It may be a lady is tried for breaking the peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too dangerously from the side-box: or a Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's head: or a citizen's wife for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too little for her husband and children: every one of the little sinners brought before him is amusing, and he dismisses each with the pleasantest penalties and the most charming words of admonition,
Addison wrote his papers as gaily as if he was going out for a holiday. When Steele's "Tatler" first began his prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's notion, poured in paper after paper, and contributed the stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, the delightful gleanings of his daily observation, with a wonderful profusion, and as it seemed an almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thirty years old: full and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, manuring hastily, subsoiling indifferently, cutting and sowing and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators of letters. He had not done much as yet; a few Latin poems—graceful prolusions;
will have it that it portends the downfall of the French king, and observes, that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it foretells battle and blood-shed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the tail of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think that it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of it," &c. &c.—Spectator, No. 127.
