Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/220

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206
THE TATLER.
N° 28.

THE TATLER. N° 28[1].


Morte carent animæ; semperque priore relicta
Sede, novis domibus vivunt habitantque receptæ.
Ipse ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli
Panthoïdes Euphorbus eram ——— Ovid. Met.


SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1710.


From my own Apartment, March 22.


MY Other correspondents will excuse me, if I give the precedency to a lady, whose letter, among many more, is just come to hand.

" Dear

  1. The merit of this Tatler is our only authority for ascribing it to Dr. Swift; though it must be owned, that reason is of the less weight, as Mr. Harrison was certainly assisted in this undertaking by the accomplished St. John and the witty Henley. The other numbers which we have selected, with those already inserted in vol. V, are the acknowledged productions of our author, and are all that can with certainty be ascribed to him; though there is no doubt but he furnished hints for many others, both to Steele and Harrison. Two very elegant poems, which first made their appearance in that paper, are printed in vol. VII. "The Description, of a City Shower," p. 58, and "A Description of the Morning," p. 57. And in the same volume p. 66, will be found a jeu d' esprit from Mr. Harrison's Tatlers, which seems to have been the united product of a knot of wits. Feb. 11, he says, "When I came home this evening, I expected that little jackanapes Harrison would have come to get help about his Tatler for Tuesday; I have fixed two evenings in the week, which I allow him to come." The publication was continued till May 19, 1711; when fifty-two papers were collected into a fifth volume, not unworthy a place in any library which contains the former volumes. Mr. Harrison, the apparent publisher, was a young

gentleman