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send an hundred thousand of the bravest fellows in Europe a-begging. But the private gentlemen of the infantry will be able to shift for themselves; a brave man can never starve in a country stocked with henroosts. There is not a yard of linen,' says my honoured progenitor Sir John Falstaff', ' in my whole company; but as for that,' says this worthy knight, 'I am in no great pain; we shall find shirts on every hedge.' There is another sort of gentlemen whom I am much more concerned for, and that is the ingenious fraternity of which I have the honour to be an unworthy member; I mean the news-writers of Great Britain, whether Post-men or Post-boys, or by what other name or title soever dignified, or distinguished. The case of these gentlemen is, I think, more hard than that of the soldiers, considering that they have taken more towns, and fought more battles. They have been upon parties and skirmishes, when our armies have lain still; and given the general assault to many a place, when the besiegers were quiet in their trenches. They have made us masters of

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7 Shakspeare, Hen. IV. act iv. scene 2. The words, however, are misquoted. In this, as well as his citations from scripture, Steele evidently trusted to his memory.

8 In the year 1709 there were fifty-five regular papers published every week, besides a vast number of postscripts, &c. that were hawked about the streets. At present, there are published in London eleven daily-papers, and ten which appear three evenings in the week; besides the Gazette, nine Sunday papers, and a variety of other Weekly Papers. Provincial news-papers also, almost unknown in the time of the Tatler, are very numerous.

9 The Post-Boy was a scandalous paper, by Abel Roper; and The Flying Post was conducted by George Ridpath. -Roper and Ridpath died on the same day.

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several strong towns many weeks before our generals could do it; and completed victories, when our greatest captains have been glad to come off with a drawn battle. Where prince Eugene has slain his thousands, Boyer " has slain his ten thousands. This gentleman can indeed be never enough commended for his courage and intrepidity during this whole war: he has laid about him with an inexpressible fury; and, like the offended Marius of ancient Rome, made such havoc among his countrymen, as must be the work of two or three ages to repair. It must be confessed, the redoubted Mr. Buckley has shed as much blood as the former; but I cannot forbear saying (and I hope it will not look like envy) that we regard our brother Buckley as a kind of Drawcansir", who spares neither friend nor foe; but generally kills as many of his own side as the enemies. It is impossible for this ingenious sort of men to subsist after a peace: every one remembers the shifts they were drivento in the reign of king Charles the Second, when they could not furnish out a single paper of news, without lighting up a comet in Germany, or a fire in Moscow. There scarce appeared a letter without a paragraph on an earthquake. Prodigies were grown so familiar, that they had lost their name, as a great poet of that age has it. I remember Mr.

10 Abel Boyer, author of "The Political State of Great Britain:" but better known in our time by his French Dictionary and Grammar.

" Samuel Buckley, who was printer of The London Gazette, and also of the Daily Courant.

12 A character so named in the comedy of The Rehearsal.

Dyer, who is justly looked upon by all the foxhunters in the nation as the greatest statesman our country has produced, was particularly famous for dealing in whales; insomuch, that in five months time (for I had the curiosity to examine his letters on that occasion) he brought three into the mouth of the river Thames, besides two porpusses, and a sturgeon. The judicious and wary Mr. Ichabod Dawks 14 hath all along been the rival of this great writer, and got himself a reputation from plagues and famines; by which, in those days, he destroyed as great multitudes, as he has lately done by the sword. In every dearth of news, Grand Cairo was sure to be unpeopled.

It being therefore visible, that our society will be greater sufferers by the peace than the soldiery itself, insomuch that the Daily Courant is in danger of being broken, my friend Dyer of being reformed, and the very best of the whole band of being reduced to half-pay; might I presume to offer any thing in the behalf of my distressed brethren, I would humbly move, that an appendix of proper apartments, furnished with pen, ink, and paper, and other necessaries of life, should be added to the hospital of Chelsea, for the relief of such decayed news-writers as have served their country in the war; and that for

13 Dyer's Letter; a news-paper of that time, which we suppose to have been held in little credit; as honest Vellum, in "The Drummer," act ii. scene 1. cannot but believe his master is living (amongst other reasons)' because the news of his death was first published in Dyer's Letter.' See Spect. No 43 and 457.

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14 Ichabod Dawks, another poor epistolary historian,' as he is called, Spect, No 457. See Tat. N° 178.

their exercise they should compile the annals of their brother veterans, who have been engaged in the same service, and are still obliged to do duty after the

same manner..

I cannot be thought to speak this out of an eye to any private interest; for as my chief scenes of action are coffee-houses, play-houses, and my own apartment, I am in no need of camps, fortifications, and fields of battle, to support me; I do not call out for heroes and generals to my assistance. Though the officers are broken, and the armies disbanded, I shall still be safe, as long as there are men, or women, or politicians, or lovers, or poets, or nymphs, or swains, or cits, or courtiers, in being.

STEELE AND ADDISON.

N° 19. TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli.

JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86.

Whatever good is done, whatever ill-
By human kind, shall this collection fill.

From my own Apartment, May 23.

THERE is nothing can give a man of any consideration greater pain, than to see order and distinction laid aside amongst men, especially when the rank of which he himself is a member is intruded upon, by such as have no pretence to that honour. The appellation of esquire' is the most notoriously abused in this kind, of any class amongst men; insomuch, that it is become almost the subject of derision: but I will be bold to say, this behaviour towards it proceeds from the ignorance of the people in its true origin. I shall therefore, as briefly as possible, do myself and all true esquires the justice to look into antiquity upon this subject'.

In the first ages of the world, before the invention of jointures and settlements, when the noble passion of love had possession of the hearts of men, and the fair sex were not yet cultivated into the merciful disposition which they have shewed in latter centuries, it was natural for great and heroic spirits to retire to rivulets, woods, and caves, to lament their destiny, and the cruelty of the fair persons who were deaf to their lamentations. The hero in this distress was

I See Selden's Titles of Honour, part ii. chap. v.

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