wanted when I was living.

"Your obliged humble servant."

No. CCCCLVII. THURSDAY, AUGUST 14.

.Multa & præclara minantis.

Seeming to promise something wond'rous great.

HOR.

I SHALL this day lay before my reader a letter written by the same hand with that of last Friday, which contained proposals for a printed newspaper that should take in the whole circle of the penny-post.

‹ SIR,

THE kind reception you gave my last Friday's letter, in which I broached my project of a newspaper, encourages me to lay before you two or three more; for you must know, Sir, that we look upon you to be the Lowndes of the learned world, and cannot think any scheme practicable or rational before you have approved of it, though all the money we raise by it is on our own funds, and for our private

use.

'I have often thought that a News-letter of Whispers, written every post, and sent about the kingdom, after the same manner as that of Mr. Dyer, Mr.

Dawkes, or any other epistolary historian, might be highly gratifying to the public, as well as beneficial to the author. By whispers I mean those pieces of news which are communicated as secrets, and which bring a double pleasure to the hearer; first, as they are private history, and in the next place, as they have always in them a dash of scandal. These are two qualifications in an article of news, which recommend it, in a more than ordinary manner, to the ears of the curious, Sickness of persons in high posts, twilight visits paid and received by ministers of state, clandestine courtships and marriages, secret amours, losses at play, applications for places, with their res pective successes or repulses, are the materials in which I chiefly intend to deal. I have two persons, that are each of them the representative of a species, who are to furnish me with those whispers which I intend to convey to my correspondents. The first of these is Peter Hush, descended from the ancient family of the Hushes: the other is the old Lady Blast, who has a very numerous tribe of daughters in the two great cities of London and Westminster. Peter Hush has a whispering hole in most of the great coffee-houses about town. If you are alone with him in a wide room, he carries you up into a corner of it, and speaks it in your ear. I have seen Peter seat himself in a company of seven or eight persons, whom he never saw before in his life; and after having looked about to see there was no one that over-heard him, has communicated to them in a low voice, and under the seal of secrecy, the death of a great man in the country, who was perhaps a fox-hunting the very moment this account was given of him. If upon your entering into a coffee-house you sec a circle of heads bending over the table, and lying close by one another, it is ten to one but my friend Peter is among them. I have known Peter publishing the whisper of the day by eight of the clock in the morning at Gar

raway's, by twelve at Will's, and before two at Smyrna. When Peter had thus effectually launched a secret, I have been very well pleased to hear people whispering it to one another at second-hand, and spreading it about as their own; for you must know, Sir, the great incentive to whispering is the ambition which every one has of being thought in the secret, and being looked upon as a man who has access to greater people than one would imagine. After having given you this account of Peter Hush, I proceed to that virtuous lady, the old lady Blast, who is to communicate to me the private transactions of the crimptable, with all the arcana of the fair-sex. The lady Blast, you must understand, has such a particular malignity in her whisper, that it blights like an easterly wind, and withers every reputation that it breathes upon. She has a particular knack at making private weddings, and last winter married above five women of quality to their footmen. Her whisper can make an innocent young woman big with child, or fill an healthy young fellow with distempers that are not to be named. She can turn a visit into an intrigue, and a distant salute into an assignation. She can beggar the wealthy, and degrade the noble. In short, she can whisper men base or foolish, jealous or ill-natured, or, if occasion requires, can tell you the slips of their great-grandmothers, and traduce the memory of honest coachmen that have been in their graves abovethese hundred years. By these and the like helps, I question not but I shall furnish out a very handsome news letter. If you approve my project, I shall begin to whisper by the very next post, and question not but every one of my customers will be very well pleased with me, when he considers that every piece of news I send him is a word in his ear, and lets him into a secret.

• Having given you a sketch of this project, I shall, in the next place, suggest to you another for a month-

ly pamphlet, which I shall likewise submit to your spectatorial wisdom. I need not tell you, Sir, that there are several authors in France, Germany, and Holland, as well as in our own country, who publish every month, what they call, "An Account of the Works of the Learned," in which they give us an abstract of all such books as are printed in any part of Europe. Now, Sir, it is my design to publish every month, "An Account of the Works of the Unlearned." Several late productions of my own countrymen, who many of them make a very eminent figure in the illiterate world, encourage me in this undertaking. I may, in this work, possibly make a review of several pieces which have appeared in the foreign accounts above mentioned, though they ought not to have been taken notice of in works which bear such a title. I may, likewise, take into consideration such pieces as appear, from time to time, under the names of those gentlemen who compliment one another in public assemblies, by the title of " The Learned Gentlemen." Our party-authors will also afford me a great variety of subjects, not to mention editors, commentators, and others, who are often men of no learning, or what is as bad, of no knowledge. I shall not enlarge upon this hint; but if you think any thing can be made of it, I shall set about it with all the pains and application that so useful a work deserves. I am ever, Most worthy Sir, &c.'

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